In the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, Mr. Bennett steadfastly opposed record producers who pushed novelty tunes on him or who believed that rock ‘n’ roll had consigned the music he enjoyed to a dusty bin accessed only by a shrinking population of the elderly and sentimental.
Instead, he continued their musical legacy into the 21st century by following in the footsteps of the greatest American pop vocalists of the 20th century, including Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, and Frank Sinatra. With a renowned performance at Carnegie Hall and the release of his hallmark song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” he attained the pinnacle of his fame in 1962. And even though he saw a decline in popularity with the rise of rock and his career hit a low point in the 1970s when personal and professional challenges were aggravated by a failed marriage and drug issues, he was ultimately more than vindicated in his musical taste.
In “The Good Life,” a joint autobiography he wrote with Will Friedwald, published in 1998, he stated, “I wanted to perform the great songs, songs that I believed genuinely meant to people.
The enduring attraction of Mr. Bennett cannot be overstated. More than 50 years later, he was still performing “San Francisco,” which gave the impression that he was from that city even though he was actually from New York. He sang songs on the David Letterman and Ed Sullivan shows. He sang songs with Celine Dion and Rosemary Clooney when they were both in their twenties.
In the critically panned Hollywood drama “The Oscar,” in which he played a guy betrayed by an old friend, he made his acting debut in 1966. Even though he didn’t pursue acting professionally, years later he may be seen playing a self-portrait in films like “Analyse This” with Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal and “Bruce Almighty” with Jim Carrey. When he made an animated depiction of himself on “The Simpsons,” he was 64 years old. When he made an appearance on the HBO series “Entourage,” he was 82 years old and sang one of his signature songs, “The Good Life.”
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