Sept. 22: "You Light Up My Life's" Debby Boone is 54 today.

Born Deborah Anne Boone in Hackensack, New Jersey, Debby is best known for her 1977 hit, "You Light Up My Life," which spent a then-record ten weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and won her a Grammy Award the following year for Best New Artist.

Debby Boone is the third of four daughters born to 1950s singer-actor Pat Boone and Shirley Lee Foley Boone (daughter of country music star Red Foley). When Boone was 14 years old, she began touring with her parents (Pat Boone and Shirley Lee Foley ) and three sisters - Cherry, Lindy and Laury.

The sisters first recorded with their parents as The Pat Boone Family and later as the Boones or Boone Girls. They primarily recorded gospel music, although the sisters also released singles for the Motown and Curb labels that were remakes of secular pop music featuring Debby as the lead vocalist.

Press links below to view You Tube video performances:

-- "You Light Up My Life"

-- "I'm Always On Your Side" (with John Sawyer)

-- "End of the World"

In late 1974, the Pat Boone Family released a cover of "Please Mr. Postman" simultaneous with the Carpenters. The Carpenters' version quickly ascended to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and AC charts overshadowing the Boones' version which did not chart in Billboard.

Boone released her first solo effort, "You Light Up My Life," in 1977. The song became the biggest hit of the 1970s spending ten consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — longer than any other song in Hot 100 history to that point. In 2008, Billboard ranked the song No. 7 among all songs that charted in the 50 year history of the Hot 100.

The song earned Boone a Grammy Award for Best New Artist and an American Music Award for Favorite Pop Single of 1977.[7] She also received Grammy nominations for Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female and Record Of The Year.

In the 1980s, her music career first focused on country music resulting in the No. 1 country hit, "Are You on the Road to Lovin' Me Again." She later recorded Christian music which garnered her four Top 10 Contemporary Christian albums as well as two more Grammys.

In addition to her recording career, Boone has appeared in several musical theater productions.  She has starred as the lead in “Seven Brides for Seven brothers” on Broadway and as Maria in Lincoln Center’s 30th Anniversary production of the Sound of Music, which garnered a Drama Desk nomination.

She also starred as Rizzo in the Broadway production of Grease, and toured nationally in “Meet Me in St. Louis.”  Debby also performed the role of Anna in the 50th Anniversary staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I.”

Deby has also co-authored many children's books with husband, Gabriel Ferrer.