50 facts about Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow is best known for such recordings as "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana (At the Copa)". Learn 50 things about Barry Manilow.

1. Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter and producer.

2. Barry Manilow is best known for such recordings as "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana (At the Copa)".

3. In 1978, five of his albums were on the best-seller charts simultaneously, a feat equalled only by Herb Alpert, The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and Johnny Mathis.

4. Barry Manilow has recorded a string of Billboard hit singles and multi-platinum albums that have resulted in his being named Radio & Records' No. 1 adult contemporary artist, and winning three straight American Music Awards for favorite pop/rock male artist.

5. Between 1974 and 1983 Manilow had three No. 1 singles and 25 that reached the top 40.

6. Although not a favorite of music critics, several well-known entertainers have praised Manilow, including Sinatra, who was quoted in the 1970s saying, "He's next."

7. In 1988, Bob Dylan stopped Manilow at a party, hugged him and said, "Don't stop what you're doing, man. We're all inspired by you."

8. As well as producing and arranging albums for other artists, including Bette Midler and Dionne Warwick, Manilow has written songs for musicals, films, and commercials.

9. From February 2005 to December 30, 2009, he was the headliner at the Las Vegas Hilton, performing hundreds of shows before ending his relationship with the hotel.

10. Since March 2010, he has headlined at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas.

11. Barry Manilow has sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.

12. Barry Manilow was born on June 17, 1943, as Barry Alan Pincus in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Edna Manilow and Harold Pincus.

13. His mother's family was Jewish, while his father, whose original surname was Keliher, was born of Irish-American and distant Jewish descent.

14. Barry Manilow dopted his mother's maiden name, Manilow, at the time of his bar mitzvah.

15. Barry Manilow grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and attended Eastern District High School, graduating in 1961.

16. That same year, he enrolled in the City College of New York where he briefly studied before entering the New York College of Music.

17. Barry Manilow also worked at CBS while he was a student in order to pay his expenses.

18. Barry Manilow later studied at the Juilliard performing arts school.

19. In 1964, Manilow met Bro Herrod, a CBS director, who asked him to arrange some songs for a musical adaptation of the melodrama The Drunkard. Instead, Manilow wrote an entire original score.

20. Herrod used Manilow's composition in the Off Broadway musical, which enjoyed an eight-year run at New York's 13th Street Theatre.

21. Barry Manilow then earned money by working as a pianist, producer and arranger.

22. During this time, he began to work as a commercial jingle writer, continuing well into the 1970s.

23. Many of the jingles he wrote and/or composed he would also perform, including State Farm Insurance ("Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there..."), and Band-Aid ("I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me!"), for which he adopted a childlike voice and wrote the music (Donald B Wood wrote the lyrics).

24. A 1965 Polaroid Swinger commercial featuring Manilow's "Meet The Swinger" jingle starred a young Ali MacGraw.

25. His singing-only credits include Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pepsi, Dr Pepper, and the famed McDonald's "You Deserve a Break Today" campaign.

26. Barry Manilow won two Clio Awards in 1976 for his work for Tab and Band-Aid.

27. By 1967, Manilow was the musical director for the WCBS-TV series Callback, which premiered on January 27, 1968.

28. Barry Manilow next conducted and arranged for Ed Sullivan's production company, arranging a new theme for The Late Show, while writing, producing and singing his radio and television jingles.

29. At the same time, he and Jeanne Lucas performed as a duo for a two-season run at Julius Monk's Upstairs at the Downstairs club in New York.

30. Before Manilow's well-known association with Bette Midler began at the Continental Baths in New York City in 1971, he recorded four tracks as Featherbed, leading a group of session musicians produced and arranged by Tony Orlando. Three of the tracks-"Morning", a ballad; "Amy", a psychedelic-influenced pop song; and an early version of his own composition "Could It Be Magic"-all flopped on the charts, a fact for which Manilow himself is fond of saying he is eternally grateful, especially in the case of the latter.

