Barry Manilow was born in on June 17, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York. He has a Russian descent as his grandparents were Russian immigrants. Barry’s parents went their separate ways when he was baby and was raised by his mother and grandparents and he took their name.
Barry’s mother, Edna remarried and her parents loved him unlike Barry’s father who they dubbed as a monster.
Murphy, Barry’s stepfather became a huge inspiration to him as he had an album which he gave Barry access to. Later on Edna and Murphy saved up money to buy Manilow a piano for $800.
Manilow got married in 1964 at the age of 21 to his high school sweetheart, Susan Deixler and they soon divorced as Barry wanted to face his career. He said their marriage was too early.
He went on to chase his dreams, writing songs, writer for commercials and also featured in a Dr. Pepper commercial.
He got his breakthrough after singing for a McDonald’s commercial.
Barry explained, “When I lucked into writing commercials, the only way you can go up against other songwriters when you’re going for a commercial is to write the catchiest melody you can write in fifteen seconds, and if you don’t write the best one, then another songwriter will get the commercial.”
“And my instinct is always to write catchy melodies. I just like doing it. And so when I started to do jingles, I won a lot of them because my melodies were catchier than the other guys’ melodies.”
He continued: “But it was very helpful because when I found myself in the pop music world writing pop songs, which like I say I never really thought about doing, pop music is all about catchy melodies and hooks and choruses…Well, learning how to do that while I was writing commercials was very helpful when i wound up writing pop songs. What I learned most of all in my jingle days was how to write a catchy melody.”
Barry Manilow released his first album in 1973 and went on to release other five albums which soon started topping the charts.
Barry Manilow during his teenage and early adult years carried a huge secret with him.
At the age of 73, in 2007 he finally came out as gay. It was one of the most courageous things he has ever done.
He thought he was going to lose his fans and family if he ever disclosed his sensuality, but it turned out to be the opposite as everyone wanted him to be happy.
He got married to his partner, Garry Kief in 2014 and it was a secret wedding.
According to Celebrity Networth, Barry Manilow is worth around $100 million.
