Journale 32

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Penthouse - November 1977

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"A lot of people would give their right ball for what I have," says Barry Manilow as he munches on iced shrimp served on a silver tray. In his luxurious, antique-filled suite at the Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles, Barry leans back into an averstuffed, pale pink sofa. He's dressed in all-white: a clinging white sweater, tight, white pants covering what he calls his "flat ass," and his white, patent-leather shoes that reflect it all. Sitting there, Barry Manilow is a vision in Jean Harlow white, a pop wedding cake of a superstar, his blindingly white presence accented by a tiny necklace that floats a gold star on his tanned neck. But what exactly does Barry Manilow have? Commercial success, for one thing. In two years this singer/songwriter/arranger has sold 11 million records, won Photoplay and Tony awards, been voted top male pop vocalist by Record World and Billboard, and aired an ABC special (sponsered by Kraft cheese) that received better ratings than "The Waltons," "All in the Family," and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," leaving the specials of Diana Ross and Neil Diamond in the ratings dust. But there are some things about Barry Manilow that most people wouldn't give either their right or their left ball for: varying shades of blond hair and a rise to superstardom that has, according to one of his many former publicists,"... made his mouth too big. Barry's become his own worst enemy.

This whole star thing has gone to his head. Now he's sure that he's not only a singer/composer but a TV star and a movie star-to-be. And worse than that, he doesn't know when to shut up. "I'm even bigger than Elton," Barry proudly announces as he lifts another piece of iced shrimp to his mouth. He smiles and looks at his patent-leather shoes. "Sometimes I can't believe it all. I was nothing four years ago. And now! Shit. There's the TV special. My own TV special! And then there are movie offers. My God! And all this is happening to me." But four years ago it wasn't all happening for Barry Manilow. He was Bette Midler's piano player and musical director, and before his eyes that little redhead became a superstar. "Every night I watched her fans screming, 'More! More! More!'" he recalls. "She was a sensation." And after each show Barry smiled at the show business heavies who passed him by on their way to the Divine Miss M's dressing room. As Rona Barrett put it at the time, "There are some stars that happen spontaneously, like Bette Midler and Jonathan Livingston Seagull." But Barry knew that the Divine Miss M. was the same old difficult Bette he'd first worked with at New York's best-known homosexual bath house, the now-defunct Continental Baths. Barry also knew that as her arranger he was the prime musical force behind her act. It was he who arranged and produced most of her early recording, including Bette Midler's only hit single, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." And it was his piano playing that formed the basis for her most effective ballads. If she could become a star, why couldn't he? After all, he was difficult, too, and certainly as talented as a goddamned seagull. And so Barry was hooked. "Once you start thinking about yourself as a star, you've had it. I had to leave Bette. Sure I was nervous then. Like when I did that solo spot at the start of Bette's second act, I used to throw up before I went on. Of course, I didn't have much support from the Midler people. The only one who was good to me was Woosie [Bette's road manager]. He'd tell me everything would be okay. I really needed that then, too." After recording an unsuccessful album for Bell Records, Barry Manilow hit the road on his own. He was taking a risk, because his act, which toured small clubs across the country, was losing him about $4,000 a week. The financial drain was offset by his lucrative work in jingle writing and arrangíng. (He performed "You Deserve a Break Today" for McDonald's.) "I knew I could do it," Manilow now remembers, "even when it looked like all my money was gone, when it seemed I'd have to stop." Determined, he forged on, borrowing the Midler formula by hiring the Harlettes, an irreverent and foul-mouthed trio who were Bette's backup girls. "Barry Manilow become a star?" one them remarked at the time, "Don't make me laugh." Certainly to the Midler crowd Barry, or as they nicknamed him, Verry Vanilla, was just too tight-assed, square, and drippy. They wanted another Bette Midler or at least a butch version of her. And Barry hardly fit