It was a real hand-to-mouth existence in those early days - I'd have whatever dry cereal there was in the house for breakfast, 30 cents to spend on lunch and a hot dog for dinner. I did that for years. So there was definitely a hunger in me, of various kinds, to succeed.

Both Bach and Diamond sued the film's producer. The unintended but happy consequence was that Diamond began to gain fame not only as a singer and performer but also as a songwriter. Thus he told Bang ".

Additionally he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and in 2011 was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors. Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24 1941) is an American singer-songwriter with a career that began in the 1960s.