Engelbert Humperdinck Biography: In His Own Words – Exclusive Video, News, Photos

Engelbert Humperdinck is a British singer best known for such songs as ”Release Me” and ”The Last Waltz.”

ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK BIOGRAPHY: AGE, EARLY LIFE, FAMILY, EDUCATION

Arnold George Dorsey was born on May 2, 1936 (Engelbert Humperdinck: age 86) in what was then referred to as Madras, British India, but is now known as Chennai, India. His parents, Olive Dorsey and Mervyn Dorsey, a British Army Officer, had ten children altogether.

When Humperdinck was ten years old, his family moved from India to Leicester, England. By the 1950s, he had begun performing on the saxophone in nightclubs. His music career was put on hold in the mid-1950s when Humperdinck was conscripted into the British Army. After his discharge, he recorded singles with Decca Records. Later that same year, Humperdinck switched to Parlophone Records, but his first record was not successful.

In 1959, he joined the The Big Beat Show, a touring show which featured other pop singers as well. He also continued to work in nightclubs, and made a few television appearances.

In 1961, Humperdinck caught tuberculosis. His recovery took nine months, and by then he had to start his music career over again.

ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK BIOGRAPHY: CAREER IN MUSIC

In 1965, Humperdinck adopted his famous stage name, which was borrowed from the famous German composer Engelbert Humperdinck. Speaking to uInterview, Humperdinck revealed the story behind this momentous name change which transformed him from Arnold Dorsey into Engelbert Humperdinck.

“I guess I was a struggling young man who was looking for an opportunity to get into show business,” the singer mused. “I had a name that wasn’t making it, so the manager Gordon Mills who was building a stable of singers, I was one of three, and he gave each one of us a composer’s name, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Tom Jones and myself.”

Humperdinck, along with four other sings, won the Belgian Knokke song contest for Great Britain in 1966.

In 1967, Humperdinck’s recording of “Release Me” topped the charts in the United Kingdom. It also made it to No. 4 of the U.S. Billboard. The song spent 56 weeks in the Top 50, and sold around 85,000 copies a day at its height. Following the enormous success of “Release Me”, Humperdinck was cemented as a rising star in the public’s eye. He immediately released two more hits, “There Goes My Everything” and “The Last Waltz,” which continued his rise to fame.

When speaking about “Release Me”, Humperdinck told uInterview, “I got lucky because I recorded ‘Release Me’ and it sat on a shelf for about three months, and I thought ‘It’s a hit song, why isn’t it taking off?’ But I’d never done a TV show,” Humperdinck continued. “So all the sudden a gentleman got ill in England, and I took his place. It was Sunday night at the London Palladium. I did the show, I did two songs together and then ‘Release Me.’ And then bingo, the next day there were orders for 18,000 a day, 19,000 a day, and this was going on daily… It spread around the world, and gave me a global career.”

Throughout the 70s, Humperdinck continued to focus on creating albums and performing live. He was a regular in Las Vegas, with his usual performance spot being the famous Riviera Hotel. Humperdinck also took to the Broadway stage, where he performed his live show at the Minskoff Theatre.

In 1989, Humperdinck received both a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and his very own Golden Globe Award for entertainer of the year. Humperdinck began to involve himself in several charity organizations. This includes the American Red Cross, the Leukemia Research Fund, and many different institutions dedicated to AIDS relief.

In 2000, Humperdinck once again hit the top 5 of British album charts with Engelbert at His Very Best. Throughout the 2000s, he continued to release new music to critical acclaim as well as to collaborate with several fellow artists.

In 2014, Humperdinck released Engelbert Calling, which finds him collaborating with such artists as Sir Elton John, Willie Nelson, Olivia-Newton John and Gene Simmons.

After the release of his 2017 album The Man I Want to Be, Humperdinck sat down with uInterview to discuss the touching reason why he decided to dedicate this newest album to his wife, Patricia Healey. “My wife has Alzheimer’s, so she can’t follow me to concerts anymore like she used to,” Humperdinck revealed. “But we have hope in our hearts that she will one day very soon, because we’re working on a cure for her… And music is one thing that really, really helps people in that condition, and so I decided to dedicate this album to her.”

In 2022, Humperdinck’s song “A Man Without Love” was featured in the hit Marvel series Moon Knight.

Humperdinck continues to release new music and tour the globe to this day. Tickets are on sale now for Humperdinck’s 2022 tour.

ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK BIOGRAPHY: PERSONAL LIFE

Humperdinck married Patricia Healey in 1964. Together they had four children, and they split their time between houses in Great Britain and Southern California. In 2017, Humperdinck released the news that his wife had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s ten years previous. On February 5, 2021, Healey passed away from COVID-19.

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