STAR MAN

genius and thank goodness my career kept going and we could make it up.” Born Barry Alan Pincus, Manilow was raised by his mother Edna in Brooklyn after his father left the family home when he was still a baby.

He knew early on his first love was music and it helped him through a difficult childhood. Perhaps surprisingly, his second love was Susan Deixler, the high school sweetheart who became his wife in 1964, soon after he had graduated. Barry told People magazine: “I was in love with Susan. I just was not ready for marriage.” He maintains he was not struggling with his sexuality at the time of their marriage.

In his autobi