Tony Bennett dies: ‘The best singer in the business’ – how words from his idol Frank Sinatra changed his career
“For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business.”
Coming from Frank Sinatra himself, in an interview in 1965, there could be no higher compliment.
Sinatra was a huge influence on Bennett, who has died aged 96.
The pair had become firm friends and went on to perform together several times over the years.
Bennett was the younger singer – Sinatra died in May 1998 at the age of 82.
But as they both matured, Sinatra always continued to call Bennett “kid” – even into old age.
Bennett said his idol’s words in that 1965 article changed his career.
Two years earlier, a then 36-year-old Bennett had picked up his first Grammy for his signature song I Left My Heart In San Francisco.
In 2022, almost 60 years later, the pop and jazz singer was awarded his 20th, sharing the honour with his superstar collaborator Lady Gaga – at the tender age of 95.
Bennett performs with Lady Gaga
During a career in entertainment spanning eight decades, Bennett was one of the last of America’s great crooners – one who achieved the rare feat of only seeming to grow in popularity in later life.
With more than 70 albums to his name, he is perhaps the only artist ever to have had new albums charting in the US in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s – and in 2014, he broke his own record as the oldest living artist to hit the top of the weekly Billboard 200 album chart.
Performing well into his 90s, even after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, Bennett was an entertainer beloved by all generations; Gaga was just one of the modern-day artists he collaborated with in later years.
Paul McCartney, John Legend, Christina Aguilera and Michael Buble, as well as Sinatra, all feature on the long list of others, and his 2011 duet with Amy Winehouse, Body And Soul, was the last song she recorded before her death.
“To me, life is a gift, and it’s a blessing to just be alive,” the singer once said.
It was a quote he became known for, the title of one of his memoirs, and one he used again when he went public about his illness in 2021.
“Life is a gift – even with Alzheimer’s,” was the message shared on his social media accounts in February 2021.
Later that year, he performed his final farewell shows.
Grief, war and discovery
Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on 3 August 1926, in Queens in New York City, to parents John and Anna, the young Tony and his older brother and sister, John and Mary, were raised by their mother following his father’s death when he was aged just 10.
As a child, he loved to sing and paint, and his passions were nurtured at the High School of Industrial Arts in Manhattan.
As he grew older, he developed a love of music listening to artists such as Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong and James ‘Jimmy’ Durante on the radio.
During his teenage years, Bennett sang while waiting tables, before enlisting in the army during the Second World War.
He served in the Battle of the Bulge – the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front, launched in 1944 through the forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg – and participated in the liberation of a concentration camp, according to his official website’s biography.
During his time in Europe, he performed with military bands and, following his return to America, he went on to have vocal studies at the American Theatre Wing School in New York.
The singer’s first nightclub performance came in 1946, alongside trombonist Tyree Glenn at the Shangri-La in Queens’ Astoria neighbourhood.
Three years later came his big break, when comedian Bob Hope noticed him working with actress and singer Pearl Bailey in Greenwich Village.
At the time, he was performing under the stage name of Joe Bari.
‘We’ll call you Tony Bennett’
Hope liked Bennett’s singing so much that he met him in his dressing room afterwards to ask him to perform with him at the city’s famed Paramount Theatre.
There was just one condition.
“But first he told me he didn’t care for my stage name and asked me what my real name was,” Bennett recalled. “I told him, ‘My name is Anthony Dominick Benedetto’. And he said, ‘We’ll call you Tony Bennett’.
“And that’s how it happened. A new Americanised name – the start of a wonderful career and a glorious adventure.”
Bennett’s first singles came in the 1950s, including chart-toppers Because Of You, Rags To Riches, and a remake of Hank Williams’ Cold, Cold Heart.
Dozens more singles followed and his voice took him around the world, selling millions of records and performing to sold-out venues – as well as to numerous stars and presidents.
He went on to release dozens of albums throughout the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, but began to struggle with drug use as his style of music fell out of style.
Following a 10-year absence from the US album charts, he returned with The Art Of Excellence in 1986 and continued releasing music at pace in the 1990s, becoming an unlikely favourite of MTV.
Pic: AP
Legendary duets add to his longevity
In 2001, well into his 70s, the singer was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys – but there was no sign of him slowing down.
He became known for his collaborations and his first modern-day duets album, Duets: An American Classic, was released in 2006, featuring performances with artists including McCartney, Elton John, Barbra Streisand and Bono.
After more than 50 years in the business, it was one of the bestselling records of his career.
Pic: AP
Duets II came in 2011, featuring artists including Aretha Franklin and John Mayer, as well as Gaga and Winehouse.
Debuting at the top of the Billboard charts, it went on to win two Grammys, and his friendship with Gaga led to the release of their first collaborative album, Cheek To Cheek, in 2014.
Their second, Love For Sale, Bennett’s final album, came in 2021.
As well as his music, Bennett was also known for his painting, and had his work exhibited at galleries around the world.
He was even commissioned by the United Nations, painting one piece for the organisation’s 50th anniversary.
He was also the author of five books, including the New York Times bestseller Life Is A Gift: The Zen Of Bennett, published in 2012, and Just Getting Started, released in 2016.
