News > Tony Bennett Swings Through Six Decades on NBC
November 21, 2006
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It's the late '60s, and despite the British Invasion, Tony Bennett is on the radio. A mother and daughter dance around an apartment to his tunes.
Thirty years later, that daughter would take her children to an outdoor Bennett concert and twirl them around. They would not remember this perfect night, but it was imperative they had the experience. Tony Bennett is that important. He is the king of cool, and amazingly, manages to be hot -- no mean feat at 80.
Since his first hit song, "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams" in 1950, he has sung in a way that makes people feel his songs. What's truly amazing is that his records have charted in every decade since. His latest, "Duets: An American Classic," entered Billboard Top 200 at No. 3, making it his highest-debuting album. An MTV icon and winner of 12 Grammy Awards, Bennett remains in top voice.
This is evident in NBC's "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" Tuesday, Nov. 21. The exquisite special looks more like a Broadway musical, or a high-end concert with set and costume changes, than most broadcast concerts.
From the opening moments where Bennett, alone onstage, sings with eyes closed, the experience is so pure and so intense it's like watching a true believer pray.
Sitting on a backless white chair, with a Japanese shade filtering the light behind him in his Central Park South studio, Bennett acknowledges that he loses himself in song.
"Almost to a fault, in my opinion," he says. "I am very moved by the fact that at my age I am still singing. I learned from George Burns and Jack Benny that if you are hot, don't quit."
In the special's first duet, Barbra Streisand joins him, setting the stage for an evening of elegance. He sings with John Legend, Elton John, Diana Krall and Michael Buble, and all look as if they know this is one of the best times of their lives. When Bennett and k.d. lang sing "Because of You," she gazes at him adoringly.
As to whether he could see the other singers' awe, Bennett pauses, laughs and says, "No, not really."
Director and producer Rob Marshall, however, says he saw that in everyone, including himself, Christina Aguilera and Juanes as he taped for seven weeks to make the one-hour special.
Marshall's legend moment hit him when he was about to direct Bennett, on a bare stage, singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Marshall says he recalls thinking, "This is historic, and everybody working with him knows it."
"Everything was live," says Marshall, who directed "Chicago." "Tony sings live because he doesn't know how to lip-sync. It's always different."
Even with Bennett's signature song, he always looks for some new twist. "He was influenced by those jazz musicians in the late '40s," Marshall says. "He really was. That's how he learned how to sing."
Even those who don't share songs with him, including John Travolta and Billy Crystal, talk about Bennett's life. The special features 10 numbers that highlight the different stages of Bennett's career, including jazz clubs, TV specials and Las Vegas.
Crystal gives a brief biography of Anthony Dominick Benedetto, whose mother, a seamstress, reared him, his brother and sister in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y.
As anyone who watches Bennett could predict, he does not put on airs. He plays tennis three times a week in the old neighborhood. While other superstars have handlers, Bennett enters a small room alone. He wears a navy blazer, gray slacks, black shoes and a crisp white shirt, open at the neck. His aquamarine eyes remain clear, and though they have seen everything from losing his father at 10 to freeing Jews from Nazi concentration camps, they still sparkle.
"It all comes out of loving what you do," he says. "I spent my life singing and painting, and the fact that it's simplified, it all works out."
He apologizes for name-dropping when he relays a story about someone famous. In his autobiography, "The Good Life," he writes that Frank Sinatra was his best friend and that he has sang for nine presidents.
Sinatra told everyone how Bennett was his favorite singer, and that jump-started his career, Bennett says.
"When I first met Sinatra, I was very nervous because Perry Como gave me his summer replacement television show, and I didn't know what to do, so I met Sinatra on a whim," he says. "Sinatra said, 'Don't sing cheap songs, only sing great songs.' I told him how nervous I was. He told me, 'The public will support you. Don't worry about money. The money will follow.'"
It has followed, and he used the money to help others. He bought a house for his mom, raised millions for charity and built the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens. Considering how flamboyantly he could live, Bennett chooses to live rather simply.
His art studio is a few doors from his apartment, overlooking Central Park. Giant windows frame the peaceful studio. His portrait of one of his heroes, Duke Ellington, hangs on a wall.
Bennett's no dilettante; one of his paintings of Central Park hangs in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Cary Grant, notoriously tight with a dime, was the first person to buy one of Bennett's paintings. Bennett wanted to give it to him, but Grant insisted on buying it.
Bennett paints or sketches daily and is always learning three new songs. On this night, he was going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's opening of an exhibit on American painters in Paris.
He performs seven nights a month and was about to go to London to appear on Michael Parkinson's interview show and "Pop Idol," the British version of "American Idol."
Clearly he has no intention of slowing down. Standing straight, gray curly hair backlit from the magnificent light pouring through those windows, Bennett says, "I have so much to learn and it takes time. I keep trying to get better in singing and especially in painting."
