Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett (1926- ) [The Oscar (1966); Christmas Dream (2000, TV)] was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in the Astoria section of Queens in New York City. His father was a grocer and his mother a seamstress.
By age 10 the young Benedetto was already singing, performing at the opening of the Triborough Bridge. He attended New York's High School of Industrial Arts where he studied music and painting (an interest he would always return to as an adult), but dropped out at age 16 to help support his family.
He then set his sights on a professional singing career. This was interrupted when Benedetto was drafted into the United States Army in 1944 during World War II. He served in a combat position in the 63rd Infantry Division in France and Germany, until some remarks he made against racial segregation led to his being reassigned. Subsequently he sang with the Army military band and studied music at Heidelberg University
Benedetto was drafted into the United States Army in November 1944, during the final stages of World War II.
He did basic training at Fort Dix and Fort Robinson as part of becoming an infantry rifleman.
Benedetto ran afoul of a sergeant from the South who disliked the Italian from New York City and heavy doses of KP duty or BAR cleaning resulted.
Processed through the huge Le Havre replacement depot, in January 1945, he was assigned as a replacement infantryman to the 255th Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division, a unit filling in for the heavy losses suffered in the Battle of the Bulge.
He moved across France, and later, into Germany.
As March 1945 began, he joined the front line and what he would later describe as a "front-row seat in hell."
As the German Army was pushed back to its homeland, Benedetto and his company saw bitter fighting in cold winter conditions, often hunkering down in foxholes as German 88 mm guns fired on them.
At the end of March, they crossed the Rhine and entered Germany, engaging in dangerous house-to-house, town-after-town fighting to clean out German soldiers; during the first week of April, they crossed the Kocher River, and by the end of the month reached the Danube.
During his time in combat, Benedetto narrowly escaped death several times.
The experience made him a pacifist; he would later write, "Anybody who thinks that war is romantic obviously hasn't gone through one,"and later say, "It was a nightmare that's permanent. I just said, 'This is not life. This is not life.'"
At the war's conclusion he was involved in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp near Landsberg, where some American prisoners of war from the 63rd Division had also been held.