Tony Bennett, Legendary Musician, Dead at 96

Tony Bennett, whose decades-spanning career as the preeminent singer of the 20th and 21st centuries includes his signature 1962 hit song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” has died, The Associated Press reports. He was 96. Bennett’s publicist, Sylvia Weiner, confirmed the pop vocalist died Friday morning in his hometown of New York. Weiner did not disclose a cause of death, but Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016. The winner of 19 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Award, Bennett had 24 songs in the Top 40, including “I Wanna Be Around,” “The Good Life,” and “Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me).”

Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3rd, 1926, Bennett was raised in the Astoria section of Queens, New York. After his father died when Bennett was 10 years old, his mother, Anna, raised him with his older brother and sister, John and Mary. Bennett went on to attend the High School of Industrial Arts in Manhattan, where he developed a love for music from listening to Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and James Durante on the radio.

A teenage Bennett sang while waiting tables before enlisting in the Army during World War II. While in Europe, he performed with military bands and later had vocal studies at the American Theatre Wing School. It was in 1949 when comedian Bob Hope christened him “Tony Bennett” that the singer, then performing under the stage name “Joe Bari,” had his big break.

“Bob Hope came down to check out my act. He liked my singing so much that after the show he came back to see me in my dressing room and said, ‘Come on kid, you’re going to come to the Paramount and sing with me,’” Bennett recalled. “But first, he told me he didn’t care for my stage name and asked me what my real name was. I told him, ‘My name is Anthony Dominick Benedetto,’ and he said, ‘We’ll call you Tony Bennett.’ And that’s how it happened. A new Americanized name-the start of a wonderful career and a glorious adventure that has continued for over 60 years.”

Bennett also credited Frank Sinatra for boosting his public profile after the world-famous entertainer called Bennett “the best in the business” in a 1965 Life magazine interview. As one of just a handful of artists to have new albums chart in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, the 2000s, and the 2010s, Bennett sold ten million records in the past decade alone. A career resurgence came in the mid-1990s when he became a staple of MTV, his 1994 album Tony Bennett: MTV Unplugged winning the Grammy for Record of the Year and introducing the entertainer to a new generation of fans.

Bennett’s last performance was with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall in August 2021. “Love for Sale,” the sequel to Bennett and Gaga’s 2014 album “Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Cheek To Cheek,” was Bennett’s final studio album. The Grammy-winning “Cheek to Cheek” debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 album charts, making Bennett the oldest artist to have a #1 album at age 88. He previously achieved the #1 spot on the Billboard Album charts with his 2011 album “Duets II,” which featured collaborations with Gaga, Amy Winehouse, Michael Bublé, and Aretha Franklin. It followed 2006’s “Duets: An American Classic,” which became one of Bennett’s best-selling albums with performances by such seminal artists as Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Barbra Streisand.

Bennett is also remembered as an active humanitarian. Along with founding Exploring the Arts (ETA) and Frank Sinatra School of the Arts (FSSA) with his wife, Susan Benedetto, Bennett raised millions for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and his paintings helped raise funds forthe American Cancer Society’s cancer research.

Bennett is survived by his wife Susan, his sons Danny and Dae, his daughters Johanna and Antonia, and nine grandchildren.