Pat Boone is “glad” to have been seen as a wholesome family man.
The 88-year-old singer-and-actor - who sold more than 45 million records, had 38 Top 40 hits, and appeared in more than 12 Hollywood films - is happy to be seen as “a square” throughout his long career in Hollywood.
He told the US edition of Closer magazine: “My wife and I moved to California when my career was in full bloom. I said, ‘We’re not going to adopt Beverly Hills standards, we’re going to live by Tennessee standards.; Those values have stuck with me my whole life. We raised our kids going to school and church, and people thought of me as a square. I was associated with all the good things, which I was glad about."
Pat - who was married to wife Shirley for 65 years until she died in 2019 - still lives in his and his wife’s marital home where they raised their four daughters, Debby, Laurey, Cherry and Linda, because of the “memories”.
He said: “I still say we’ve been married for 67 years. Two of those years she’s been in heaven! I’m living in the same house we lived in for 62 years - I fight off the realtors with a stick! We paid $159,000 in 1960, and I’ve turned down $20 million because it’s filled with our memories. Everywhere I look it’s Shirley, the girls, us doing things together. It’s a memory bank of everything that's happened in my life.”
The ‘State Fair’ star gave insight into his “wonderful, close-knit” home growing up as a child.
Pat said: “I grew up in a wonderful, close-knit family. Daddy was a building contractor and architect; Mama was a registered nurse. I have a brother and two sisters. We were a churchgoing family. When I came along, we were in the early struggling days with my dad and his contracting company in Nashville. It became very successful, but at first it was a struggle for him economically.”
