Tony Bennett Net Worth

How much is Tony Bennett worth?

About Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett was born in Queens, New York City to a family with in the Calabria region of Italy. His father, John Benedetto, was a grocer, and his mother, Anna (nee Suraci), was a seamstress. John was a recent arrival from Reggio Calabria, while his mother was born to natives of the Calabria region who emigrated to the United States in 1899. They were an impoverished family and Tony grew up during the Great Depression. Always interested in art and music, he began singing publicly soon performing alongside Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the opening of the Triborough Bridge in 1936. However his father died when he was 10 years old, and while Tony booked several gigs and enrolled in New York’s School of Industrial Art, studying music and painting, he was soon forced to drop out of school at 16 to help support his family. He earned money as a singing waiter and gave most of it to his mother to buy groceries and helps raise him and his siblings.

In November 1944, during the final stages of World War II, Bennett was drafted and saw front line combat. Then, even after the war ended, he remained stationed in Germany as part of the occupying force. He returned to New York in 1946 and immediately began concentrating on his music and putting the foundations down to start a career. With support from the GI Bill, he began to study music. A few years later, in 1949, Pearl Bailey invited him to open for her at a live show in New York City’s Greenwich Village. A year later, Bennett signed a contract with Columbia Records and a year after that, in 1951, he released his first major hit “Because Of You” which made it to number 1 on the pop chart.

The crooner continued to build a fanbase, his vocals were often accompanied by lush orchestral arrangements and began to become increasingly popular at the time. While rock and roll was all the craze at the time, Bennett provided a refreshment from it and remained popular throughout the 1950s. Near the end of the decade, his experimentations with jazz began to bear fruit and he expanded the range of his material. His 1962 song “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” was a massive success and became a signature song of Bennett’s. Originally the song only made it to number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it remained in the charts for a year. With the release of the album of the same name, it resurfaced along with the album which became a Top 5 hit. Both were eventually certified Gold by the RIAA. The 1963 “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” also received the Grammy Award for “Record of the Year”.

While the early 1960s had been so fruitful for Bennett, by the end of the decade things had slowed down and his genre producers felt was the core reason for it. A the 1960s drew to an end, in an effort to raise his commercial profile, Bennett was suggested to record contemporary rock material. The experimental project to increase record sales was a failure and with it, Bennett found himself without a recording contract. During the 1970s, he continued to release music however he also allegedly hit bottom and nearly died from a drug overdose. Fortunately, with the help of his son Danny Bennett, he made his way back into the music business. In the 1980s he was signed under a new contract with Columbia Records. In 1986, he released his first album The Art Of Excellence which began his career renaissance.

Tony Bennett saw a resurgence and began appearing on a wide range of TV shows in the late 1980s. In 1992, he released Perfectly Frank, an homage to Frank Sinatra, and in 1993 Steppin’ Out, a tribute to Fred Astaire, winning a Grammy Award in both 1992 and 1993 for “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance”. Then in 1994, Bennett’s 1994 MTV Unplugged album won a Grammy Award for “Album of the Year”. He continued to win nominations and awards at the Grammys and, in 2001, was awarded a “Lifetime Achievement Award”.

In 2006, to celebrate his 80th birthday, Bennett released the album Duets: An American Classic. The album included songs that he had previously recorded but this they were performed live in the studio and included other prominent artists. The album did performed phenomenally well charting at number 3 the Billboard album chart, a record for him at the time. Duets was ultimately certified 2x Platinum and at the time, he was awarded “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album” at the Grammys. Five years later, in 2011, as a sequel to the album, he Duets II. While it ultimately wasn’t as financially successful as the first album, it was became his number 1 album, and with it, he became the oldest living artist to hit number 1 on the chart. Bennett again won at the Grammys for “Best Traditional Pop Performance” and the album was the subject of a PBS TV special.

In 2016, Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. As of 2023, Tony Bennett’s net worth is estimated to be $200 million. Shortly after his 90th birthday, Bennett was honored by the unveiling of an 8-foot tall statue in his likeness in front of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, in August 2016.