DON’T CALL ME BERT
He’s known as Enge to his friends... and that doesn’t include Tom Jones, or the 3,000 women he’s said to have bedded
Engelbert Humperdinck screams ‘pop legend’ before he even opens his mouth. For starters, there are the sideburns. Huge things that stretch from his temples to his jowls and are coloured, like his hair, the deepest auburn. The dye job, he says, is the only thing ‘I’ve ever had done’.
He looks, well... how best to describe this showbiz demigod who’s sold more than 150 million albums, had a gazillion knickers hurled at him by besotted fans and turned 78 yesterday? With his fluffed-up-mane, honey tan and huge frame, I think leonine best sums him up. And, boy, has he enjoyed the odd night on the prowl in his time.
‘I’ve had more paternity suits than casual suits,’ he says matterof-factly. There are claims he’s slept with 3,000 women. He says the number is lower but I don’t think he was really keeping score. The only woman who’s ever truly mattered is his wife, Patricia, to whom he’s been married for 50 years.
‘My wife’s a wonderful lady,’ he says. ‘She’s put up with a lot but she’s very intelligent and knew deep down that, whatever I did, it wasn’t serious. She knew I always loved her more. But I think being in showbusiness and having so many people giving themselves, I suppose I thought I was missing something. It was a part of growing up. I think my wife got hurt a lot,’ he admits. ‘I’ve tried to make it up to her. I ring her three or four times a day – not because of guilt but because I want to talk. I’d like her to travel with me more but she’s not been well.’
Enge, as he asks me to call him (‘that’s Enge as in Stonehenge’), looks genuinely sad when he says this. His voice – which is part Las Vegas, where he spent a chunk of his 47-year career after finding humungous fame with
in 1967, and part Leicestershire where he grew up and still has a 25-acre estate complete with its own pub – wobbles. Enge adores his family, which includes six sisters, two brothers and four grown-up children of his own. One of the hardest-working men in showbusiness, he clocked up 65,000 miles on the road in the first three months of this year. I meet Enge before he appears on BBC2’s
Later… With Jools Holland. He’s as jumpy as a frog in a blender. ‘This show tonight is scaring me,’ he says. ‘I can go in front of thousands of people on stage and not be afraid but when there’s just a few people, that scares me.’
Enge is one of the least showbizzy showbusiness legends on the planet. So much so, you’d struggle to find anyone with a bad word to say about him – apart, perhaps, from his old mate Tom Jones. The two, who used to be close, fell out following the death of their former manager, Gordon Mills, from cancer 27 years ago. The pop legends were both discovered by Mills in the mid-60s and became partners in the then huge MAM record label, until Enge decided to branch out on his own. ‘We haven’t spoken since we lost our manager,’ he says. ‘Tom never forgave me for not staying with Gordon but I wanted to go off on my own because Gordon was partial to him. So I haven’t spoken to him for 27 years. I tried to make friends with him again but he just pooh-poohed it. I tried to say, “Let bygones be bygones”, but he didn’t want to know. He and his son [Tom’s manager Mark] were as cold as ice but I don’t mind the fact we don’t speak. It’s his loss.’
Indeed! Enge isn’t short of friends. Take the playlist of his new album of duets: Elton John, Cliff Richard, Johnny Mathis, Lulu, Charles Aznavour, Neil Sedaka, Kenny Rogers, Dionne Warwick… it goes on and on. ‘It was listening to Elton John’s live album that gave us the idea.’ ‘Us’ is he and his son Scott, now also his manager.
‘Elton introduces a song saying, “I wrote this many years ago when I was a struggling songwriter waiting for an Engelbert Humperdinck to come along and take a song like this.” S o, we called him, asked him to do a duet on the album and he said yes. I was thrilled. When he came to LA to record, we sat and talked for over an hour getting acquainted then he said, “Come on. Let’s do it.” He’s so professional and courteous. Afterwards he sent me the biggest bunch of flowers you’ve ever seen.’ He duets with Lulu on I Need You
Now. ‘She’s been a part of my success – which is why I wanted to share this album with her,’ he says. Lulu, it turns out, voted Release Me a hit on Juke Box Jury back in 1967. ‘All the others voted it a miss,’ says Enge.
This album, he says, has been a ‘two-year labour of love’ following his defeat at the Eurovision Song Contest in which he came second to last after singing Love Will Set You
Free. It was, as he says, ‘all political’. ‘When you’re drawn to sing first, as I was, you’re forgotten by the time the whole thing goes through.
‘All I can tell you is it was political and it was disgusting.’ Does he regret appearing? ‘I thought it was a great honour to represent my country and I had a great song. The mere fact I lost was no reflection on me.’