Mickey Gilley Is Still Enjoying a Relative Fame : Pop music: The country singer isn’t as famous as cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart, but he’s got his own theater and restaurant and doing just fine, thank you.

The fates sometimes work in strange, ironic ways. What curious forces conspired to propel three cousins from the small community of Ferriday, La., into the national spotlight in their respective fields?

The lives and careers of Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Swaggart and country singer Mickey Gilley--the latter of whom performs Monday night at the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana--read like a poorly written TV drama, but fact often is stranger than bad fiction. Indeed, on the phone recently from his office in Pasadena, Tex., Gilley expressed a desire to see a media treatment of his and his cousins’ lives.

“I really hope I live to see the day they do a miniseries or a picture about the three of us, what happened to us and how things evolved around us,” Gilley said. “I think it’d be a lot more interesting that way than just doing something about us as individuals. A lot of good and bad happened.”

The ups and downs of his own career have been less marked than those of disgraced televangelist Swaggart and rock ‘n’ roll pioneer/walking scandal Lewis. But the life of the amiable, fast-talking Gilley has been a roller-coaster ride in its own right. The 57-year-old began his career by mimicking Lewis and found that fame and fortune were not automatic.

“The only reason I got into the music industry was because of Jerry Lee. I saw what he was doing, and since I played piano and sang, I thought all I had to do was cut a record and I’m a star. How wrong I was! The bottom line was, I saw how much Jerry Lee was making, but I still wound up working construction for 75 cents an hour.”

But Gilley kept hammering away at his music, moved to Houston at 17 and became a top regional attraction. By 1970, he was doing well enough that he opened the world famous Gilley’s Club in Pasadena along with business associate Sherwood Cryer. The cavernous nightclub, billed as “The World’s Largest Honky Tonk,” became the source of Gilley’s greatest fame when it was used as the setting of the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy.”

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In the film, Gilley performed a cover of “Stand by Me,” which went on to become a huge hit. Between that and the “Urban Cowboy” trend taking hold, setting customers into a Western fashion frenzy in the early ‘80s, Gilley suddenly found himself a hot property.

He wasn’t aping Lewis’ honky-tonk madman routine anymore. Instead, producer Jim Ed Norman was finding him romantic ballads, “songs that put me in a different category. They gave me more of an identity than I had before. But when we started, I got mad and walked out of the studio. I thought the guy didn’t know what he was doing, I felt like he was trying to change everything I’d been doing my whole life.

“Of course, when the record hit, I had to go back and apologize to him. I ended up with nine No. 1 songs with him, most of which were ballads. I give him the credit for turning my career completely around.”

“You Don’t Know Me,” “Talk to Me,” “Fool for Your Love” and “That’s All That Matters” were among the Gilley hits that became mainstays on country radio and made him one of the most successful country artists of the decade.

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But by the end of the ‘80s, change was in the air again. The hits stopped coming, and perhaps more dramatically, “The World’s Largest Honky Tonk” closed in 1988, after years of disputes between Gilley and Cryer.

Soon after, Gilley bought his own theater and restaurant in Branson, Mo. Since then, numerous entertainers, including Andy Williams, Wayne Newton, Mel Tillis, John Davidson and the Osmond family have followed, making the Ozark Mountain resort area one of the fastest-growing entertainment centers in the world. April through December of each year, Gilley performs at his theater and sells self-produced albums to his fans.

“Branson is the most amazing and exciting thing that’s happened to me in my lifetime,” he said. “Of course, ‘Urban Cowboy’ and (Gilley’s Club) were important, but I wasn’t in control of those situations. In Branson, I own the theater and restaurant--me and the bank, that is. I love what Branson has turned into. People go to the music show, they go fishing; it’s one of the most beautiful areas in the country.”

While he expressed some bitterness toward Cryer and the experiences that led to the closing of Gilley’s Club, Gilley seemed genuinely unconcerned about having been abandoned by the big record labels and country radio. Apparently comfortable with his new life and career in the mountains, he was charitable toward his young competition.

“I’m not going to lose any sleep trying to compete with the young artists out there now. They’re good performers. I enjoy what I’m hearing on the radio.

“I had my place in the limelight for a long time. I couldn’t complain if it all ended tomorrow. Nobody needs to shed any tears over me. “

Gilley on His Famous Cousins: ‘We’re All Still Very Close’

“We were all close growing up. We ran around together, went to the same school. I probably was closer to Jerry Lee than I was to Jimmy, even though we were all only six months apart in age. Jimmy was kind of touchy; he’d pop you one. Me and Jerry Lee were more on the same plane, but I probably had more problems with him than I did with Jimmy. Ferriday was a small community, and we were just normal kids, growing up and playing silly games.

“I still see Jerry Lee every now and then, but not as much since he moved to Ireland a while ago. The last time all three of us were together was a few years back when we did a thing for ‘People’ magazine. That was before Jimmy, uh, got in trouble.

“I admire Jerry Lee. I think he’s the most talented one in the family, but Jimmy would undoubtedly have done better than any of us had he not gotten into trouble.

“We’re all still very close. We all love each other.”

* Mickey Gilley sings Monday at 7 and 10 p.m. at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow, Santa Ana. $26.50. (714) 549-1512.