Photograph: The Guardian<\/p>\n
His name is Barry, he is a showman \u2013 as we all know. But late last year, after more than 50 years of constant performing, it began to look like the Manilow show was coming to an end. In December, the 82-year-old singer announced he was about to undergo surgery for lung cancer<\/a>, and postponed his planned live shows. Thankfully, the cancer had not spread and the treatment was successful. But around the same time he released a new single, ominously titled Once Before I Go. The accompanying video <\/a>showed him saying goodbye to his palatial quarters at the Las Vegas Westgate resort, where he has had a residency for the past eight years, and wistfully reminiscing over old costumes, intercut with footage of him in his 80s prime. It sure looked as if he was shutting up shop.<\/p>\n But no: \u201cThat was just an accident,\u201d says Manilow of the video. Really? \u201cYeah, we didn\u2019t do that on purpose.\u201d The song was actually written in the early 80s by veteran songwriter Peter Allen, he explains, but he felt he was too young to sing it when he first heard it. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful song and it\u2019s got nothing to do with me. It\u2019s saying goodbye to a romance, you know. But it just so happened that it sounds like I\u2019m talking about myself.\u201d Far from going anywhere, Manilow\u2019s got a new album out next week, and a string of new tour dates lined up.<\/p>\n At home in Palm Springs. Photograph: Philip Cheung\/The Guardian<\/p>\n We\u2019re in Manilow\u2019s study at his hilltop home in Palm Springs, California. Its centrepiece is a black grand piano in front of a panoramic window, which looks out over the swimming pool area and across the city to the mountains beyond. The shelves are cluttered with awards and memorabilia (an Emmy serves as a doorstop), and plastering the walls are framed photographs of Manilow with various dignitaries including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Margaret Thatcher (surreally, they were on Michael Aspel\u2019s chatshow<\/a> together in 1984) and the then Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1983 at the Royal Festival Hall. \u201cShe was a fan. She must have dragged him to that concert,\u201d he says. They met backstage after, \u201cbut she could not look at me. Every time I tried to talk with her, she looked at the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n The lung cancer was \u201cscary\u201d, he admits. \u201cEdna, my mother, died of lung cancer. And I thought \u2018No. I\u2019m not going to let this happen.\u2019 And I was right. They got rid of it, and they threw it in the garbage. I was lucky because no chemo and no radiation. All those horrible things that I could have had.\u201d He developed pneumonia, though, and was in intensive care for a week. He lost a lot of weight, and his voice sounds admittedly croaky. \u201cBut I\u2019m back,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel fine. I\u2019m not sure my voice feels fine yet, but I don\u2019t want to cancel this tour. I\u2019m so looking forward to it. So, I\u2019m going to do it whether I can sing or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Manilow in 1975. Photograph: GAB Archive\/Redferns<\/p>\n double quotation markIf you wanted to get a laugh, you would mention my name. It was relentless<\/p>\n Manilow with his mother, Edna in 1978. Photograph: Everett\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n double quotation markEdna, my mother, died of lung cancer. And I thought: \u2018No. I\u2019m not going to let this happen\u2019<\/p>\n With close friend Bette Midler at the premiere of Yentl in 1983. double quotation markBette Midler did The Star Spangled Banner in a bathhouse and everybody stood up and their towels fell down!<\/p>\n Manilow has already threatened to quit several times in his career. As far back as 2004 he was on his One Night Live! One Last Time! tour. There was also 2015\u2019s final tour<\/a>, but he was back in 2024<\/a> for another string of \u201cfarewell\u201d gigs, still belting out the familiar hits: Copacabana, Mandy, Could It Be Magic, It\u2019s a Miracle, I Write the Songs \u2026 He could quite happily retire; what keeps him coming back? \u201cI\u2019m a creator. I like creating,\u201d he says. \u201cThe problem is, what do you do with it when you\u2019re done creating? You have to promote it.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet, by his own account, Manilow has always been a reluctant showman. Not that you would guess from the continual touring, the theatrical stage shows, the choreographed numbers, the flamboyant costumes and the legions of adoring \u201cfanilows\u201d. \u201cMy first love is not being a performer or even a singer,\u201d he protests. \u201cI don\u2019t consider myself a singer; I consider myself a musician. And you know, if this wonderful part of my career hadn\u2019t exploded the way it did, I would be playing piano in some Paris bar and I would a happy guy, really.\u201d<\/p>\n The way Manilow tells it, he was thrust into the spotlight almost by accident. He had a passion and a talent for music from a young age but his ambition was to be an arranger: organising the music for somebody else to perform. Starting out, he happily wrote for and accompanied other singers on the piano. He played for Bette Midler, most memorably at New York\u2019s notorious Continental Baths<\/a> \u2013 the centre of the city\u2019s underground gay scene, in the early 70s. \u201cThere was a whole bunch of guys with towels around their waist. She would try to do The Star-Spangled Banner so that everybody would stand up and the towels would fall down: \u2018Let\u2019s check out the merchandise!