Pic: AP
Family and charitable legacy
A father of four, Bennett was married three times.
At his wedding to first wife Patricia Beech in 1952, some 2,000 female fans reportedly gathered outside the ceremony – dressed in black in mock mourning. The couple went on to have two sons, Danny and Dae, before they separated.
Bennett went on to marry actress Sandra Grant, with whom he had daughters Joanna and Antonia, and in 2007 married long-term partner Susan Crow, now Susan Benedetto.
In 1999, he founded Exploring the Arts with Susan, to help strengthen the role of the arts in public high school education in the US.
One of the organisation’s first projects was the establishment of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, a public high school set up in 2001 in Bennett’s hometown of Astoria, Queens.
The singer’s other charitable endeavours included helping to raise millions of dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, which established a research fund in his name, and lending his artwork to the American Cancer Society’s annual holiday greeting cards to raise funds.
Along with his many gongs for his music, Bennett was also honoured with the Martin Luther King Center’s “salute to greatness” award for his efforts in fighting racial discrimination, after joining the activist in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march in 1965.
The singer’s retirement from performing was announced in 2021, with his son Danny, also his manager, saying it was down to doctor’s orders due to the strain of travelling.
Performing a medley tribute to the man she described as “an incredible mentor, and friend, and father figure” at the Grammys in 2022, Gaga appeared emotional as she finished on stage. “I love you, Tony. We miss you.”
Following the singer’s death, the music industry mourns one of the last great performers of his generation.
For Bennett, life was a gift – and for millions of fans over the decades, it was a gift he gave right back.
A British version of long-running US sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL) will be coming to Sky next year.
An American pop culture institution, SNL launched the careers of stars including Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell.
Donald Trump on a Mothers Day episode SNL in 1993. Pic: AP
It’s also featured a host of celebrity and political guests, including tech billionaire Elon Musk and Donald Trump when he was a presidential candidate.
SNL celebrated 50 years on air in February.
British comedians will be cast in the UK spin-off, which will be overseen by US producer Lorne Michaels alongside the US version.
Along with his production company Broadway Video, which has made The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and 30 Rock, the show will be led by UK production team Universal Television Alternative Studio.
The beginnings of SNL, which started in 1975, was recently made into the 2024 film Saturday Night, featuring Spider-Man star Willem Dafoe and Succession actor Nicholas Braun.
The success of SNL, which airs on NBC in the US, has led to past attempts at international versions of the programme, with a French version Le Saturday Night Live running for just one season in 2017.
OJ Simpson on SNL in 1978 with Gilda Radner (L), and Jane Curtin. Pic: AP
Cecile Frot-Coutaz, chief executive of Sky Studios and chief content officer at Sky, said: “For over 50 years Saturday Night Live has held a unique position in TV and in our collective culture, reflecting and creating the global conversation, all under the masterful comedic guidance of Lorne Michaels.
“The show has discovered and nurtured countless comedy and musical talents over the years and we are thrilled to be partnering with Lorne and the SNL team to bring an all-British version of the show to UK audiences next year – all live from London on Saturday night.”
Saturday Night Live UK will be broadcast on Sky Max and streaming service NOW in 2026.
Details about the UK version’s cast, hosts, and premiere will be announced in the coming months.
Entertainment
Wolf Hall director on streaming levies: ‘The government needs the guts to stand up to the bully in the White House’
The director of hit BBC period drama Wolf Hall says the government “needs to have enough guts to stand up to the bully in the White House” to protect the future of public service broadcasting.
Peter Kosminsky told Sky News’ Breakfast with Anna Jones that calls for a streaming levy to support British high-end TV production was urgently needed to stop the “decimation” of the UK industry.
His comments follow the release of a new report from the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) committee, calling for the government to improve support measures for the UK’s high-quality drama sector while safeguarding the creation of distinctly British content.
Specifically, the report calls for streamers – including Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV+ and Disney+, all of which are based in the US – to commit to paying 5% of their UK subscriber revenue into a cultural fund to help finance drama with a specific interest to British audiences.
Kosminsky, who made the case for the levy and gave evidence to the committee in January, called global tariffs recently introduced by Donald Trump “the elephant in the room”.
He said he feared they would make the government reticent to introduce a streaming levy, but said it was a necessary step to “defend a hundred years of honourable tradition of public service broadcasting in this country and not see it go to the wall because [the government are] frightened of the consequences from the bully in the States”.
The second series of Wolf Hall, starring Mark Rylance (L) and Damian Lewis, nearly didn’t happen. Pic: BBC
Kosminsky also noted that the streamers would be able to apply for money from the fund themselves, as long as they were in co-production with a UK public service broadcaster.
Earlier this year, a White House memorandum referenced levies on US streaming services, calling them “one-sided, anti-competitive policies” that “violate American sovereignty”.
In response to the call for streaming levies, a Netflix spokesperson said such a move would “penalise audiences” and “diminish competitiveness”.
They added: “The UK is Netflix’s biggest production hub outside of North America – and we want it to stay that way.”
