On a sultry April evening in Miami, some 5,000 
young Hispanic women jam the downtown Knight 
Center auditorium to watch Latin America's 
hottest entertainer - and test the limits of 
local indecent - exposure ordinances. They 
wear wisps of chiffon, Lycra and fishnet, 
cocktail napkins masquerading as skirts and tops.  
Perched on six-inch heels, they peer hopefully 
toward the stage through an atmosphere thick with
Giorgio and Eternity. Like religious zealots, 
they carry offerings and prayers: frothy bouquets 
of roses, a prom's worth of carnations wrapped 
in cellophane, handmade banners declaring 
Nos Entregamos! (We Deliver Ourselves!)

Interspersed among the girls are thirty - 
and fortysomething Cuban ladies and gentlemen, 
more sedate in their cocktail dresses and dark 
suits. Some are the parents of hard-core fans, 
though most are there of their own accord, to 
hear a performance geared as much to them as 
to the adolescent set.

Backstage, in the quiet of his dressing room, sits 
the object of all this yearning - a sleek 
22-year-old Mexican singer named Luis Miguel.  
Almost unknown in Anglo America but a huge star 
south of the Rio Grande, Luis Miguel has the 
voice of a young Frank Sinatra and the 
full-lipped gorgeousness of a James Dean.  
And while his lady-killer image and romantic 
repertoire make the comparison to Julio 
Iglesias inevitable, Luis Miguel is a good 
deal hipper and a lot less gooey.

A former teen idol who had a string of hits before 
he made the transition to adult stardom, 
Luis Miguel won a Grammy in 1985 (for a 
duet sung in Spanish with Sheena Easton) 
and boasts a stack of platinum records. 
        
Moments before ascending the stage in Miami, the 
young star jumps into a tiny booth to dab at his 
makeup and fool with his hair. Then he sets 
his jaw, puffs out his chest and begins to 
pace, jump - starting his adrenaline for the 
performance.  By the time he lopes into the 
spotlight, he seems savage with energy.

On stage, Miguel glides and struts, one hand thrust 
in the pocket of his gray double-breasted 
suit, which hangs impeccably over a starched
white shirt and a  tie.  Squeals from fans 
erupt when he so much as opens a jacket button. 
Backing him is a battalion of jazzy musicians; 
two buxom, bugle-beaded singers; and, for one 
sweet, brief set, three aging mariachi 
players, who look a little lost strumming 
away amid the clouds of dry-ice vapor.  
The eighty-minute show is a much a love fest 
as it is a concert, with the girls shrieking, 
dancing and lip-synching along to songs they
know by heart.

For Warner Music International, Luis is a cash cow.
He's one of the best sellers, up there 
with Madonna, Phil Collins, Prince and Rod Stewart.  
Overseas, he's on equal footing with an 
English-speaking artist. Outside the coliseum, 
safely ensconced in his getaway van, Miguel 
breathes a sigh of relief. Thank God, he says 
as the van speeds past clusters of girls still 
waiting for a glimpse. Back to reality.

However, Luis Miguel's idea of reality has always 
been shaped by show business.  Born in 
Puerto Rico and raised partly in Spain, 
he is the son of an Italian actress, 
Marcela Basteri, and a Spanish singer, 
Luisito Rey, who was a favorite with Latino 
audiences in the Sixties.  When Luis was 11, 
his father launched the boy's singing career 
at a birthday party in Veracruz, Mexico.  
Luis sang a song, and a Mexican record 
executive, conveniently present, signed him 
on the spot.  Within a year, he produced two 
smash albums, 1+1=2 Enamorados (One Plus One 
Equals Two Lovers) and Directo al Corazon 
(Straight to the Heart). By 14, he was 
Mexico's littlest heartthrob.  While other 
kids were doing their homework, Luis was 
doing gigs throughout South America, making 
schlock videos and movies (usually featuring 
a pubescent Luis being chased by a pack of 
girls) and cranking out records under 
his father's  auspices. In 1987, he signed 
with WEA Latina, the Warner Music 
International division that distributes
his records in the U.S and the year after 
that, he broke with his father.

Basically what happened is the son surpassed the 
father, he outgrew him. He was better than his 
father was letting him be. It happens in a lot of 
show-business families.  Luis will discuss 
it only obliquely, in the breathy English he 
learned from American movies and music.  
There have been some difficult times in my life, 
he says. But I feel like a survivor. You have to
get people to respect you for your professional life, 
and your professional life depends on your personal
life.  It's very hard not to show people what you 
feel. When you're famous, you can't show everything 
or do things that you know are wrong in front of 
other people.  It's not good for you over a long 
period. And I really care about the long period.

But it was the separation from his father that 
allowed Miguel to mature as a performer and take
control of his persona. Managing his relationship
with the public, his look, his sound - in essence,
his identity - is crucial to Miguel, who came of 
age under his father's command and according to his
father's vision.  As Miguel grew into his own, his 
adolescent bubble-gum disco evolved into
more-sophisticated, Latin-sounding pop songs and 
ballads. He began taking a larger role in the 
production of his music and co-produced Romance.

