Barry Manilow Breaks Elvis Presley’s Record For Most Las Vegas Residency Performances

Oct 10, 2023 by apost team

Barry Manilow was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Russian Jewish mother, Edna Manilow, and Harold Keliher, an Irish truck driver. Edna didn't want their son to be named Kelliher, so she made her husband change his surname. After a search in the family registry, they found a Jewish uncle from Kelliher's family who lived in the 1800s named Pincus and Kelliher took his name. Kelliher and Edna divorced when Manilow was a baby, but shortly before the latter's Bar Mitzvah, his surname was legally changed to Manilow. 

Manilow’s love for music started at an early age, and it was the one thing he could do well. He has also credited his grandfather and stepfather for helping him gain an interest in music. He began his career by writing commercials, and he has written and performed songs for musicals, films, and commercials for corporations like McDonald’s, Pepsi-Cola, and Band-Aid. 

The Brooklyn native got his big break in his gigs when he made a commercial, “You Deserve a Break Today,” for McDonald’s. He explained his luck with commercials in 2017:

“When I lucked into writing commercials, the only way you can go up against other songwriters when you’re going for a commercial is to write the catchiest melody you can write in fifteen seconds, and if you don’t write the best one, then another songwriter will get the commercial.” 

He continued: “And my instinct is always to write catchy melodies. I just like doing it. And so when I started to do jingles, I won a lot of them because my melodies were catchier than the other guys’ melodies.”

Manilow did something catchy again on Sept. 23, 2023, when he outperformed Elvis Presley for a Las Vegas residency. Keep reading for the details. 

Manilow’s whole life has been dedicated to music, and it even made him walk out on someone he considered precious. The music star married Susan Deixler, his high school sweetheart, when he was 21. 

According to Express, Manilow discussed his first marriage in his memoir, “Sweet Life: Adventures on the Way to Paradise,” and wrote that he and Deixler met in Brooklyn at Eastern District High School. He also described her as “adorable” and with a “smile that lit up the room.” 

He added that his friends believed he rushed into marriage. Still, he got married to Deixler in 1964, but the duo separated and applied for an annulment in 1965. The Grammy Award winner wrote that although Deixler was a perfect wife, he was not ready to get married but wanted to go on a “wondrous musical adventure.”

Manilow’s music career blossomed years after his marriage ended, starting with the pop-rock ballad “Mandy” in 1974. He rose to fame after releasing more hit songs like “Copacabana (At the Copa),” “Looks Like We Made It,” “Daybreak,” and many others, and he has enjoyed a successful career for seven decades. 

Meanwhile, the singer has maintained that his sexuality was not responsible for the annulment of his first marriage. He married Garry Kief, his manager and the president of Barry Manilow Productions, in 2014, although the duo has been together for 40 years. Manilow had kept his sexuality a secret because he didn’t want to disappoint his fans. He only came out in 2017.

“I thought I would be disappointing them if they knew I was gay. So I never did anything, fortunately, When they found out that Garry and I were together, they were so happy. The reaction was so beautiful,” he told People. 

apost.com

Manilow celebrated another win on Sept. 23, 2023, when he broke Elvis Presley’s record for the most shows performed at the Las Vegas residency at the Westgate Resort & Casino. Presley set the record with 636 performances between 1969 to 1976.

“It’s great. I mean listen, what’s [really] great is being in the same sentence as Elvis Presley,” Manilow told ET. “This is beyond just another singer. This was somebody who invented a style of music that wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t done it, so this was a big (honor). And it’s great that both of us were working on this stage.”

However, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal there was no competition.

“What (Elvis) did was so far away from what I do that I really don’t even consider us in competition,” he shared. He was an inventor of a style of music. You’ve got to give him credit for that. And I was an inventor of my kind of music, with the big ballads and the big backbeats. That’s the only thing we have in common.”

Sept. 23, 2023, was declared “Barry Manilow Day” in Las Vegas, and Manilow was presented with a key to the Las Vegas strip as he played his 637th show, as seen in a video he shared on Twitter. 

“Welcome to our record-breaking weekend,” he captioned the clip. 

In honor of Presley, Manilow donned a red jacket from Presley’s 1977 tour and performed covers of “Hound Dog,” “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” and “If I Can Dream.” Additionally, he shared red scarves with the audience as Presley did. 

He also donated all proceeds from his shows at the Westgate from September 21-23 to the following charities: Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center, Manilow Music Project, Musicians on Call, Three Square, Victoria’s Voice, and Youth Villages.

What do you think of Barry Manilow’s achievement? Isn’t it remarkable that the 80-year-old musician is still going strong and breaking records? Let us know what you think — and be sure to pass this on to fans of Barry Manilow.