NEWS

Story by Peter Sheridan Daily Express 2 August 2025

Tanned dark like antique oak, bejewelled as a Las Vegas cardsharp and still sporting his trademark bushy mutton-chop sideburns, Engelbert Humperdinck sips at his martini - "gin with a splash of dry vermouth, no ice, shaken, with a twist" - and gives the waiter a nod of approval. "I wanted to be James Bond," says the singer who, in addition to his penchant for martinis, has enjoyed a life that 007 might envy - jet-setting around the world with beautiful women throwing themselves at him.

"Sadly I'm too old to think of acting now," says the 89-year-old. "It's a regret. But I wanted to be an actor. A singer acts on stage, changing emotions on the spot. I received scripts from Hollywood, but my manager dumped them all in the trash.

"He didn't want me spending six months making a movie when I could be on the road performing and selling merchandise. I had no say in it."

Yet Englebert isn't complaining about the success he enjoyed, selling more than 150 million records, with 63 gold and 24 platinum albums, a Golden Globe and four Grammy nominations. His hits include The Last Waltz, There Goes My Everything, and 1967 smash Release Me, which stayed on the charts for 56 consecutive weeks and deprived the Beatles of their 13th consecutive No.1 with double-header Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields.

Even today his music videos attract more than 17 million views on social media, and his hit A Man Without Love has 167 million streams.

Engelbert is returning to England for a concert tour in September before a 30-date European tour stretching into December. He is also finishing up a new album of 'Eighties rock classics, with the original musicians from bands including Aerosmith, Journey, Kiss and The Cars.

"I don't need the money, I'm doing it because it's what I love," he says, though he no longer has his fleet of 14 Rolls Royces.

"Performing is my life's blood, and as long as I have a breath in my body I want to keep singing. I'll keep going until God calls me. I don't do all the dancing I used to do on stage, but I can still move around. I can still carry a three-and-a-half octave range."

Yet he walks slightly gingerly to our luncheon table, and opts for the support offered by a hard-backed chair. He has made no secret of dying his hair black since going prematurely grey at 25, and though his sideburns are not as luxuriant as they once were, he remains remarkable for his years.

In an opulent Beverly Hills restaurant on a street famed for its plastic surgeons, Engelbert dips Calamari into a trio of hot sauces and licks the juice from his fingers with care.

"I've never had cosmetic surgery on my face, and never will," he says.

"It can look unnatural, ridiculous. There's nothing I can do about being 89, but I try to keep myself as young as possible."

He dazzles indiscreetly. A diamond that could poke your eye out sits atop his left hand beside a hefty gold ring, and on his right hand a diamond-studded lucky horseshoe ring sparkles loudly. A large diamond-studded crucifix is hidden beneath his crisp blue-and-white patterned shirt, which in the Sixties would have been ripped from his back by screaming fans before he even sat down for hors d'oeuvres.

Over the years tens of thousands of panties, bras and hotel room keys have been thrown at him on stage. Women still toss him their room keys, he laughs, "but only after they've checked out the hotel."

He feels isolated since Patricia, his wife of 56 years, died in 2021, but he no longer has time for sex-hungry women. "I have no interest any more," he admits. "Of course I'm lonely. But if women come forward I don't act on it. I lost my soulmate, and I want to respect her memory."

Some might say he should have thought of that 50 years ago. Patricia once complained that her husband had "enough paternity suits to wallpaper a bedroom".

He shrugs. "Of course I regret my indiscretions. One always thinks the grass is greener, but it's not. I always apologised, but you can't wipe it away with an apology.

"She knew the business had its temptations, and she understood. She was a very classy lady. We had our ups and downs, but never fierce. I never wanted to hurt her. It wasn't always easy, but we stayed together."

His wife developed Alzheimer's disease over her final decade, and Engelbert says: "I tried everything to cure her. I took her to Germany for stem cell treatment, experimental injections in Los Angeles. Nothing helped. I'm convinced they have a cure for Alzheimer's, but Big Pharma won't let it out because of the money involved in treating it. I believe they have a cure for most diseases, and suppress them. It's disgusting."

Her death transformed him irrevocably.

"Losing my darling changed me forever," he says, his green eyes misting up. "I've learned a lot more, and feel the music a lot more. I read a lyric very differently now after losing my darling. My home is not the same without her."

Regrets, he has a few.

"I should be a billionaire," he says. "I've made some terrible choices, financially. I'd play to 100,000 people a night but have nothing to do with the merchandise. I lost out on millions. I never saw any of it."

He also regrets missing out on making Strangers In The Night a big hit.

"I recorded the song, but before I could release it Frank Sinatra wanted it, and the songwriter gave it to him. It was a huge hit, as I knew it would be. Decca searched for my original recording recently, but couldn't find it. So sad."

And he laments parting with his iconic Beverly Hills home famed as Jayne Mansfield's former Pink Palace, complete with heart-shaped pool. "I should never have sold it," he says, now living in "a small place in Bel Air," where he labours to stay in shape.

"I work out in the pool every day for 45 minutes, doing steps and martial arts moves," he says. He still has his 25-acre estate in Leicester, and says: "I love going back. I live in Bel Air, but I call Leicester home."

Born Arnold Dorsey in Madras, India, the ninth of ten children to a British Army Captain, he moved to Leicester at the age of 11.

Conscripted by National Service, he was stationed in Germany and recalls: "I was there the same time as Elvis was in the US Army, though he was a star and I was a nobody. Years later we became friends. He was a lovely man."

Arnold struggled for years, playing small clubs for little pay.

"I slept on park benches, in phone boxes and public toilets and then performed in clubs the next day," he recalls. "Many times I thought of giving up."

He lived on the dole, and received the last rites when near death with tuberculosis.

But in 1967 he was asked to appear as a last-minute replacement on ITV's The London Palladium Show, and having recently adopted the stage name of a little-known German classical composer, his career soared.

Yet he never legally changed his name from Dorsey to Humperdinck, explaining: "Engelbert is work, Arnold is reality." He is among the last survivors of his era of pop stars-turned-Las Vegas lounge entertainers.

"Elvis is gone now, like so many of the singers I knew," he says. "Tony Bennet was a gentleman, so good to me. Frank Sinatra was a legend, but I never liked the man behind the voice. Elvis told me I reminded him of the twin brother he lost at birth, if he'd lived.

"That's one of the reasons he copied my sideburns. My manager Gordon Mills told me: 'Shave them off, they look ridiculous.' But I kept them, and two years later Tom Jones wore them, Kenny Rogers, even the Beatles had sideburns."

Engelbert and Tom Jones were both in Mills' stable of artists, but over the years the two singers' friendship turned sour.

"We were very great friends, and then it suddenly turned around for some reason," says Engelbert, shaking his head. "To this day, if he offered me his hand I'd take it."

Twenty one years after publishing his autobiography, he is thinking of penning another.

"So much has happened since then, and a lot was left out of my first book, because it might offend people in the music industry," he says. "Now, I'm not so concerned.

"I've had hard times, but I'd do it all again. I've enjoyed my life. And I have so much I still want to do. I'm just getting started."

• Engelbert Humperdinck plays London on September 7; Bournemouth September 8; Liverpool September 10; and Birmingham September 11. Visit aegpresents.co.uk/event/engelbert-humperdinck/ for info and tickets

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/iconic-singer-says-he-would-never-have-plastic-surgery-for-one-reason/ar-AA1JKPB4