Tony Bennett first met his wife before she was born
TONY Bennett and his wife go way back.
As the legendary crooner, 90, explains in his new memoir, Just Getting Started, his connection to his third wife, Susan, goes back to before she was born.
Bennett describes posing for a photo with Susan’s parents, Marion and Dayl Crow, at a show in San Francisco in 1966. “As fate would have it, Marion was pregnant at the time with … Susan! It’s a photo we all laugh about knowing the incredible turn of events that followed,” he wrote.
The Crows weren’t just casual fans hoping for a good night on the town, either. Instead they were diehards who passed along their love of songs like Because of You, Rags to Riches and I Left My Heart in San Francisco to their daughter.
Susan, now 50, would even go on to become president of the singer’s Bay Area fan club as a teenager. It was also during this time that she asked her future husband to pose with her for a photo when he swung back around town. She is Bennett’s third wife.
“When she was 19 she had tickets to see me perform at the Masonic Temple in San Francisco and she put in a request to say hello backstage after the show, probably not expecting to a response,” he wrote. “The request was sent to me, and it tickled me that someone of her age was so devoted to my music. I not only agreed to say hello to her backstage, but asked her to be my date for the evening, and that’s how it really all began … foreshadowed by a backstage photo taken in 1966!”
While Bennett admits that the 40-year age gap between the couple was a sticking point at first, they no longer notice it much. But even if it were still a sore spot, the positives of their relationship more than outweigh the negatives.
“Susan Benedetto has shown me how love gives you the confidence and courage to be your best self, and the inner peace and contentment that come with them,” he wrote.
Tony and Susan were married in 2007, and co-founded the Exploring the Arts, an arts education charity, and the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in his hometown of Queens.
This article was originally published on the New York Post and is republished here with permission
Originally published as Tony Bennett first met his wife as a foetus
