The crooner, who was best known for the son “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”, has died at the age of 96.
Remembering the legendary crooner, here we look back at interesting facts about the singer, who charmed generations with his extraordinary singing talent.
Born as Anthony Dominick Benedetto in Astoria, Queens, New York, into a poor family of Italian immigrant parents. Bennett was raised in poverty as his father was a grocer and his mother a seamstress.
He started working at a very young age and performed at the opening of the Triborough Bridge, now known as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, at the age of 10.
Very few people know that he fought in the last few years of World War II and participated in the Liberation of a German death camp in southern Germany.
The singer was honoured with the prestigious Kennedy Center Honour for his contribution to music.
As a tribute to his friend Frank Sinatra, the crooner co-founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in his hometown of Astoria, Queens.
He got his first superhit song “Because of You” in 1951, and then there was no turning back for Bennett.
The song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” changed the trajectory of his career. The classic, which is considered Bennett’s signature song.
In the book All The Things You Are: The Life of Tony Bennett, the singer revealed his near-fatal drug overdose in the 1970s. The singer confessed that he got addicted to drugs to forget his financial crises. “I used to take pills—uppies, downies, and sleepies,” Tony revealed in the book.
At the age of 88, Bennett made history by becoming the oldest living performer with a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart for “Cheek to Cheek”.
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