What can we learn when we reflect on the suffering of Tony Bennett and Rita Hayworth as they suffered decline from Alzheimer’s?
How was Tony Bennett able to perform, and Rita Hayworth to act, long after they had developed the symptoms of Alzheimer’s?
Tony Bennett collaborated with Lady Gaga, cutting several albums and touring, when he was suffering from Alzheimer’s, they were very close.
Rita Hayworth, sadly, was not diagnosed with Alzheimer’s until long after she showed symptoms. Her odd behavior and inability to memorize her lines was blamed on her drinking rather than on Alzheimer’s.
YouTube Script with Book Links:
https://www.slideshare.net/BruceStrom1/tony-bennett-and-rita-hayworth-their-struggle-with-alzheimers
YouTube video for this blog: https://youtu.be/4ujlV3a7Il8
MANY CELEBRITIES HAVE SUFFERED FROM ALZHEIMER’S
The stories of Tony Bennett and Rita Hayworth are similar to the story of another celebrity who suffered from Alzheimer’s, Glen Campbell. Both Tony Bennett and Glen Campbell released albums and toured when they were in the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s. Music is often beneficial to Alzheimer’s patients. Their doctors encouraged them to tour, these mental challenges may have slowed the progression of their Alzheimer’s. Like many celebrities, all of them had substance abuse problems in their careers.
Glen Campbell Suffering from Alzheimer’s, Early Signs and Symptoms
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/glen-campbell-suffering-from-alzheimers-early-signs-and-symptoms/
https://youtu.be/F9NmDiiPowI
To clarify, there are many types of dementia, but Alzheimer’s patients comprise over seventy percent of dementia cases. How many people suffer from dementia? About seven percent of the elderly over sixty will suffer from dementia in their lifetimes.
TONY BENNETT AND LADY GAGA: JAZZ DUETS
Tony Bennett passed away in July 2023, after battling Alzheimer’s for many years. His last collaborator was singing jazz songs with Lady Gaga, releasing a duet album together and performing together in the Cheek to Cheek Tour in 2015. He performed a final concert with her in August 2021 when he was 94 years old.
Tony Bennett began his singing career after serving in World War II, he was successful through the Sixties when musical tastes changed. The studios wanted him to sing contemporary rock songs without success. He struggled financially, fell behind in his income taxes, and developed a drug problem. In 1979 his son Danny, whose band was not successful, agreed to become his business partner and manager. They toured the college circuit singing from his old material, the Great American Songbook, Tony performed duets with many newer singers, including John Mayer, K.D. Lang, James Taylor, Sting, the late Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga, and was booked on many late-night talk shows and venues. His second career took off.[1]
“In 2014 Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett recorded Cheek to Cheek,” which includes many jazz songs. This album hit “Number One on Billboard’s Top 200 pop and rock chart,” which led to more collaboration. Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett live in apartments a block apart near Central Park, she enjoys singing duets with Tony. Her film and recording career were packed, so they recorded songs between 2018 and early 2020 for a new album.
Tony Bennett only had significant cognitive issues when he was in his eighties. After he confided to Susan, his wife, that he could not remember the names of his bandmates, they consulted a doctor, who diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s in 2017. Fortunately, up through 2021, his family was “spared the disorientation that can prompt patients to wander from home, as well as the episodes of terror, rage or depression that can accompany Alzheimer’s frightening detachment from reality.” After that we do not know, as his family has kept him sequestered in the advanced stage of his condition.
Like Glen Campbell, “after receiving the diagnosis, Tony Bennett insisted on continuing to perform,” with his doctor’s blessing. “Tony has always had a very positive attitude,” Susan said. “When he found out about the disease, he immediately said he wanted to keep singing. He was going to keep going straight ahead as he always has.”
“In February 2021, Bennett publicly shared that he was living with Alzheimer’s in an interview with the AARP Magazine. Shortly after the news was announced, Tony Bennett, a charismatic optimist, tweeted ‘Life is a gift: even with Alzheimer’s.’”
“Tony Bennett was already showing clear signs of the disease, Susan said, when he and Lady Gaga started recording the new LP at New York’s Electric Lady Studios two years after his diagnosis. Indeed, Susan was not entirely sure that Tony was up to the task. ‘We’ll try,’ she recalled telling Danny. ‘That’s all I can tell you. We’ll try.’”
“Tony was a considerably more muted presence during the recording of the new album with Lady Gaga. In raw documentary footage of the sessions, he speaks rarely, and when he does his words are halting; at times, he seems lost and bewildered. Lady Gaga, clearly aware of his condition, keeps her utterances short and simple (as is recommended by experts in the disease when talking to Alzheimer’s patients). ‘You sound so good, Tony,’ she tells him at one point. ‘Thanks,’ is his one-word response.”
