Barry Manilow is an iconic singer and songwriter with a career that spans decades, and over 50 top 40 Adult Contemporary Chart singles under his belt. He’s a winner of Tony and Grammy Awards, multiple Emmy and American Music Awards, and he boasts a coveted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2002, he was inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. And on December 11, he’ll host his concert special, A Very Barry Christmas, on NBC
But what has Barry’s life been like behind the curtain? The world-famous performer married TV executive Garry Kief in 2014, after a decades-long romance during which they waited for same-sex marriage to become legal in California. Prior to that, he had a short-lived marriage in the 1960s.
Here’s everything to know about Barry Manilow’s husband and his past marriage to Susan Deixler.
Garry Kief
Barry met Garry Kief, the man who would become both his spouse and his manager, in 1978. According to a 2017 interview with PEOPLE, Barry knew at the outset that the relationship would be serious. “I knew that this was it,” he said at the time. “I was one of the lucky ones. I was pretty lonely before that. … Garry didn’t know what I did, even though I had all these records out. He was a guy, and I was a guy, so we could just deal with each other like two normal people, not like a superstar and a person.”
They married in April of 2014, in an intimate ceremony at their 53-acre Palm Springs estate, making what he said was already a serious commitment legal. “We’ve been married all these years,” he told PEOPLE as the relationship became public. “It’s just that it became legal.” And he admitted the experience was “emotional.” “I didn’t think it was going to be that emotional,” he told PEOPLE. “It was deeper than we thought it was going to be, looking at each other, saying, ‘I love you’ in front of people.”
Garry has one daughter, Kirsten, who was just a year old when the couple first met. In a 2017 interview with Michael Cavacini, Barry opened up about raising a daughter. “Garry and I have been together going on 40 years, and we raised a daughter,” he shared. “She turned out to be a great, beautiful girl … Our relationship and my being gay — I’ve always been a proud gay man. I’ve always been very proud of Garry and I.”
Garry, whom Barry says is “the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life — and a great guy, too,” is the CEO of Stiletto Entertainment. He’s also worked with Lorna Luft and musician Matt Dusk, among others.
Barry’s First Marriage to Susan Deixler
Barry’s first marriage was to his high school sweetheart and Brooklyn native Susan Deixler in 1964. They married by a justice of the peace, followed by a solemnization by a rabbi. She was 19, and he was 20. According to his 2017 interview with PEOPLE, Barry admitted he was in love with her, despite the marriage only lasting one year before it was annulled in 1966. “I was in love with Susan,” he told the outlet. “I just was not ready for marriage.” He also said he hadn’t yet begun to struggle with his sexuality when he married her.
“I was out making music every night, sowing my wild oats — I was too young,” he explained of the brief union, during which they resided in an apartment in Greenwich Village. “I wasn’t ready to settle down.” In his 1987 autobiography Sweet Life, Barry called Susan the “perfect wife” and admitted that “Even my friends thought I was rushing into it.”
According to Heavy, Susan never remarried after her marriage to Barry ended. She now works to provide in-home care services for senior citizens, and has two adult children.
In 2015 comments, she revealed she’s happy for her ex. “I wish him well,” she told the Daily Mail at the time. “I’m happy for him. I’m glad that he’s found love and happiness.” Susan added that their relationship is decades in the past. “What happened between us, our relationship, is ancient history and I don’t want to dig back into ancient history,” she said. “It’s 50 years ago. You have to remember that I’m not a celebrity. I have children, a life…all that was a long time ago. I’m a private person but I’m happy for him. I really am.”