The Good Life: The Autobiography of Tony Bennett

A wonderfully warm, resonant, and captivating autobiography from iconic singer and entertainer Tony Bennett.

He’s that regular guy from Astoria, Queens, who left his heart in San Francisco. He’s the postwar heartthrob who inspired hundreds of young girls to wear black outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral on his wedding day. He’s the darling of the MTV generation who made music history when, at the age of 68, he won the coveted Grammy Award for Album of the Year. He’s the consummate artist known worldwide for his paintings. He’s Tony Bennett, and here, this legend shares his amazing life story.

“Tony Bennett has not just bridged the generation gap, he has demolished it,” praised The New York Times. From his appearance with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the 1993 MTV Video Awards to his Radio City Music Hall concert with Lady Gaga, Bennett was the hottest—and coolest—pop-culture icon for today’s younger listeners, while remaining beloved by their parents and grandparents. Multiple generations have experienced the Tony Bennett magic—the mesmerizing spell of a singer in love with singing, who embraces his audience with a soulful serenity communicated by both the man and his music.

Honored with countless awards and with more than ninety albums to his credit, no other recording artist has attained Bennett’s stature—or garnered the half-century of memories shared in The Good Life. From Sinatra, Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald, to k.d. lang and Elvis Costello, Bennett shares his unique takes on the most fascinating talents of our time. Here is the story of his lifelong love affair with art, music, and performing—from his childhood in Depression-era Queens, where opera and Billie Holiday flowed freely; to his stint as a singing waiter; to soaking up the New York jazz scene in the 1940s. With crisp wit and firmly grounded emotion, Bennett captures the people and places that shaped his sublime performances. The dozens of hits he introduced to the great American songbook, including “Because of You,” “Rags to Riches,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” and his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” remain a legacy of truth and beauty for the classic art of intimate singing.

In this unforgettable self-portrait, we get to know Tony Bennett as he really is: an unpretentious and thoughtful human being. Through all of his personal and artistic challenges, he was, in his own words, “a humanist” whose Zen-like philosophy of life remains an inspiration for all ages. Like the fascinating story he shares in The Good Life, Tony Bennett was one of a kind, an American treasure, an enduring artist seasoned with experience and self-knowledge, and a true class act.

Tony Bennett was an American singer known for traditional pop music, big band music, show tunes, and jazz. He held the Guinness World Record for being the oldest-ever recording artist to release an album of new material. He was a talented painter, fought in World War II, received 20 Grammy Awards, and was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. He died in 2023 at the age of ninety-six.