He went from writing commercial jingles to get by, and backing and arranging an up-and-coming Better Midler, before hitting the big time on his own. Now Barry Manilow looks back on a career that's taken him into his 80th year - one that took him from gay bathhouses to the Las Vegas strip. And after a long time, a now apparently settled feud with the Divine Miss M. 

In this wide ranging and absorbing interview, he reflects on a career he never thought he'd have, those early days when he didn't expect any response, why a guy who never recorded anyone else's material still ended up with his first hit, "Mandy," a cover from another singer. and those first performances in, shall we say, less than perfect circumstances.

It also includes reflections from Midler herself.

“The owner of the Continental Baths was Steven Ostrow,” Midler, 78, tells me of the infamous gay New York bathhouse where she [and Manilow] got her start. Located in the basement of the former Ansonia Hotel at Broadway and 74th, the Baths were envisioned by Ostrow, a former opera singer, as a cabaret-slash-sex club where anything went.

Careers were launched from that stage — not just Midler’s, but those of Peter Allen and Melissa Manchester, too — while just a few feet away guys were getting off in an orgy room. There was a VD clinic on site. The audience typically stood around stark naked, unless a woman was performing, in which case they donned towels. "

And yes, looks like he made it - that pic of his eight bedroom home in Palm Springs appears to go on forever. 

Looks Like He Made It: Barry Manilow at 80