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He produced Midler\u2019s first album, The Divine Miss M (the two are still good friends). Then someone put him in front of a microphone, someone liked his songwriting, someone gave him a recording contract. And before he knew it he was a solo artist. Even when Mandy became a No 1 hit in 1974, \u201cI was hoping it would go away, because it just was not what I was planning on doing with my life,\u201d he says. What kept him going in the beginning was the audiences. \u201cI don\u2019t know what they saw, because I stunk. I really was bad, and they kept saying in their own way: \u2018Keep going, we like it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Success came very fast, he says, and everyone was shocked that, of all people, it was happening to him \u2013 the lowly accompanist. He still is: \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever really gotten used to it \u2026 It\u2019s just not who I am. I\u2019ve figured out how to do it. And the way to do is to be honest with these audiences. Because I don\u2019t know how to not be honest on that stage.\u201d Although he admits: \u201cI change into a bigger version of me when the spotlight hits me. It\u2019s the same guy, only it\u2019s louder.\u201d<\/p>\n That sincerity in the face of cheesy sentiment has been key to his success. Manilow\u2019s music has never been cool. It typically harks back to the classic American songbook, musical theatre, torch songs, a time unsullied by punk, disco, new wave, or even electric guitars. His songs often build to orchestral climaxes with choirs and strings and key changes. The fanilows adored him, but the critics hated him. In his heyday, Manilow was singled out as the epitome of mediocre, unchallenging schmaltz. His looks were also the subject of ridicule. Britain was the worst: the music press and other musicians slated him \u2013 even Phil Collins described him as \u201csoft, spineless music\u201d.<\/p>\n In New York City, 1976. Photograph: Jack Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cIt was as if I\u2019d hurt somebody in their family,\u201d says Manilow of the critics. \u201cIt lasted for so long \u2013 from putting me down for the songs, and then putting me down for what I looked like. If you wanted to get a big laugh, you would mention my name. It was 15 years of relentless, horrible reviews.\u201d<\/p>\n How did it make him feel?<\/p>\n \u201cI would stupidly read some of this stuff and I would go into my self-pity, and I\u2019d pull the covers over my head. And then I would get dressed and go to the sound check, and that was that. Because I didn\u2019t agree with them.\u201d Meanwhile, Manilow was selling millions of records, and hosting TV specials and huge concerts, especially in Britain, ironically: 40,000 people came to see him at Blenheim Palace in 1983. It was like Glastonbury for the mums of middle England (Diana\u2019s approval can\u2019t have hurt).<\/p>\n On stage performing at BBC Proms in the Park in Hyde Park, London in 2019. Photograph: Jo Hale\/Redferns<\/p>\n As ordinary as some people found Manilow\u2019s music, his upbringing was anything but. His mother, Edna, had him when she was 19; his Irish American father left when he was a baby. So he grew up with Edna and her parents, an only child, in what was then a down-at-heel Brooklyn. Edna later remarried, and although he loved his stepfather, the couple drank and argued a lot, it seems, but \u201ceven though everybody had their own shit I always felt loved\u201d. He only met his biological father, a truck driver for a local beer factory, twice in his life, he says. Once, when Barry was 13, he dropped by and gave him a reel-to-reel tape recorder as a present. \u201cHe said: \u2018I\u2019m your father.\u2019 And: \u2018I think you\u2019d like this.\u2019 And before he could say anything else, grandma came running out of the apartment building that we lived in and was yelling at him: \u2018Get outta here!\u2019 And so he ran back to his truck and took off.\u201d The second time was in his dressing room, years later, when he was an established star. \u201cHe came in and said: \u2018You did a real good job out there.\u2019 And that was it.\u201d He doesn\u2019t know why his family hated his father. He never asked, he says. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t real to me. I never really thought about it.\u201d<\/p>\n In California. Photograph: Philip Cheung\/The Guardian<\/p>\n double quotation markBeing gay came on very slowly to me \u2026 Coming out was such a non-event. Everybody knew<\/p>\n On stage in 1975. Photograph: THA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n double quotation markWhen Mandy went to No 1, I hoped it would go away … it was not what I was planning on doing with my life<\/p>\n His mother, meanwhile, seems to have clung to him. When he moved to an apartment in Manhattan in the early 70s, Edna one day told him she had moved into the apartment above. \u201cI was such a nice guy, I didn\u2019t say: \u2018Are you fucking crazy?\u2019 I pretended that that was a good thing, and that was the last thing I wanted.