They go, uh, way back. Tony Bennett revealed in his new book, Just Getting Started, that he “met” his wife, Susan Benedetto, when her mother was still pregnant with her.
The Grammy winner, 90, writes in his memoir that he posed for a photo with Benedetto’s parents, Dayl and Marion Crow, during a meet-and-greet backstage at one of his concerts in New York City in 1966.
“As fate would have it, Marion was pregnant at the time with … Susan!” Bennett, who was 40 years old at the time of the encounter, writes in his book. “It’s a photo we all laugh about [now], knowing the incredible turn of events that followed.”
As a teenager, Benedetto, now 50, was the president of the jazz singer’s San Francisco Bay Area fan club. At the age of 19, she met her future husband at one of his concerts in San Francisco, after requesting to go backstage.
“The request was sent to me, and it tickled me that someone of her age was so devoted to my music,” he explains. “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 all really began … foreshadowed by a backstage photo taken in 1966!”
Bennett adds, “I can’t say that we didn’t notice the age difference when we first met. But I can say that after all of these years together, we don’t notice it much now. We’re compatible in all ways.”
The happy couple married in 2007 after dating for 20 years. Bennett was previously married to Patricia Beech and actress Sandra Grant.