Hours after telling a national TV audience he would, Barry Manilow took his newly won Emmy into the hospital with him on Monday as a good-luck charm for his hip surgery.
Apparently it worked.
Manilow came through the operation “swimmingly” and then headed back to his Palm Springs home, his publicist, Carol Marshall, said Monday afternoon.
Manilow’s win came as a bit of a surprise to the Emmy crowd, and to himself.
“He was excited. He didn’t think he’d win,” Marshall said.
In his acceptance speech, he excitedly told TV viewers that he was going bring his statuette into the operating room.
Manilow’s recovery and rehabilitation is expected to take six to eight weeks. Then the celebrated showman plans to jump back into his performance routine.
On Oct. 21, he is scheduled to appear in Chicago, then it’s back to his show at the Las Vegas Hilton on Nov. 8. He is in the middle of a four-year contract with the hotel.
In early November, his new album, “The Greatest Songs of the Sixties,” is due out.
Manilow postponed the arthroscopic surgery — to repair cartilage tears in both hips — so he could attend the Emmys on Sunday night. He performed “Bandstand Boogie,” the theme from Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand,” as part of a tribute to Clark during the show.