that bill. The Harlettes were certain that his attempt at stardom was doomed, and they were particularly sickened by the first romantically overcome teenager who rushed the singer during a show in Boston. Clutching roses, the girl cried out her lifelong devotion to Barry until stagehands dragged her offstage. At that instant, one of the Harlettes burst into laughter so uncontrollable that urine began trickling down her leg. "Barry turn on girls?" she screamed in her quick exit from the stage. No one suspected that Barry would cause such reactions, certainly not the Harlettes, who were later fired, and not even the singer himself. "I was certainly just as surprised as anyone," Barry recalls. "I mean, I was forced to hire bodyguards to protect me from girls!" Not that the star has anything against little girls. As his manager, Miles Lourie, describes it, "We all know that pop music is really just selling jingles to thirteen-year-olds going through puberty." And with even greater insight into the success of Barry Manilow, Lourie claims, "The real art of a Career is longevity." "Mandy" was that first jingle that sold for Barry Manilow. But before "Mandy" there was Clive Davis, the famed egocentric record-company head who was knocked from his king-pin position at Columbia Records when a payola scandal blew wide open 1972. Davis got back into the record business via his takeover at Bell Records (now Arista) and giving Barry Manilow and the newly transformed Arista Records their first big hit record, "Mandy." In discussing that hit, Manilow's coproducer, Ron Dante, says, "Clive was coming off a real bummer when he reetered the record business and took over Bell Records. I can understand it, I guess. But Barry and I were the first thing that happened successfully for him. And he wanted too much credit, much too much credit." Clive Davis tells the story somewhat differently, as though he were the first to spot Manilow's talent. "I don't relish talking about this," he says, "but it is my track record. I knew that Barry needed a hit single." True, it was Davis who suggested that Manilow record an up-tempo English hit called "Brandy." "Brandy" became "Mandy," but the singer didn't hear it as an up-tempo hit. Davis listened to Manilow's version in the studio and "wanted more." Dante and Manilow tried everything. They upped the strings and the back beat. "It sounded preposterous to me then," says Barry, "like 'Ave Maria.'" But Davis still wanted more and took a copy of the Manilow-Dante version into the studio, where, according to Dante, he "spent a night yelling at some poor engineer." And the next morning "Clive called and said, 'Okay, we'll go with your version.'" Eight weeks later "Mandy" was number one. And as they say in the record business, Manilow's career had broken wide open. While Dante and Manilow are both eager to give Davis the credit for bringing them the song, they were less than happy when Davis announced that he was taking a producer's credit. "But what could we do? We were nothing then," confides Dante. "This was Clive Davis. But I was hurt. I know Barry was, too. What we should have done is said no then. We didn't. We made a mistake." Davis's name appears on the forty-five as executive producer. But on the album, he is listed as "guide." When the Grammy Awards called to clear up the confusion, Dante says, "We thought, 'Why rock the boat?' And so we let Clive have the credit and sit with us as co-producer at the Grammy Awards." "No, Clive didn't produce 'Mandy,'" Barry now states, having remained, until now, close-mouthed on the subject. "I don't care what he says, he didn't produce 'Mandy.'" Barry Manilow is emphatic on this point and emphasizes it by stressing his own expertise in the field of hit making. "If you want a hit," he says, "you've got to grab everyone's attention, bringhten everything up. It may sound silly at the time, but when you're competing with thousands of other potential, know what will sell. As much as I love the FM market, the people like Laura Nyro and all that stuff, I learned a long time ago that that's not the way to the masses." Barry Manilow a star? Newsweek calls him "the most hummed musican of all time." But, like many superstars, Manilow has had a tough time with the pop critics. His music remains the same: solid, wellproduced and arranged, middle- of-the-road toe-tappers and tear-jerkers. But many reviewers have been quick to note that the singer seems uncomfor-table on stage, projecting a manic, boyish light-heartedness that rings forced. Barry's own self-consciousness even prevented him from including Los Angeles in his ninety-

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