Susan Deixler is best known as the first wife and high-school sweetheart of legendary singer Barry Manilow. Their love story began long before songs such as “Mandy” and “Copacabana” made Manilow famous around the world. They married in 1964 while they were still very young, but the marriage lasted only a short time and was annulled in 1966.
What makes Susan’s story so interesting is what happened afterward. Barry chased his dream of becoming a musician and eventually became a superstar, while Susan stayed largely away from celebrity life. Even decades later, she has remained one of the most private people connected to Manilow’s personal history.
Susan Deixler Quick Bio
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Susan Deixler |
| Famous For | Barry Manilow’s first wife |
| Nationality | American |
| Former Husband | Barry Manilow |
| Relationship | High-school sweethearts |
| Marriage Year | 1964 |
| Marriage Ended | 1966 |
| Type of Separation | Marriage annulled |
| Children With Barry | None publicly documented |
| Current Public Profile | Very private |
| Net Worth | Not publicly verified |
Who Is Susan Deixler?
Susan Deixler entered Barry Manilow’s story before the bright lights, hit records, packed concerts, and international fame.
She knew him when he was simply a young man from Brooklyn with enormous musical ambitions.
The two were high-school sweethearts.
They eventually decided to marry, but neither of them could have known just how dramatically Barry’s life would soon change.
Today, Susan is often introduced simply as “Barry Manilow’s ex-wife.”
But that description does not fully explain why people remain curious about her.
She was there before the world knew Barry Manilow.
Susan Deixler and Barry Manilow Were High-School Sweethearts
Susan and Barry knew each other when they were young.
Their romance developed years before Manilow established himself as a professional entertainer.
Barry was born Barry Alan Pincus in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943. Music interested him from an early age, but worldwide fame was still a distant dream when Susan entered his life.
They were young people making the kind of decisions young couples often make.
Marriage felt like the next step.
So in 1964, they became husband and wife.
When Did Susan Deixler Marry Barry Manilow?
Susan Deixler married Barry Manilow in June 1964.
IMDb lists their marriage as beginning in June of that year and ending with an annulment on January 6, 1966. Other biographical accounts similarly describe the marriage as lasting for roughly a year before the couple separated.
Barry was around 21 years old when they married.
That matters.
He was not the experienced entertainer people later saw performing for huge audiences.
He was young, ambitious, and still trying to decide what kind of life he wanted.
Susan was building a future with someone whose career dreams would soon demand almost everything from him.
Their Marriage Happened Before Barry Manilow Became Famous
It is easy to look at Susan’s marriage through the eyes of Barry’s later success.
But imagine the situation in 1964.
There was no “Mandy.”
There was no “Copacabana.”
There were no Las Vegas residencies.
There were no millions of devoted fans.
Barry was still years away from becoming a household name.
Susan therefore did not marry a wealthy international celebrity.
She married the young man she knew from school.
That is perhaps the most important thing to remember about their relationship.
Why Did Susan Deixler and Barry Manilow Separate?
Barry later gave a surprisingly clear explanation for why the marriage failed.
He said he genuinely loved Susan but was immature and felt an overwhelming need to pursue music.
Manilow later described Susan in extremely positive terms and explained that the end of the marriage was driven by his desire to follow what he saw as a musical adventure.
In other words, the separation was not presented as a story in which Susan had done something wrong.
Barry wanted another kind of life.
Music was pulling him away.
The young marriage could not survive that decision.
Barry Manilow Called Susan the “Perfect Wife”
One detail makes their story particularly emotional.
When discussing the relationship many years later, Barry described Susan as a wonderful partner and effectively acknowledged that she had been an ideal wife.
Yet he still left.
Why?
Because wanting something deeply does not always mean a person is ready to balance everything else in life.
Barry believed his musical ambitions required him to take a different road.
He chose his career.
That decision ended his marriage but ultimately opened the door to the extraordinary professional life that followed.
The Playboy Letter That Helped Change Barry’s Life
One of the stranger details in Barry Manilow’s early story involves Playboy magazine.
During this uncertain period, Barry reportedly wrote to the magazine’s advice section because he was struggling with what direction his life should take.
According to his later account, the response gave him confidence to leave his old life behind and pursue music seriously.
Imagine making a decision like that.
