With a name like Tony Bennett, it’s easy to presume that was the one given to him at birth. But that isn’t the case for the legendary crooner who was known around the world for his one-of-a-kind voice. Bennett passed away on Friday (July 21) and left behind an illustrious catalog of songs that have stood the test of time as Tony Bennett —a name that likely wouldn’t have existed without the help of revered comedian Bob Hope.
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Meaning Behind the Stage Name
The master song interpreter was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3, 1926, and raised in New York City. He was of Italian heritage on both his mother’s and father’s side, both families emigrating from the Calabria region in southern Italy. Before he was known as the world-renowned singer Tony Bennett, he went under another alias.
While serving in the Army during World War II, Bennett, one of four vocalists of the 314th Army Special Services Band, performed as Joe Bari, the name “Bari” coming from a Province of Bari in Italy which also had the capital city of Bari. After returning to the U.S., Bennett performed under the stage name Joe Bari for the first time at a gig at a New Jersey club called Piccadilly.
“I had taken a stage name because in those days performers believed it was important to have a snappy, ‘eight-by-ten’ glossy kind of name that was easy to remember,” Bennett explained in his autobiography, The Good Life. “I had been told that Anthony Dominick Benedetto…was too long and sounded too ethnic. I had come up with the last name ‘Bari’ because it was short and it was the name of both a province and city in Italy, as well as an anagram of the last part of my grandparents’ birthplace, Calabria. And to my ears, ‘Joe’ sounded pretty American.”
[RELATED: Top 10 Tony Bennett Songs]
But another legend of the entertainment industry is responsible for Bennett’s world-famous moniker. In 1949, Tony Award-winning singer Pearl Bailey invited Bennett to open for her at the Village Inn in New York. That’s where a man named Charlie Cooley, who worked with Hope, caught Bennett’s act. Cooley convinced Hope to check out one of Bennett’s sets. Hope was immediately impressed and asked the singer to open for him.
“He liked my singing so much that after the show he came back to see me in my dressing room and said, ‘Come on kid, you’re going to come to the Paramount and sing with me,'” Bennett recalls of Hope’s invitation in his book. “But first he told me he didn’t care for my stage name and asked me what my real name was. I told him, ‘My name is Anthony Dominick Benedetto.’ ‘Oh no, that’s too long for the marquee,’ he said…He thought for a moment, then he said, ‘We’ll call you Tony Bennett.'”
The name clearly stuck. As Tony Bennett, he released more than 60 studio albums and several collaborative albums, including a pair with Lady Gaga. The last album he recorded was Love for Sale with Lady Gaga in 2021. Among his most beloved hits are “Because of You,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Rags to Riches” and “Stranger in Paradise.”
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