MANILOW-Part One

Three TV Specials From A Shaky Start

I have decided to resume my Substack blog. It seems perfect to do so with Barry Manilow for several reasons: For one thing, he is having a phenomenal year. At 80 he has broken Elvis’s record at the former International Hotel in Las Vegas. “HARMONY”, the musical for which he wrote the score, is about to open on Broadway after a 25-year journey. Most appropriately, though, the first Special I produced on my own was for Barry.

I produced three of Barry’s Specials, but you would never have expected it, considering the shaky start of our relationship. My producing partnership with Saul Ilson ended because of personal pressures which had nothing to do with our deep friendship which endures to the present day.

Now I had to make a difficult decision: Whether to go back to being a comedy writer, as I was originally, or continue to have a career producing on my own?

My agent arranged for me to fly up to Vegas to see Barry’s act. I knew he had huge hits and had written some of the most popular jingles. (“LIKE A GOOD NEIGHBOR.....”)

I had seen him perform a few years before when he was Bette Midler’s Music Director and she gave him his own segment in the middle of her act. I remember thinking at that time, he’s not bad, but he doesn’t know what to do with himself when he’s not sitting at the piano. He was totally awkward, stalking the stage like a flamingo with those really long legs that seemed to go up to his chin. I could not have imagined that skinny piano player from Brooklyn would become one of the biggest selling record stars in music history and a romantic icon? How did it happen? Could it be magic?

Well, it must have been. And it was also “Mandy” and “Looks Like We Made It” and “Can’t Smile Without You” and a dozen more.

But I digress. There I was in Las Vegas, seated in a VIP front row booth to see Barry’s show. In the booth next to mine was Dick Clark, creator of “American Bandstand” and a major television producer of the hottest musical acts. Obviously, Dick was my competition.

I had been told I would meet with Barry right after the show. When I attempted to go backstage, I was told I would have to wait out in the hall. He had another meeting. With Guess Who? But I needed this job to start my career as a producer. I wasn’t leaving the casino until I got my meeting with Barry.

About three in the morning, somebody came out to tell me Barry was tired and had gone home. If I wanted to stay over, they might be able to get me a meeting with him in the morning. Needless to say, I stayed over.

Late the next morning, I was driven to the house where Barry was staying. I waited outside in the garden for about an hour. He finally slumped out, still in his robe, exhausted, unshaven, obviously in no mood to meet with this unknown whoever. I was persistently upbeat,

determined to ignore his foul frame of mind. I would not for a moment allow myself to think that he had no interest whatsoever in meeting me. Whatever it was that I did or said, I was shocked a few days later to learn that Barry had chosen me over Dick Clark to produce his next Special.

Barry has always followed his instincts even when “the smart money” told him he was wrong. Perhaps he chose me because he preferred to take a chance on someone new rather than go with the same old same old.

It may have been that thinking that got Barry to reach out to a director who had never done a musical variety show, George Schaefer. George was famous for directing prestige drama on Broadway and TV. He had just received acclaim for his TV production of the Thornton Wilder classic drama, “OUR TOWN”. Barry asked me to see if George might be interested.

George was totally not show-biz. He was a very understated, very soft spoken, a very middle-aged, portly, learned gentleman who played bridge twice a week. You would not expect to find him in the same room as Barry Manilow. To my surprise, George said yes.

A producer who had never produced a show on his own. A director who had never directed a music show. What other surprises could Barry come up with?

I learned that Barry’s single mom lived in New York. I decided it would help me write for Barry if I spent some time with his mother, Edna. She turned out to be a very outgoing New York Jewish yenta and it was not hard to get her talking about her son and how she taught him everything he knew.

She was such fun to be with. I told Barry I wanted to start our show with his mother in a taxi on her way to the taping of our Special. She would bend the ear of the totally disinterested cabbie with the glory of “my Barry”.

Barry was nervous whether Edna could handle it. For Barry’s peace of mind, I agreed to tape the taxi scene two ways- one with his real mom and the other with an actress playing his mom. We cast Doris Roberts who was beloved and brilliant as Ray Romano’s mom on “EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND.”

We taped the taxi sequence both ways. As you can imagine, Doris was perfect. But Edna was even more perfect. Edna Manilow, Barry’s mom, opened our Special, bending the cabbie’s disinterested ear as they made their way through Times Square to be confronted with a mile high billboard advertising “My Barry”.

Barry was scheduled to do a concert in Los Angeles at the venerable old Pantages Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. We decided to pre-tape parts of our special on the empty stage of the theatre with Barry having an intimate get together with the folks at home before letting the screaming fans into the theatre. Instead of his customary glitz, he wore jeans and sneakers and a Brooklyn College sweat. Instead of a grand piano, he played an upright.

I was confronted with two enormous problems. Some anonymous deranged person bombarded us with obscene mail threatening Barry. We were required as a precaution to lock off every entrance to the theatre and hire additional security. I was confronted with the second unanticipated problem at the end of the taping, but I will get into that next week.