BARRY MANILOW Life, Love & Marriage

IT TOOK MANY YEARS OF TRIAL AND ERROR FOR THE SINGER-SONGWRITER TO FIND HIS TRUE SOULMATE

- Rick Egusquiza

When news of Barry Manilow's wedding to his longtime love, Garry Kief, got out, his fans responded with kindness and joy. "The reaction was so beautiful - strangers commenting, 'Great for you!" says Barry. "I'm just so grateful for it."

It's been a long road for the star, who during his seven-decade career has sold 85 million records around the world. And at 78, the "Mandy" singer is still in demand. Currently enjoying his residency at Westgate Las Vegas Resort, Barry looks back with love and gratitude to the people who helped him along the way - including Susan Deixler, the high school sweetheart he married in 1964.

Of course, times were different then. "It was a difficult thing to be gay at high school in 1961, not a good thing to broadcast," Ed Shapiro, Barry and Susan's former classmate at Eastern District High School in Brooklyn, recalls. "I don't remember [Barry] socializing much at school. I just remember he was a thin, good-looking kid."

Music was already a big part of Barry's life. Abandoned by his father as an infant, he discovered popular music through the record collection of his stepfather, Willie Murphy. "Each album was more glorious than the next - Broadway scores like Carousel, The King and I," Barry recalls. "Great pop singers like Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall, Sinatra and his gorgeous Only the Lonely album." Recognizing Barry's passion, his family scraped enough money together to afford a small spinet piano and lessons once a week.