He has fine-tuned his wardrobe.  Conservative 
and inspired by old movies, he favors double-breasted 
suits for performing, but for interviews and photo
shoots, his uniform is a pair of faded, crisply
pressed jeans and a white T-shirt - the better to 
show off his carefully sculpted muscles.  He sheared 
his shaggy teen bi-level into a buzz cut, now 
stylishly tousled. Luis Miguel is enthusiastic about 
style, a symbol of power for someone pushed on to TV
shows at age 12, wearing polyester suits and 
high-waters.

The Italian designers, I love, he says energetically. 
A British producer, trying to introduce Miguel to 
Euro-audiences, asked him to trade in his Armani suit
for a leather jacket.  People believe that fashion is
something you can change all the time, says Miguel, 
sounding a little put out. Fashion is a question 
of your integrity.  People have to believe me, so it's
what I use.  I like to wear leather jackets but 
not for singing.

After the concert, in the peach-colored serenity of
his hotel suite, showered and cologned but still 
sweating from the performance, Miguel looks 
extraordinarily smooth and evenly bronzed.  Having 
dutifully doled out handshakes and kisses to 
well-wishers, he settles down, with an air of 
resignation, for a rare interview.  Good reviews 
are in the bag for Miguel, and Latin American press 
coverage holds little interest for him; its celebrity
journalism is usually the sum total of reprinted 
press releases.  He admits he hates interviews and 
manipulates ours by answering questions with sweeping, 
abstract responses.  I'm one of those people who
doesn't like working in front of a camera or doing 
interviews, he explains. Many times (interviewers) 
aren't sufficiently prepared, which makes it 
uncomfortable.  And even though it's part of my career, 
I try to avoid it as much as possible. I dedicate 
myself to doing only what's absolutely necessary.

Yet even a man who is a demigod among Latinos 
realizes that the Hispanic market can take him 
only so far. I have everything.  Everything that 
I need, my career in Spanish music has already 
given me, he says, toying with a thin gold bracelet.  
So what I am trying to do is something new, something 
important for me.  Music in English is a different 
dimension. A record in English can be known around
the world, and it doesn't happen in other languages, 
not even in French or German.  If this means 
submitting himself to the North American star-making 
machinery, then so be it. Crossover successes are few 
and extremely far between, and Miguel knows it. 
It is very difficult. We have to find a way of 
doing it with personality and everything.  
It's not my natural language, but I think I'm ready.

Luis Miguel is choosing his new music carefully. 
His musical heroes range from Ruben Blades to Hammer
to Huey Lewis and the News, but his all-time favorites 
are the soul and the R&B legends of the Sixties and
Seventies, and it's their style he wants to evoke on 
his first English record. I'm very old-fashioned in 
what I like, he says.  In my opinion, the Motown
singers, like Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder, 
they're the best singers of all time.  We'll 
probably to something like that, with that kind of 
taste. Actually, those singers have already 
seeped into his repertoire:  Miguel does
a Spanish version of Michael Jackson's 
blame It on the Boogie and scats like a pro 
in some of his original pop numbers.

More than is the case with most performers, 
Miguel's profession is his life.  He maintains a 
grueling touring and recording schedule and lives
in a world pretty much closed off to the outside, 
peopled with handlers, producers, a smattering of 
childhood friends and Latino celebs.
But Miguel doesn't think he's trying to make up for a 
lost childhood. On the contrary, I've had experiences 
that the other guys my age haven't had.  And I feel 
very good about that.  Everything that I am is because 
of my singing and my career, he says.  I don't imagine
myself doing anything else.

For now, friends and managers barely nick the wall 
of privacy Miguel has built up:  no talk of 
dysfunctional families or kicked cocaine habits
here.  And definitely no mention of a well-circulated 
rumor of a 2-year-old child by the niece of a famous 
Mexican chanteuse.

Luis Miguel will admit that he rarely goes out these 
days. I'm not very comfortable doing that, going to 
clubs, he says. I'm not used to it anymore. 
My life is different now.  He prefers his tastefully 
appointed Acapulco digs, working on music and trying 
to have fun, listening to records.  The outside world 
intrudes only through the pages of Reader's
Digest and of fashion magazines. Leaving this bubble 
of comfort and seclusion will be one difficult aspect 
of bringing his act to Anglo listeners.  
Americans prefer their celebrities on chummy terms, 
and, whether he likes it or not, Miguel may have to 
cough up a personal revelation or two. And for a 
performer who's used to automatic adoration, 
this brave new world may seem shockingly indifferent.  
But looking ahead to the day he takes his music 
over the border, Miguel curls his lips with a small 
smile as he hints, It's something more personal 
than material.  When we do it, we have to do 
it very strong.