Remembering Tony Bennett
- Jul 21, 2023
- 5 min read
With the passing of Tony Bennett today at the age of 96, all the tributes have covered his lengthy, impressive career in detail, so there's no reason to repeat any of that here. I did see him perform in an unlikely venue -- it was at the Consumer Electronics Show, and a company had hired him to sing in one of the casino ballrooms. It wasn't exactly intimate -- casino ballrooms are pretty large -- though it certainly wasn't a big concert hall. And I had a few albums.
While most people have their favorite Tony Bennett song, mine is a bit different for a totally offbeat, personal reason most people here will understand. It's his recording of "If I Ruled the World" -- which I loved, not just for the song (which I do), but even more that it's from the British musical I love, Pickwick, that starred my oft-written about here fave Harry Secombe. And I was so happy as a kid to see the show get some attention for his single. It wasn't a #1 hit for Tony Bennett, but modest enough that he later included it on his Greatest Hits, Volume III album. (Imagine having three albums of greatest hits!) And it was popular enough in his repertoire that he chose to re-record it years later on his big hit Duets album with Celine Dion. (All the more notable an unexpected choice, given the mountain of songs he had to select from, since it isn't written as a duet, but is clearly an "I" song, not "If we ruled the world." But obviously a song that was meaningful to him.)
The only thing I can add to all the Tony Bennett tributes today is that I actually crossed paths with him once. It wasn’t much -- extremely small, in fact -- but memorable. I wrote about it a couple years ago, but this is an appropriate 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-full.
At the time, I was in my "dark period" when I was doing P.R. and working for Universal Pictures. We were putting together 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, downstairs in a dressing room, setting things up and that’s when we finally let everybody know. When we and E.T. got upstairs and were waiting in the wings, I got my own surprise: I saw that Tony Bennett had stayed around, left his dressing room, and 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, which at that time of the E.T. phenomenon was really a notable part of pop culture history, and seemed almost giddy waiting with us. If I recall correctly, he said his kids would be thrilled by this.
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 the dressing room to go upstairs to the stage. It’s a little out of focus because we were all literally rushing to time our arrival onstage to the very last moment before the music ended, still so as not to give anything away to anyone -- and I stopped the departure for a few seconds 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.
We made it up in time, I wasn't fired, and all of us waited in the stage-right wings, as I said. "All of us" at this point included Tony Bennett. Excited, anticipating and very memorable.
Memorable now, for another reason. I didn't remotely know Tony Bennett, but I'm glad I got to cross paths with him. And see him genuinely pleased by something that was no more, but no less than a wonderful pop cultural moment.
His own pop cultural moment lasted 73 years.
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