Danny Bennett, son of the late singer Tony Bennett, has revealed the last thing his father said to him. “His last words to me [were] ‘Thank you,’” he told Today’s Hoda Kotb on Thursday. “Can’t say it better than that.”
In a joint interview, the singer’s widow, Susan Benedetto, also revealed the last song Bennett sang before his death: his first hit, “Because of You.” Bennett died last month at age 96 after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease since 2016, though the cause of death remains unknown.
Danny, who was the eldest son of Tony’s first wife, Patricia Beech, and also served as his father’s manager, described his dad as a “man of the people” who maintained his drive late into life. In the Nineties, Danny recalled his father telling him he wanted to reach a younger crowd. “He came into my office one time, and he said, ‘I was watching MTV … I think I can do that,’” Danny said. “And then walked out. And I was like, all right.” Although Danny remembered a set his father played at a festival between Nine Inch Nails and PJ Harvey as “nerve-racking,” his father did it anyway.
“He turned to me, and he said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’” Danny recalled. “And he goes, ‘You think Frank [Sinatra] would do this?’ And I said, ‘No.’” (Sinatra died in 1998. Both he and Bennett experienced a resurgence among younger fans in the early Nineties when Sinatra released his Duets albums, pairing him with Bono and Chrissie Hynde, among others, and Bennett released the gold-certified Steppin’ Out.)
Susan, Bennett’s third wife, recalled how the singer insisted on continuing to perform even after doctors had diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s. “The music never left him,” she said. His last words to her were that he loved her. “He would wake up every day and still say that,” she said. “He woke up happy every day.”
Bennett’s career experienced a third life in the last decade after he teamed with Lady Gaga on two albums. She remembered their connection as artists in an Instagram post on Monday. “Tony and I had this magical power,” she wrote. “We transported ourselves to another era, modernized the music together, and gave it all new life as a singing duo. But it wasn’t an act. Our relationship was very real. Sure, he taught me about music, about showbiz life, but he also showed me how to keep my spirits high and my head screwed on straight.”