Hearts were left broken from the Hell Gate to the Golden Gate Friday morning as the death of legendary singer Tony Bennett was announced.
Bennett, Astoria’s most famous son, best known for 1962’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” was 96.
Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on Aug. 3, 1926, at St. John’s Hospital in Long Island City, Bennett grew up in a four-story walkup at 21-15 33 St. His father was grocer John Benedetto and his mother seamstress Anna, nee Suraci, and, according to Wikipedia, he was the first member of his family to be born in a hospital.
“Bennett grew up listening to Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Judy Garland, and Bing Crosby as well as jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, and Joe Venuti,” the online encyclopedia says. “His uncle Dick was a tap dancer in vaudeville, giving him an early window into show business, and his uncle Frank was the Queens borough library commissioner. By age 10 he was already singing, and performed at the opening of the Triborough Bridge, standing next to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who patted him on the head.
“Drawing was another early passion of his; he became known as the class caricaturist at PS 141 and anticipated a career in commercial art. He began singing for money at age 13, performing as a singing waiter in several Italian restaurants around his native Queens.”
Bennett quit school at 16 and worked as a copy boy and runner for the Associated Press along with various other jobs. But he always planned a professional singing career.
He was drafted into the Army in November 1944 and sent to Europe. Though Nazi Germany was on its heels, six months of bitter warfare remained and Bennett took part in brutal combat including house-to-house fighting. He later described his position on the front lines as a “front-row seat in hell” and he became a pacifist, writing, "Anybody who thinks that war is romantic obviously hasn't gone through one.”
After the war, Bennett studied singing technique under the GI Bill. He worked as a waiter and performed when he could. In 1949, the singer Pearl Bailey asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village, at a show attended by Bob Hope. Hope was so impressed he took young Anthony on the road with him and got him to simplify his name to Tony Bennett.
He was signed to Columbia Records the following year and started putting out hits — “Because of You,” “Blue Velvet,” “Rags to Riches” and more. He performed a heavy schedule of shows at the Paramount Theatre before screaming teen fans. He continued to enjoy success even as rock ’n’ roll pushed into the entertainment space occupied by pop songs and standards, famously performing a 44-song show at Carnegie Hall in June 1962 and singing on the first episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” that October.
Earlier that year he had released “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” — as a B side to a song called “Once Upon a Time.”
“The A-side received no attention,” Wikipedia says, “and DJs began flipping the record over and playing ‘San Francisco.’
“It became a hit on the pop singles chart in 1962 and spent close to a year on various other charts, achieving gold record status. It then won the top prize of Grammy Award for Record of the Year, as well as for Best Male Solo Vocal Performance.”
The song became the City of San Francisco’s second official anthem and is played every time the Giants win a ballgame at home. A statue of Bennett was unveiled outside the Fairmont Hotel there in 2016 and a block of Mason Street was renamed Tony Bennett Way in 2018.
Throughout it all, Bennett was a New Yorker who never forgot his Queens roots, not by a long shot.
In December 2000, he addressed guidance counselors and other staffers at what was then Community School District 28 in Forest Hills, pitching them on the planned Frank Sinatra School for the Arts in Long Island City he was establishing.
