Manilow Hospitalized for Chest Pains After Harmony Arbitration

By Kenneth Jones
February 2, 2004

Composer and performer Barry Manilow was hospitalized with chest pain due to stress, the Associated Press reported.

His publicist said Manilow was hospitalized Jan. 31 after returning to the West Coast from New York, where he had been participating in ''two of the most grueling days of arbitration'' over his musical, Harmony, the 2003 tryout production of which was thwarted when producer Mark Schwartz was unable to come up with the needed money. Manilow and co-writer Bruce Sussman had been seeking to get control of the property again.

The musical, about the Comedian Harmonists singing group in Germany in the 1920s, was to have a Philadelphia tryout in November 2003, but days before the cast was to travel to Philly, the producer announced he hadn't come up with millions of needed dollars.

Manilow, who is 57, previously said that the shut-down was the most devastating thing to happen to him since the death of his mother, perhaps moreso, he said, since so many others (designers, actors, technicians, the creative team) were involved in the loss.

The results of the arbitration are not yet known.