Biography
Barry Alan was born to Edna and Harold Pincus, from Russian-Jewish ancestry. Harold went away from the family when Barry was only two-years-old, prompting him to acquire his mother’s maiden name of Manilow, at his bar mitzvah. His dad was of Irish and Jewish ancestry, and his mother, Edna, was Jewish on both sides. He was brought up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, attending Brooklyn’s Eastern dominion senior high. After his high school graduation exercise, Manilow registered at The Juilliard School, while working at CBS to compensate his expenses. At CBS in 1964 Manilow met Bro Herrod, a manager, who asked him to fix up some public domain songs for a musical version of the melodrama, The Drunkard. Instead, Manilow wrote an entire original account. The musical turned a winner and ran Off-Broadway for 8 years at the thirteenth Street Theatre in New York City. Manilow then earned income by acting as a pianist, producer, and arranger. He has said of that time that he played piano for anyone: “If the check cleared, I was there.”
Manilow also did work as a commercialized jingle-jangle writer/vocalist, an activity that continued easily into the 1970s. He penned many of the jingle-jangles that he performed, including those for Bowlene Toilet cleanser, State Farm Insurance (”Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there…”), Stridex acne cleanser, and Band-Aid (”I am stuck on Band-Aid, ’cause Band-Aid’s stuck on me!” sang a jubilant struggling actor named John Travolta), among others. His singing-only credits include KFC, Pepsi, Jack in the Box, Dr Pepper, and the famed McDonald’s “You Deserve a Break Today” campaign. Manilow won two Awards in 1976 for his work for Tab and Band-Aid.
By 1967, Manilow was the musical director for the WCBS-TV series Callback. He next carried and fixed up for Ed Sullivan’s production company, formatting a new musical theme for The Late Show, while still composing, producing, and singing his radio and television jingle-jangles. At the same time, he and Jeanne Lucas performed as a duo for a two-season run at New York’s Upstairs at the Downstairs club.