Stay with your young wife and continue building a traditional married life?
Or risk everything for a career that might never succeed?
Barry chose music.
At the time, there was no guarantee that decision would work.
Susan Deixler Had the Marriage Annulled
After Barry left, Susan eventually had their marriage annulled.
IMDb records the annulment date as January 6, 1966.
An annulment is legally different from a standard divorce in some circumstances, though the exact legal details can vary.
For Susan and Barry, it formally closed a very short chapter of their lives.
Their teenage romance had become a marriage.
Then, almost as quickly, it ended.
Barry went toward music.
Susan went in another direction.
Did Susan Deixler and Barry Manilow Have Children?
No publicly established biographical source documents children from Susan and Barry’s marriage.
Their time as husband and wife was very short.
There is also no reliable evidence that Susan and Barry later started a family together after separating.
This can sometimes become confusing because websites mix information from different periods of a celebrity’s life.
But Susan’s relationship with Barry belongs firmly to his early pre-fame years.
Barry Manilow’s Career Took Off After Their Marriage
Barry’s gamble eventually paid off.
But success did not arrive immediately.
He worked on musical arrangements, commercial jingles, and other projects while developing his skills.
Among his early professional work were advertising jingles connected with companies including State Farm, McDonald’s, Dr Pepper, and Stri-Dex.
Eventually his career moved to another level.
By the 1970s, Barry Manilow was becoming one of America’s most recognizable singers.
His life was changing quickly.
“Mandy” Changed Everything
Barry’s recording career exploded after the success of “Mandy.”
The song became one of the recordings most strongly associated with him and helped establish his identity as a major pop singer.
More hits followed.
“Can’t Smile Without You.”
“Looks Like We Made It.”
“Copacabana.”
“I Write the Songs.”
Suddenly the young man Susan had married was known by millions.
But Susan was no longer beside him.
That contrast is one of the biggest reasons people continue finding her story interesting.
Susan Chose a Different Life
Barry became a public figure.
Susan did not.
There are no decades of major celebrity interviews featuring her.
She did not release a tell-all book about their marriage.
She did not become an entertainment television personality.
She did not appear to build a business around the fact that she had once been Barry Manilow’s wife.
Instead, Susan largely disappeared from the celebrity spotlight.
Considering how famous Barry eventually became, that is quite remarkable.
What Did Susan Deixler Do After Barry Manilow?
Reliable information about Susan’s later professional life is limited.
Recent secondary biographies have claimed that she became involved in health, wellness, or holistic healing and community-related work. However, these details are not documented nearly as strongly as the facts surrounding her marriage to Barry.
That means they should be treated carefully.
Susan has lived much of her adult life as a private person.
When someone deliberately stays out of public life, there may simply not be enough trustworthy information to create a complete career timeline.
That is better than filling the gaps with guesses.
Did Susan Deixler Remarry?
Susan’s later romantic life is not clearly documented by major authoritative sources.
Some online biographies make claims about whether she remarried or had a family, but reliable confirmation is limited.
For that reason, it would be misleading to present those claims as certain.
What can safely be said is that Susan did not remain publicly linked with Barry after their marriage ended.
She moved forward with her own life.
And she appears to have valued privacy while doing so.
Susan Deixler and Barry Manilow After Their Separation
There is little public evidence suggesting that Susan and Barry maintained a highly visible relationship after the annulment.
Their lives moved in very different directions.
Barry became increasingly famous.
Susan remained private.
Decades later, however, Barry spoke warmly about their early relationship.
He did not describe Susan as someone he had never truly loved.
Quite the opposite.
That became particularly important when another major chapter of his personal life became public.
Barry Manilow’s Later Relationship With Garry Kief
In 1978, Barry began a relationship with television executive Garry Kief.
Kief also became Manilow’s manager.
Their relationship remained extremely private for decades.
In 2014, the couple married after same-sex marriage had become legal in California. News of the private ceremony became public later.
Barry publicly discussed his sexuality in 2017.
That naturally caused people to look back at his marriage to Susan and ask a question.
Had he ever loved her?
Barry addressed that too.
Barry Said His Sexuality Was Not Why the Marriage Failed
When Barry publicly discussed being gay, his earlier marriage suddenly received renewed attention.
