How I met Tony Bennett

after disturbing Wayne Newton

I digress. A rare Saturday post; different and a bit offbeat for a little weekend levity. A friend and I often share “I shook the hand that shook the hand of …”. For example, if you have shaken my hand, you can say “I shook the hand that shook the hand of Tony Bennett.” How this came about is a story I’ve told many times over the years.

That’s another story: not how I met Tony Bennett, but how my wife and I, Pittsburghers, happened to be staying – in separate rooms, on different floors – at the historic Cincinnatian Hotel in Ohio’s “Queen City” in late March 1996.

After checking in we went to the elevator. On the rise I got off at my lower floor and my wife continued up to hers. A little later I returned to the elevator to go up to her room.

Off the lift I turned left, passed a half-dozen rooms on either side; reaching the corner of the building, I turned left again and passed another half-dozen rooms on either side. Halfway down this second hallway was my wife’s room on the right.

I knocked on her door. She was slow to answer but the guest in the room directly across from hers was not. When I turned to the open door behind me, I came to face to face with a poodle – resting in the arms of a man – that man was Wayne Newton.

It seems odd, even today, that I wasn’t surprised - as if I thought, “Well, when I come to Cincinnati, I expect to see Mr. Las Vegas holding a poodle.”

I simply said, “I’m sorry, I was knocking over here,” to which the fifty-four-year-old entertainer smiled and closed his door - not a word, not even a danke schoen, and not a peep from the poodle. So, I really didn’t “meet” Wayne Newton as defined by a handshake; but I did disturb him and his poodle, and that’s a memory I’m grateful for.

My wife came to her door having missed the brief drama and was naturally a bit skeptical of my story.

After a short visit, I began to retrace my steps in the hallway and as I did a man came out of the corner room (read “suite”) and headed toward the elevator. We were alone in the hallway; I saw only his back and was twenty paces behind. When he reached the elevator he punched the “down” button and then turned toward me as I approached. I came face to face with Anthony Dominick Benedetto, a.k.a. Tony Bennett, then sixty-nine.

He couldn’t have been more gracious when I stammered, “mmmMr. Bennett!” He extended his hand, asked my name and where I was from, and said “Pittsburgh is one of my favorite towns!” (how I wish I had replied ‘yes, but you left your heart in San Francisco.’)

The elevator arrived and we shared a little more chit-chat on the short ride. At the lobby he shook my hand again and left me with a “Nice meeting you.” A true gentleman.

If you’re wondering why these two crooners were in the hotel, they were attending a celebrity banquet at the Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park across the river in Kentucky. Why my wife and I were there is that other story.

Thinking back, it’s a bit telling, isn’t it, that Wayne Newton gets an interior room in the middle of a hallway, while Tony Bennett gets the corner suite?

NB: Bennett’s mortal remains are interred under his true name, with his family, in the Catholic cemetery, Calvary, in Queens, NY. More information on his burial and grave, including a photo of his headstone, may be found here.