HUSBAND

ography, he wrote: “I was out making music every night, sowing my wild oats — I was too young. I wasn’t ready to settle down.”

The marriage ended after 18 months and he threw himself into music, first writing jingles for the likes of Band-aid to earn some money.

In 1971, he began arranging music and producing, working with Bette Midler on her first two albums.

His work on her 1972 album The Divine Miss M had earned him a Grammy nomination. He then began to release his own material and in January 1975, Mandy went to No1 in the US.

Huge success was to follow, with hits such as Looks Like We Made It, Copacabana and Can’t Smile Without You. He has had seven UK Top 10 albums and sold around 100 million records globally. And he has no plans to slow down, despite health scares that included bronchial pneumonia in 1982, a mouth tumour in 1986, heart problems in 2004 and surgery on the cartilage in both hips in 2006.

Asked how he feels these days, he says: “I’m fine, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m very old, I should not be able to do this.

“You saw me going up those stairs on stage – there’s 14 steps up and 14 down, you would think I should be in a wheelchair or something.”

As well as his Vegas residency, which runs until October, he will be in the UK this summer, and is working on three albums, including Night Songs 2, which will be a follow-up to a Grammy nominated LP from 2014. He says: “I’m crazy, I admit it. I get up at 4am and look at the show from the night before and I make notes and make the show better.

“I sing to one person each night, so if there are 2,000 or 60,000, it won’t change my performance.

“I try to crawl into the story of the song and sing to one person.”

But, despite his incredible success, he says: “I never wanted to be a singer, I’m more surprised than anybody.

“I don’t take the singing thing seriously – I try my best. But I’ve always known I’m not a great singer.

“Luther Vandross was a great singer, George Michael was a great singer. Me, I am a pretty good interpreter of a lyric.

“I interpret songs, that’s what I do best. I’m just a working musician, that’s what I see myself as. I love doing what I’m doing.”

And he is going to keep on doing it as long as he can. “Retire? It’s not even in my vocabulary, I just had to get off the road, but that’s not retiring, just enough with room service.

“I feel the same as I’ve always felt. I still have my hair and look pretty much the same as I always did. I’m waiting to get old, but so far so good.”

Barry Manilow headlines Proms In The Park in London on September 14. His Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino residency runs until October.