Can staying gray bring Hicks gold?

These days, Taylor Hicks says, there’s a spotlight on top of his head. It glows with the force of celebrity. It draws fans to him like a homing beacon.

It has made him a star on “American Idol,” the most popular TV series in the nation.

Hicks’ voice? Well, that’s important, too.

But prematurely gray hair – a look that would make most of young Hollywood shudder – was the gimmick that got Hicks noticed by the “Idol” producers at this year’s auditions.

And, from the second he appeared on camera, salt and pepper became the spice of Hicks’ life: loved, hated and intensely debated by the show’s 30 million viewers.

“Without this hair, I’d be more obscure,” admits Hicks, 29. “So I’m not changing it.”

That’s a different tune from the one the Birmingham, Ala., musician sang earlier this year, before making the “Idol” top 24. If gray hair held him back, Hicks said then, he’d be more than happy to dye, tint, streak, highlight or lowlight – as long as Fox was paying the bill.

Money was a major concern for Hicks, a financially struggling nightclub performer. Also, he’d turned gray as a teenager and was used to looking like a 50-year-old.

“It makes him different,” says Travis Cash, Hicks’ hairstylist in Birmingham. “He can get away with it.”

Maybe that’s why Hicks’ fans have created T-shirts that say “The gray must stay,” and why Web sites devoted to the soul singer often refer to him as “Gray Charles.” Some have gone so far as to predict that Hicks will be chosen as People magazine’s next “sexiest man alive.”

Before fame came his way, Hicks wasn’t all that particular about his cut. Cash says he’d use a dab of gel or texture glaze, but soon after leaving, the singer would end up with bangs that fell in a flat curtain across his forehead.

“(N)o matter how I cut it, he’d wear it the same way,” the stylist says.

Dean Banowetz, hairdresser for “American Idol,” says those bangs were the first thing to go when he put his hands on Hicks’ head.

“They were ridiculous, like Jim Carrey in ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ ” he says. “They were so long, and they were not flattering on camera.”

In the early rounds, contestants on “Idol” are pretty much on their own where their hair is concerned. When the top 12 are chosen, however, Banowetz and his team take charge.

According to Banowetz, Hicks has “good hair” for television, even if it’s coarse and thick. That’s because studio lights are so bright and hot, hair appears thinner and more translucent.

Now for the million-dollar question: Is Gray Charles going to color his hair anytime soon?

Thus far, Banowetz says, Hicks’ response to that suggestion has been, “Nah, I can’t do that.”

But if Banowetz had his way, some subtle black lowlights would be woven in, emphasizing Hicks’ skin tone and his eyes.

“The quickest way to get press is to change your look,” Banowetz says. “I’m still working on Taylor about that. Every day I go to the show, I have my hair color in my bag, in case he has a weak moment.”

The birthday bunch

Actress Olivia Hussey is 55. Actor Sean Bean (“Lord of the Rings”) is 47. Singer Liz Phair is 39. Rapper-actor Redman is 36. Actress Jennifer Garner (“Alias”) is 34. Singer Victoria Beckham (Spice Girls) is 32. Actress Lindsay Korman (“Passions”) is 28. Actress Dee Dee Davis (“The Bernie Mac Show”) is 10.