The Association for Commercial Broadcasters and On-Demand Services (COBA) said such a levy “risks damaging UK growth and the global success story of the UK TV sector,” and “would risk dampening streamers’ existing investment in domestic content and would inevitably increase costs for businesses”.
Pic: BBC
COBA said it welcomed the committee’s support for targeted tax breaks for domestic drama.
Kosminsky also told Sky News the second series of Wolf Hall was nearly called off just six weeks before it was due to start shooting due to financial pressures, adding: “It was only because the producer, the director, writer and the leading actor all agreed to take huge cuts in their own remuneration that the show actually got made.”
He said that both he and the show’s executive producer, Sir Colin Callender, had “worked on the show unpaid for 11 years on the basis that we would get a payment when the show went into production”, calling it “a bitter blow” to see that disappear.
Working in public service broadcasting for his entire career, Kosminsky said it was “absolutely heartbreaking for me and others like me to see that the industry we have been nurtured by and we care about is being decimated”.
While he said he was a “huge fan of the streamers”, he said it was their “very deep pockets” that had “driven up the price of what we do”, to the point where the traditional broadcasters can no longer afford to make high-end television.
Adolescence. Pic: Netflix
Just this week, Adolescence, created by British talent Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, became the fourth most popular English-language series in Netflix’s history with 114 million views.
But while some very British shows might get taken on by the streamers due to universal appeal, Kosminsky said dramas including ITV’s Mr Bates Vs The Post Office and Hillsborough, and BBC drama Three Girls about the grooming of young girls by gangs in the north of England were examples of game-changing productions that could be lost in the future.
He warned: “These are not dramas that the streamers would ever make, they’re about free speech in this country. That’s part of what we think of as a democratic society, where we can make these dramas and programmes that challenge on issues of public policy that would never be of any interest in America.”
Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
The CMS report comes following an inquiry into British film and high-end television, which considered how domestic and inward investment production was being affected by the rise of streaming platforms.
Chairwoman of the CMS committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage, said “there will be countless distinctly British stories that never make it to our screens” unless the government intervenes to “rebalance the playing field” between streamers and public service broadcasters (PSBs).
A DCMS spokesperson said: “We acknowledge the challenges facing our brilliant film and TV industry and are working with it through our Industrial Strategy to consider what more needs to be done to unlock growth and develop the skills pipeline. We thank the committee for its report which we will respond to in due course.”
Entertainment
New Universal theme park set to open in UK – with promise of ‘billions’ of pounds for the economy
A deal for a new Universal theme park in Bedfordshire has been confirmed, which Rachel Reeves says will bring “billions” to the economy and create thousands of jobs.
It will be the first Universal-branded theme park and resort in Europe and is set to open in 2031, when it is expected to become the UK’s most popular visitor attraction.
The government said it will bring an estimated £50bn into the British economy and will create about 28,000 jobs – nearly 20,000 during the construction phase, and 8,000 more in hospitality and the creative industries when it opens.
A 500-room hotel and a retail and entertainment complex is planned alongside the theme park, which will be built on a former brickworks.
Universal, which is owned by Sky News’ US parent company Comcast, expects the 476-acre site just south of Bedford to generate nearly £50bn for the economy by 2055, with 8.5m visitors in its first year.
The plan remains subject to a formal planning decision process from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Universal has committed to working with local colleges and universities to train students for hospitality jobs.
There are Universal theme parks in Florida (pictured), California, Japan, Beijing and Singapore. Pic: AP
Among some of the famous Universal films are Wicked, Minions, Oppenheimer, Bridget Jones, Fast and the Furious, and Jurassic World.
There are five Universal theme parks already: Orlando in Florida, Hollywood, Japan, Beijing, and Singapore.
The new Universal theme park will be just south of Bedford
Speaking to Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the deal was “huge”.
“This is not just about numbers on the spreadsheet,” she said.
“This is about good jobs. It’s about growth. It’s about raising people’s living standards and putting money in people’s pockets. And it’s a massive vote of confidence in the United Kingdom.”
Welcoming the timing of the announcement, Ms Nandy added: “This deal comes off the back of one of the most tumultuous few weeks in global markets that I think anyone can remember within living memory.”
She said the fact that the government had been able to show it kept a “cool head” and “we don’t take knee-jerk decisions in response to global events” was one of the reasons it was able to announce the deal.
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The proposals to transform the site, a former brickworks, remain subject to a formal planning decision process
The government has said about 80% of employees at the theme park are expected to come from local areas, and it will support the “Oxford-Cambridge corridor” revived by the chancellor in January after the Conservatives scrapped plans for an Abingdon-Milton Keynes train link in 2021.
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It will also commit to a “major investment” in infrastructure around the Universal site to ensure it is well-connected and easily accessible.
The announcement comes days after the government approved an expansion of nearby Luton Airport.
Mike Cavanagh, President of Comcast Corporation, said: “We could not be more excited to take this very important step in our plan to create and deliver an incredible Universal theme park and resort in the heart of the United Kingdom, which complements our growing US-based parks business by expanding our global footprint to Europe.
“We appreciate the leadership and support of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Minister for Investment Poppy Gustafsson, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and their teams, as we work together to create and deliver a fantastic new landmark destination.”
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