31. After the Featherbed singles went nowhere, in July 1973, Bell Records released his debut album, Barry Manilow, which offered an eclectic mix of piano-driven pop and guitar-driven rock music, including a song called "I Am Your Child", which Manilow had composed for the 1972 Vietnam war drama Parades, written by Manilow with Marty Panzer.

32. On May 23, 1979, ABC aired The Third Barry Manilow Special, with John Denver as his guest. This special was nominated for two Emmy awards and won for "Outstanding Achievement in Choreography".

33. The 1980s gave Manilow the adult contemporary chart-topping songs "The Old Songs", "Somewhere Down the Road", "Read 'Em and Weep" (written by Jim Steinman), and a remake of the 1941 Jule Styne and Frank Loesser standard "I Don't Want to Walk Without You".

34. On January 26, 2010, Manilow released his new album The Greatest Love Songs of all Time. In December 2010 it was nominated for a Grammy award in the category Best Traditional Pop Album.

35. On December 11, 2010, Manilow performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway. Manilow completed work on his new album, 15 Minutes, in March 2011, with his official Facebook page announcing that he had completed putting "finishing touches" to the album on March 16, 2011.

36. On March 13, 2011, Manilow appeared at the Olivier Awards 2011 at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, singing "Copacabana" with the BBC Concert Orchestra and also singing with hit West End star, Kerry Ellis.

37. From March 2011, he hosted They Write the Songs, a 10-part documentary series for BBC Radio 2 in which he looked at the life and work of popular composers.

38. In January 2013, Manilow returned to Broadway with his concert series "Manilow on Broadway." It was his first appearance on Broadway in more than two decades.

39. On November 12, 2013, he performed at the BBC's Children in Need Rocks 2013.

40. Barry ManilowAs a Palm Springs, California resident, Manilow has been a fundraiser for many local charities.

41. On October 27, 2011, Manilow visited Joplin, Missouri, six months after a tornado destroyed one-third of that city, including its only high school. His "Manilow Music Project" made a contribution of $300,000 to restore the musical program and instruments that were lost.

42. Manilow made headlines in June 2006 when Australian officials blasted his music from 9pm until midnight every Friday, Saturday and Sunday to deter gangs of youths from congregating in a residential area late at night. On July 18, 2006, Manilow released a tongue-in-cheek statement saying that the youths might like his music.

43. To help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for every US dollar donated by his fans to the American Red Cross through the Manilow Fund for Health and Hope website, Manilow personally matched, and the fund itself also matched, tripling the original donation. The fund delivered $150,000 in less than 48 hours to the American Red Cross, and hoped to raise a grand total of $300,000.

44. To help with the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in 1989, which affected the Charleston, South Carolina, area, Manilow held a benefit concert November 12, 1989, at the University of South Carolina's Carolina Coliseum in Columbia, where the $10 tickets sold out in three hours, and asked concertgoers to bring canned food to be donated to residents in disaster areas.

45. Before his concert, Mayor T. Patton Adams named that day "Barry Manilow Day" and Manilow presented the Red Cross and the Salvation Army with checks of $42,500 each.

46. On February 27, 1992, Manilow was Master of Ceremonies for friend Elizabeth Taylor's 60th birthday bash at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. He sang "I Made It Through the Rain" to Taylor, who attended the gala with her husband, Larry Fortensky.

47. Manilow played himself in a cameo in the 2002 dark comedy Unconditional Love starring Kathy Bates and Rupert Everett where "Can't Smile Without You" also figured into the plot.

48. On December 11, 2003 he appeared on the NBC show Will & Grace as himself backstage between tour stops. The name of the episode is "Fanilow" as in "a fan of Manilow".

49. On March 21-22, 2006, Manilow returned to American Idol in season five when 1950s music was the theme. He again helped the top eleven finalists to fine tune their performances and again sang on the results show.

50. On March 21-22, 2006, Manilow returned to American Idol in season five when 1950s music was the theme. He again helped the top eleven finalists to fine tune their performances and again sang on the results show.

Source: Wikipedia.org