Some people assumed this must explain why he had left Susan.
Barry said otherwise.
He stated that he had been genuinely in love with Susan and that his sexuality was not the reason their marriage ended. Instead, he again pointed toward his youth, immaturity, and intense desire to pursue a music career.
This is an important distinction.
It keeps Susan’s story from being rewritten decades later in a way Barry himself has rejected.
How Susan Reacted to Barry Manilow’s Later Life
Susan has generally avoided publicly discussing Barry.
That continued even as media attention around his private life increased.
She did not appear to use his later revelations as an opportunity to become famous herself.
That silence says something about how she has handled her connection to an extremely famous former partner.
Susan could easily have spent years telling stories about Barry.
Instead, she largely kept her memories private.
Why Susan Deixler Stayed Out of the Spotlight
There may not be one simple answer.
Not everyone wants fame.
Being connected to a famous person does not automatically mean someone wants television interviews, red carpets, social-media attention, or tabloid stories.
Susan had already separated from Barry before his greatest success.
By the time he became globally recognizable, they had been apart for years.
Her life was therefore not necessarily a “celebrity wife” experience in the way people might imagine.
Their marriage belonged to an earlier Barry.
Susan Deixler’s Age
Susan’s exact birth date is not reliably established in the best-known mainstream biographical sources.
Because she was Barry’s high-school sweetheart, it is reasonable to understand that they were from roughly the same generation.
But an exact age should not be invented without trustworthy documentation.
This is where many celebrity biography websites make mistakes.
One website publishes an unsupported birthday.
Another copies it.
Soon the same date appears everywhere and begins looking like an established fact.
Repeating something does not make it true.
Where Was Susan Deixler Born?
Susan is strongly associated with New York because her relationship with Barry developed while they were young in Brooklyn.
However, detailed records of her birthplace and early childhood are not nearly as well documented publicly as Barry Manilow’s biography.
Again, this reflects the fact that Susan was never a major public figure.
Barry gave interviews for decades.
Susan largely did not.
Naturally, far more information exists about him.
Susan Deixler’s Education
Susan and Barry knew each other during their school years.
Secondary accounts have described Susan as an active student and have made additional claims about education and later interests.
However, a complete and independently verified educational history for Susan is difficult to establish through major public records.
The strongest part of her early biography remains her relationship with Barry.
They were young sweethearts.
They married.
And within a short period, their paths separated.
Susan Deixler’s Career
People frequently search for Susan’s profession.
Unfortunately, there is no single, extensively documented public career biography available for her.
Some more recent profiles have connected Susan with holistic healing, wellness, and helping older adults.
These claims may be accurate, but they come largely through secondary profiles rather than extensive first-hand records.
So the safest description is that Susan built a private life outside entertainment after her marriage ended.
She did not pursue the public music career Barry did.
Susan Deixler’s Net Worth
Another common search is:
What is Susan Deixler’s net worth?
The most accurate answer is that it is not publicly verified.
Susan has not had a widely documented entertainment career, and there are no credible public financial disclosures giving a precise figure for her personal wealth.
Websites sometimes publish numbers anyway.
Those figures should be treated as estimates or speculation.
Barry Manilow’s wealth cannot simply be counted as Susan’s wealth because their marriage ended decades before his greatest commercial success.
Does Susan Deixler Use Social Media?
There is no widely recognized verified social-media account representing Susan Deixler as Barry Manilow’s former wife.
This is important because several people can have the same name.
Finding an Instagram or Facebook profile called “Susan Deixler” does not automatically mean it belongs to her.
Given Susan’s long history of privacy, readers should be especially careful about accounts claiming to represent her without reliable verification.
Where Is Susan Deixler Today in 2026?
Susan remains largely outside public life in 2026.
There is no major stream of recent interviews, appearances, or verified social-media updates revealing her everyday activities.
Recent biographies continue to discuss her mainly through her early marriage to Barry and her later preference for privacy.
That may disappoint readers hoping for a dramatic “where is she now?” story.
But sometimes the truthful answer is simple.
A person left celebrity life behind.
And they stayed away.
Why Susan Deixler’s Story Still Fascinates Barry Manilow Fans
Susan represents a version of Barry Manilow that fans never really knew.
She knew him before the hits.
Before the awards.
Before the crowds.
