Perhaps the producers of “American Idol” aren’t brain-dead after all. They have had the wit to bring in Tony Bennett to be “designated mentor” to their assortment of weirdos and give them some idea of what style and grace can be.
One morning in San Francisco in 1962, we were guests on the live TV show of Al “Jazzbo” Collins. Tony was there to introduce the city to what would become its anthem, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” I was a traveling magazine editor to be interviewed and maybe provide some laughs.
There was a live band, and Tony did two choruses of his new song. Afterward, Jazzbo tried to inveigle him into what was apparently a ritual for guests on the show. Tony listened, smiled and shook his head.
I was not so smart, so somewhere in a storeroom there is an ancient kinescope with a closeup of me wearing a huge sombrero and dramatically intoning that classic line from “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” by Pedro Bedoya, who played the bandit Gold Hat: “Badges? We don’ have to show you no stinkin’ badges.”
Tony Bennett is highly qualified to tell those newcomers what to do--and not do—in front of a TV camera.
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