Tony Bennett dead at 96 in his hometown of New York: ‘Good Italian stock’

Tony Bennett, the legendary pop, jazz and big-band vocalist, has died after a seven-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 96.

Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett’s death, revealing he passed away in his hometown of New York. His official cause of death — just two weeks shy of his 97th birthday — has not yet been announced.

“I come from good Italian stock — but I’ve tried to stay fit through the years,” Bennett told me nearly 20 years ago.

At the time he was a spry 72, meeting and greeting concertgoers with swagger before a benefit performance in the blazing hot Sonoran Desert of Tucson, Ariz.

For two decades beyond that, the 20-time Grammy winner kept swinging as smoothly as ever — making history as one of the only artists to chart new albums in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and the first three decades of the 21st century.

Anthony Dominick Bennedetto was born into a poor family of Italian immigrants living in Astoria, Queens, on Aug. 3, 1926. His father Giovanni, a grocer, died 10 years later, forcing his seamstress mother Anna Maria to find new ways to win bread amid the Great Depression.

It wasn’t long before little Tony was cashing in with his vocal chords, performing at the opening of the Triborough Bridge in 1936. The legendary baritone belter was a tender tenor way back then, and reportedly received pats on the head from Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

While attending the High School of Industrial Arts, the teen realized he wanted to be a professional singer — but also started training for his other lifelong artistic passion: Painting. (Decades later, his one-time hobby became a very classy — and lucrative — side hustle.)

He took a career hiatus to serve in World War II. After returning home, he was discovered in 1949 by Bob Hope — working with Pearl Bailey at a Greenwich Village club — and signed a deal with Columbia Records.

The 25-year-old entertainer now rechristened as Tony Bennett scored his first No. 1 hit in 1951 with “Because of You,” sparking seven decades of chart success.

Well over a half-century after it hit the charts, Bennett said he never got sick of singing his 1962 signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

But there were indeed dark times.

Bennett revealed in the 2011 book “All The Things You Are: The Life of Tony Bennett” that multi-pronged addictions left him broke, “drug addled” and near death.

Bennett also confessed to snorting cocaine and smoking marijuana in a “reckless effort” to forget his financial woes in the 1970s and ’80s.

“I was in a completely self-destructive tailspin. I used to take pills — uppies, downies and sleepies,” he said. “I owed something like $1.2 million, which was a fortune in those days. At least half of it was in back taxes I couldn’t afford to pay.”

But he bounced back like a pro, defying the pop culture odds to win over the “I want my MTV” generation with the help of his famously protective, career-saving new manager: Son Danny Bennett, now 69.

“I’ve always been unplugged,” Bennett quipped as he took the “MTV Unplugged” stage in 1994. His comeback recording of these interpretations of classics went on to surpass platinum (million-selling) status and won the Grammy for 1995’s Album of the Year.

Fast-forward through decades of Billboard bows and Grammy wins: One of America’s last legit living legends stayed busy promoting a 2014 duets album with Lady Gaga — and maintaining an international fine arts career.

Two years in the making, Tony and Gaga’s “Cheek to Cheek” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart and features classic covers ranging from Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” to Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” and Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.”

Bennett revealed in February 2021 that he is suffering from a progressive, degenerative brain disease. The family told AARP that his decline began in 2016, but his battle with Alzheimer’s became seriously concerning in 2018 when he was recording “Love for Sale” with Lady Gaga.

“Life is a gift, even with Alzheimer’s,” he tweeted at the time.

The not-so-unlikely duo reunited in August 2021, mid-pandemic, for a pair of heartwarming/breaking farewell concerts at Radio City Music Hall.

The show was a celebration with an element of control: Phone cameras were not allowed. Just to be sure, attendants locked them away in security pouches as fans arrived.

But The Post was there to capture the moment.

Billed as “One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga,” that cryptic title had many in the audience fretting aloud that it was the “last chance ever” to see Bennett live.

It was.

Besides being a farewell for the duo, however, it was also a time for revelations. Gaga, 36, recalled the tale of her first meeting with Bennett in a backstage dressing room: “Hi, I’m Lady Gaga,” the industry newbie said bashfully upon encountering the legend in 2011.

That’s when Bennett looked the “Fame Monster” pop provocateur and future “A Star is Born” Oscar winner in the eye and said, “I know who you are — you’re a jazz singer.”

An unabashed fan, Gaga might have summed up Bennett best in her intro to their final music video together, declaring: “Tony’s always ready.”

Bennett is survived by his wife, Susan Crow Benedetto, four children — Antonia, Danny, Dae and Joanna Bennett — and two grandchildren: Kelsey and Rémy Bennet.

The Post mined the archives for some sage advice from a survivor — in his own words.

Best job security

Bennett once said the key to his longevity is maintaining high standards: “I joined the American Theatre Wing (after fighting in World War II) and it was the best choice I ever made.” The first thing he learned: “Whether it was music or dancing or singing, they taught everybody, ‘Never compromise, only do quality.’ And now it’s all paid off.”

Best mass appeal

“In the ’50s, when I would do seven shows a day at the Paramount Theatre, by the end of the night you would have sung to everybody: The young teens, the married couples, the senior citizens. I learned that it’s always better to play to a large demographic. It’s better business and it means that you have to choose excellent songs that have a universal appeal.”

Best show of respect

Don’t phone it in: Most duet recordings are done thousands of miles apart these days, thanks to digital technology, but Bennett insisted his award-winning duets be exactly that; humans singing together in a studio.

Best survival tip

Get a hobby. Bennett said it was crucial to maintaining his sanity: “It is particularly beneficial as a performer to have another art form to pursue. Whenever I get a bit burned out from performing, which is a very gregarious activity in front of thousands of people, I can find time to be all on my own and just focus on painting, which is a more internal activity.”

Best trade secret

Listen to new voices: “Besides having the whole word enjoying [Lady Gaga] right now, she has a vast group of young people who love her, and they’ve never heard of popular jazz music, classical American music,” Bennett once told the Associated Press. “And my ambition was to do this album so they would get acquainted with that music.”

With Post wires.