At first glance, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga actually looked just like the oddest of couples.
This was actually the case with the so-called “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” the crooner connected with the shocking diva – who continued to sing “He ate my heart”. “Monster” from 2009 — for his or her first album together, “Cheek to Cheek” in 2014.
The 2 had already worked together on his 2011 album Duets II, jokingly collaborating on “The woman is a tramp,” the identical yr Mother Monster became a zombie in her “Born This Way” music video.
It was about as much as you possibly can get from Bennett’s classic, polished style. I mean, have you ever seen a man not in a perfectly tailored suit?
Indeed, the one thing Bennett – who died Friday at 96 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s – appeared to have in common with the nearly 60-year-old Gaga, was that they were each native Latest Yorkers.
But after Gaga’s profession had its first success with a relative flop – by her standards – with 2013’s Artpop, the singer needed to wipe away the artificiality and remind the world of the talent hidden beneath the skull makeup.
And “Cheek to Cheek” – with jazz standards by George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern – was a reputation-building romance that proved that Gaga needed Bennett greater than the opposite way around.
It won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album in 2015, when it gave the look of Gaga had absolutely nothing “traditional”.
If there was an award for Cutest Couple on the Red Carpet on the 2015 Grammys, they might have won it too.
And once they performed “Cheek to Cheek” by Irving Berlin, you possibly can just feel the love between them.
“It was magic because there was such an obvious feeling each ways,” longtime Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich told The Post. “It was definitely real.”
Their “romance,” as Ehrlich described it, was just what Gaga appeared to must regain the zest that “Artpop” had lacked. Indeed, 2016’s country-flavored “Joanne” gave the look of a passionate project that prepared her for Oscar glory in 2018’s “A Star Is Born.”
Thus the star was reborn.
Until they reunited to record “Love for Sale” in 2021 – when Bennett won the last of his 19 Grammy Awards last yr – his health declined after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016.
“It was a gift” Gaga told USA Today in 2021 about making an album. “It’s a gift that I’ll hold in my heart until my last breath. My time with Tony modified me perpetually. Frank Sinatra said he was the most effective singer on the earth and I do not think Frank was lying.”
And when it was Gaga’s turn to be with Bennet, she did just that. She lovingly carried him – made her want it – during his emotional final live performance at Radio City Music Hall in Latest York in August 2021.
“I tell Tony day-after-day he saved my life” Gaga told Parade in 2014.
And saved his right back.