My Tony Moment

Last night, CBS aired it's One Last Time special with Tony Bennett -- who has Alzheimer's -- giving his final concert at Radio City Music Hall with Lady Gaga.  The show was impressive and movie.

I actually crossed paths with him once.  It wasn’t much, but memorable.  And I think this is a good occasion to repeat the story.  To be clear, it's about more than just Tony Bennett, but without telling the full thing for it's proper perspective, the moment would just be a glass a half-full.  Actually, more like a quarter.

At the time, I was in my "dark period" doing P.R. and working for Universal Pictures.  We were doing a very special, “top secret” promotion at the Hollywood Bowl that I was put in charge of coordinating the on-site logistics.  This was right after the movie E.T came out and was a massive national phenomenon.  The film’s composer John Williams was conducting an evening of his music, which was going to end with a suite from E.T. -- and it would finish with a surprise fireworks display, lighting up the Hollywood Bowl’s dome, sort of like it was a rocket ship.  But the real surprise – after the audience had gotten all excited by the fireworks, thinking that was the surprise -- was that the “real E.T” was going to waddle out on stage, in person, shake John William’s hand, turn and bow to the audience and then waddle off.
 
Putting it all together was a total secret from everyone – even Tony Bennett who was the opening act that night.  Not a word was leaked.  But right before The Moment, we were backstage setting things up and that’s when we finally let everybody know.  When we and E.T. got upstairs and waiting in the wings, I got my own surprise, seeing that Tony Bennett had come up and joined us, excited for the big moment which he wanted to see.  I always thought that was great and showed a real warm personality – it wasn’t a case of “Okay, I’m done, I did my concert, I’m out of here.”  He wanted to see the cool moment, and seemed almost giddy waiting with us.
 
And it was great.  The audience loved the concert, both halves.  And when the E.T. suite began, the recognizable themes of this phenomenon ratcheted up the audience's reaction higher.  But then when the first few fireworks started, timed to the music building to a crescendo, they were shocked and began cheering.  And then the bowl itself lit up entirely with fireworks exploding into the sky, and the audience began going wild – because they thought they’d seen it all.  But backstage off in the wings, we were so excited because we knew that they hadn’t even seen the surprise yet! 

And then…at the right moment, as the cheering built to a peak, we said – “Go.”  And E.T. waddled out on stage – keep in mind that, as I said, this was at the very height of the movie’s phenomenon, and also no one had ever seen E.T. in public before – and to our surprise, the reaction was not at all what we expected.  At first, there was an explosive roar, but it last only about two seconds, and then the entire Hollywood Bowl, over 16,000 people, became instantly silent.  Everyone was riveted and watching and wanted to see if E.T. was going to say anything (he didn’t) and didn’t want to miss a second of what was happening.  Only when he turned to leave and was almost off the stage did the place start cheering again.
 
This is a photo I had someone take backstage, literally seconds before we left to go upstairs to the stage.  It’s a little out of focus because we were all literally rushing to time it to the very last moment before the music ended, still so as not to give anything away -- and I stopped everyone to get the picture.  (I didn’t care, I was going to get the picture!!)  But I knew we couldn’t wait for the guy to get everything in focus, if it wasn’t already.

As a tangential bonus, just to let you know I didn't let the entire evening go without having a proper photo -- before we had to rush up and there was still a little time, I took my own picture of E.T. and made sure beforehand that I got it in focus, even if I knew that the person I'd be quickly handing the camera to for the "rushed photo" of the two of us might not.