Before millions of people knew his voice.
That gives her a unique place in his biography.
Fans often want to know what famous people were like before fame changed their lives.
Susan’s relationship offers a small window into exactly that period.
Was Susan Deixler Barry Manilow’s Only Wife Before Garry Kief?
Susan was Barry Manilow’s first spouse.
Their marriage ended in the 1960s.
Decades later, Barry married his longtime partner Garry Kief in 2014.
The enormous gap between those relationships is striking.
Barry’s marriage to Susan belonged to his youth.
His relationship with Garry developed after he had already entered professional entertainment.
They represent very different periods of his life.
Interesting Facts About Susan Deixler
Susan Deixler was Barry Manilow’s high-school sweetheart.
They married in June 1964.
Barry was still years away from his biggest musical success.
Their marriage lasted only a short time.
Susan had the marriage annulled in January 1966, according to IMDb.
Barry later said that he genuinely loved Susan.
He also described her very positively while explaining that his musical ambitions and immaturity contributed to the marriage ending.
They had no publicly documented children together.
Susan did not attempt to build a celebrity career from her connection to Barry.
Her current personal life remains largely private.
Susan Deixler’s Place in Barry Manilow’s Life Story
Every long career has an early chapter that looks completely different from everything that follows.
Susan belongs to that chapter of Barry’s life.
She knew him before audiences filled theaters to hear him sing.
She was his sweetheart before music became his profession.
She became his wife before anyone could predict how famous he would become.
And then, just as his professional dreams began demanding more attention, their relationship ended.
That does not make the marriage meaningless.
If anything, Barry’s later comments show that he remembered Susan with affection.
Final Thoughts
Susan Deixler’s story is not really about celebrity.
It is about timing.
She fell in love with Barry Manilow when both were young and their futures remained unwritten. They married in 1964, long before Barry became one of America’s best-known singers.
But Barry wanted music more than he was ready for married life.
Their relationship ended, Susan had the marriage annulled, and Barry moved forward with his career.
That career eventually became extraordinary.
Susan chose a completely different road.
She stayed away from show business and largely protected her private life, even when Barry’s fame made people curious about her.
Decades later, Barry made one thing clear: his marriage to Susan was real to him. He said he loved her, and he did not blame the marriage’s failure on his sexual orientation.
That gives their brief relationship a more human ending.
Susan Deixler was not simply “Barry Manilow’s first wife.”
She was the young woman who knew and loved him before the world discovered Barry Manilow.
FAQs About Susan Deixler
Who is Susan Deixler?
Susan Deixler is best known as Barry Manilow’s high-school sweetheart and first wife.
When did Susan Deixler marry Barry Manilow?
Susan and Barry married in June 1964.
How long were Susan Deixler and Barry Manilow married?
Their marriage was very short. They married in 1964, separated after roughly a year, and the marriage was annulled in 1966.
Why did Barry Manilow leave Susan Deixler?
Barry later said his intense desire to pursue a music career, combined with his immaturity at the time, contributed to his decision to leave the marriage.
Did Barry Manilow love Susan Deixler?
Yes. Barry later stated that he had genuinely been in love with Susan and spoke warmly about her.
Did their marriage end because Barry Manilow is gay?
Barry said no. After publicly discussing his sexuality, he explained that his marriage to Susan did not end because of it.
Did Susan Deixler and Barry Manilow have children?
There are no publicly documented children from their marriage.
Did Susan Deixler remarry?
Her later romantic and marital history is not reliably documented by major public sources.
What does Susan Deixler do for a living?
Some secondary reports connect her later life with wellness or holistic-healing work, but her complete professional history is not strongly documented in authoritative sources.
What is Susan Deixler’s net worth?
Susan’s personal net worth has not been publicly verified.
Where is Susan Deixler now?
She has maintained a private life, and reliable details about her day-to-day activities in 2026 are limited.
Is Susan Deixler on social media?
There is no widely recognized verified public social-media profile clearly belonging to Barry Manilow’s former wife.
Who did Barry Manilow marry after Susan Deixler?
Many years later, Barry married his longtime partner and manager, Garry Kief, in 2014.
For more detailed celebrity-family biographies, hidden life stories, and interesting profiles behind famous names, visit Topper Magazine.