\u201d Edna repeatedly attempted suicide. One time she phoned him from upstairs to say she had taken an overdose, and he had to take her to hospital. She went to rehab and recovered, and he supported her once he made money, but he felt he had to look after her. \u201cGuilt. Jewish guilt,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Manilow\u2019s own attempt at a conventional relationship was short-lived. He married his high school sweetheart, Susan, aged 21 in 1964, but they separated within two years. He attributes the break-up to his falling in with the musical theatre crowd he\u2019d started working with after finishing his day job, at the mailroom at CBS in New York. \u201cThey were showbiz and they knew stuff that I\u2019d never even heard of musically,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI never wanted to leave that place, but Susan was waiting with dinner for me. That\u2019s why we split: because I was going to be a very bad husband to her.\u201d He presents it as a choice between domestic stability and music, and he chose the latter. As he puts in his memoir: \u201cMy passion for music had obliterated everything in its path.\u201d<\/p>\n It was not long after this that Manilow began to discover his sexuality, although \u201cbeing gay came on very slowly to me\u201d, he says. He met his husband, Garry Kief, in 1978 and they have been together ever since. He only went public about being gay in 2017, in an interview with People magazine. It was simultaneously front-page news and not really a surprise to anyone. \u201cIt was such a non-event,\u201d says Manilow looking back. \u201cEverybody knew. I wasn\u2019t hiding from it.\u201d<\/p>\n His mother, who died in 1994, was also fine with it, he says. \u201cShe just loved Garry. It was a phone call, and I said: \u2018Ma, you know I\u2019m gay? And Garry and I \u2026\u201d She said: \u2018Yeah, I always knew that you were gay.\u2019 I said: \u2018You did?\u2019 She said: \u2018Oh, yeah. When you tried to put my high heels on \u2026\u2019 And I said: \u2018Stop! Stop!\u2019\u201d He\u2019s laughing.<\/p>\n Surrounded by autograph hunters at the height of his fame in the 80s. Photograph: Mike Moore\/Getty Images<\/p>\n It was a different era, though. \u201cIn the 70s, when I was starting off, it would have ruined me, it would have killed my career,\u201d says Manilow. \u201cNot just me, but the record company and everybody that worked for me. It would have hurt everybody. So I couldn\u2019t be honest about that.\u201d Even in the 80s, while British artists such as Boy George, Bronski Beat and Soft Cell were breaking down barriers, most gay performers still had to play it straight, like George Michael, Freddie Mercury and even Elton John, who married a woman in 1984.<\/p>\n Manilow\u2019s mostly female fanbase has not been deterred at all. He still gets knickers thrown at him on stage \u2013 \u201cthey\u2019re much bigger now, those knickers,\u201d he laughs. But it\u2019s tempting to re-read some of Manilow\u2019s most heartfelt songs in light of his personal history. Break-up songs such as Tryin\u2019 to Get the Feeling Again, This One\u2019s for You, Ready to Take a Chance Again, Even Now, Mandy \u2013 often they\u2019re lamenting failed or past relationships. Or I Made It Through the Rain, which feels like a personal survival anthem (\u201cI kept my world protected\u201d). Beneath the polished facades, did we miss the emotional torment? Admittedly, schmaltzier songs such as Can\u2019t Smile Without You or The Bermuda Triangle don\u2019t fit into this thesis, but even his grooviest, most upbeat hit, Copacabana, is actually a tragic story: Lola the showgirl ends up drinking herself half blind and losing her mind 30 years later.<\/p>\n Manilow disavows any personal reading of his music: \u201cI\u2019ll give you a romance, but torment: no,\u201d he says. \u201cI was writing songs I was hoping that people would like. That\u2019s it. I\u2019m not writing about myself.\u201d Besides, many of his songs were written by or with others, he has a group of lyricists who have worked with him for decades, and he often collaborates. On his new album, for example, there\u2019s a song co-written with Gary Barlow. So even when he sings Once Before I Go, it doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s literally about him going anywhere, he insists. Except, hopefully Britain next month. He\u2019s in rehearsals again this week. \u201cI\u2019m going to do this tour if it kills me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n When I ask Manilow which of his own songs is his favourite, after some consideration, he lands on I Write the Songs. This is surprising and perhaps quintessentially Manilow. Surprising because he actually didn\u2019t write I Write the Songs. He\u2019s proud of the fact that the original demo of the song was nothing like what he turned it into. But also, for anyone who actually listens to the lyrics, the \u201cI\u201d who says they write the songs (that make the whole world sing and make the young girls cry) is actually music itself. So Manilow is just the messenger, at the service of music \u2013 the interpreter, the reluctant showman. That\u2019s all he claims to be. And whatever deeper forces might or might not be driving him, the show must go on.<\/p>\n Barry Manilow\u2019s album What a Time is out 5 June. The UK tour<\/a> starts on 9 June<\/p>\n In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans<\/a> can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline<\/a> at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org<\/a>. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline<\/a> is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photograph: The Guardian His name is Barry, he is a showman \u2013 as we all know. 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Photograph: Bob Riha Jr\/Getty Images<\/p>\n