Tony Bennett is an American singer, and performer whose updated net worth is $110 million. Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born in Queens, New York (USA) on August 3rd, 1926. From Italian origins, Anthony Benedetto was born in Astoria, a district from Queens (New York City). His father was a grocery employee, and died when he was about ten, and his mother had to work as a seamstress to support the family.
Debut at 10
One of his uncles was a tap dancer in vaudeville roles, and it was he who brought him into show business. As a ten-year-old Anthony was already singing, and in 1936, he performed in front of New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the opening of the Triborough Bridge, a network of three famous bridges linking the main districts of the city.
He studied at the High School of Industrial Art not only music but also painting, an art he continues to practice successfully (he signs his paintings as Benedetto). But he had to leave the center at age 16 to help his family financially. His musical career started singing in several Italian restaurants in Queens.
Soldier in Germany
At the age of 18, in November 1944, he was enlisted to fight in Germany during World War II; he took part in the 63rd Infantry Division and participated in the liberation of the Landsberg concentration camp. At the end of the conflict, he remained for a time in the country, forming part of a musical band that entertained the occupying forces. The harsh experiences of the war reaffirmed his pacifist ideology.
Re-baptized by Bob Hope
Back in the United States, he continued acting without much pretense until he was discovered by actress and singer Pearl Bailey, who chose him as an opening act in a show that she offered in Greenwich Village. He was seen in this show by the popular actor Bob Hope, who convinced himself of the value of the young singer and decided to take him on a tour, although he suggested that he changed his name: Anthony Benedetto would be called Tony Bennett.
Animated by Hope, in 1950, Bennett recorded a demo of the song “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and sent it to Columbia Records, a record company belonging to the multinational CBS; he was hired and thus began his professional takeoff.
Success: from music to television
His first stage of artistic and commercial heyday spanned the 1950s and early 1960s. Bennett achieved his first hit in 1951 with the song “Because of You” (which sold more than a million single albums) and expanded his audience Thanks to the country sound of “Cold, Cold Heart”.
In 1962, Tony Bennett starred in a resounding recital at Carnegie Hall and recorded his iconic song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”, which won two Grammy Awards, and it is considered one of the hundred best in history. But a few years later, began to fall matching with a shift in the majority tastes, more inclined to the Beatles and rock & roll. He began a decline that would lead him to abuse cocaine and suffer economic problems.
From 2000
Tony Bennett remains a popular and critically acclaimed singer, and continues to address concerts and albums with the faithful collaboration of his sons Danny and Dae.