“Lady Gaga says that she thinks all the time about their 2015 tour. Tony looks at her wordlessly. ‘Wasn’t that fun every night?’ she prompts him. ‘Yeah,’ he says, uncertainly. The pain and sadness in Lady Gaga’s face is clear at such moments, but never more so than in an extraordinarily moving sequence in which Tony, a man she calls ‘an incredible mentor, and friend, and father figure’, sings a solo passage of a love song. Gaga looks on, from behind her mic, her smile breaking into a quiver, her eyes brimming, before she puts her hands over her face and sobs.”
“In August, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga teamed up for two sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in celebration of his 95th birthday. The duo didn’t stop there: in October, they released what is billed as Bennett’s final studio album: Love for Sale.”
There are many YouTube videos with snippets of his last performance, one touching video shows how Lady Gaga was overwhelmed on stage when he called her out by name.
“The fact that Tony saw me as a natural-born jazz singer is still something that I haven’t gotten over,” Gaga recently said.[2]
RITA HAYWORTH: EARLY ONSET ALZHEIMER’S IN HER FIFTIES
Rita Hayworth was the first celebrity who publicly confessed that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s. Like many actors and singers, Rita Hayworth also had problems with alcohol and drugs during her long career. Like Glen Campbell and Tony Bennett, she was able to act professionally at a high level well after the onset of her undiagnosed Alzheimer’s condition. At the end of her career, she had trouble remembering her lines, which was blamed on her alcoholism, but was rather due to her dementia.
Rita Hayworth’s career spanned more than four decades, starting in the thirties. She was called the Love Goddess, the pinup girl for many World War II GI’s, she was one of the top stars in the golden years of Hollywood, she acted in dozens of movies and danced with Fred Astaire.
Rita Hayworth was unlucky in love, she had five husbands, and divorced her fifth husband in 1961, long before she was suffering from Alzheimer’s. She started showing cognitive decline when she was in her late fifties, much sooner than is typical. She was only sixty-eight when she passed away.[3]
The youngest of Hayworth’s two children, Yasmin Aga Khan, was only in high school when her mom began exhibiting odd behavior. She was the daughter of Rita and her third husband Prince Aly Aga Khan, a Pakistani diplomat.
“I would have phone conversations with her once a week while at boarding school, and she started asking me the same questions and seemed very confused,” Yasmin says. “I became very concerned but really had no control or idea what to do.”
Yasmin graduated from college in 1973 and moved to New York City. “In 1975, Rita Hayworth suffered a collapse in Los Angeles. Yasmin successfully filed for conservatorship of her mother and relocated her to New York.”
“The transition was really difficult, and witnessing her behavior was such a challenge because I had no idea what was happening,” Yasmin says. “I didn’t have any answers.”
“Hayworth’s diagnosis was made public almost immediately, and Yasmin used the opportunity to call for more awareness around the disease. ‘I did an interview with Barbara Walters about my mother, and shortly after was contacted by a miracle man, Jerome Stone,’ Yasmin says.”
“Jerome Stone, a caregiver for his wife who was living with Alzheimer’s, had started a small organization for families facing the disease: the Alzheimer’s Association. ‘He asked if I wanted to join as a board member and help start an event in New York to raise awareness and funds,’ Yasmin recalls. ‘I was terrified at the time: What did I know about raising money? But he gave me the strength and always believed we could do it, and we did.’” They organized the annual Hollywood Rita Hayworth Gala Ball to raise funds and raise public awareness for both Alzheimer’s and the Alzheimer’s Association.[4]
REVIEWING OUR OTHER VIDEOS AND BLOGS
Reviewing our other videos on dementia: Although my condominium association now actively seeks to assist those dementia patients in our community, their initial opposition illustrates how difficult it is for people to accept that those who suffer from dementia are really not responsible for their actions, nor are they responsible for their neglect in handling their financial affairs.
How I Halted a Foreclosure on a Destitute Owner with Advanced Dementia! We Discuss Dementia
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/how-i-halted-foreclosure-on-owner-with-advanced-dementia-reflecting-on-dementia/
https://youtu.be/_uAJPCCRNQ8
We reflect on how the police departments around the country are trying to deal with mental illness, though they should receive more training on how to deal with dementia patients. We have a video that examines the challenges caretakers face when they care for their loved ones who suffer from dementia. Plus, we plan videos on the book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s, plus a video exploring what we know about dementia.
Wellness Checks for Dementia: Police and Mental Illness
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/wellness-checks-for-dementia-police-and-mental-illness/
https://youtu.be/z_SlPLARCxU
DISCUSSING THE SOURCES
We read the last portion of this biography of Rita Hayworth, about thirty of three hundred pages discuss her struggles with Alzheimer’s, these are mostly sad stories of sad incidents in her fifties and sixties where she was drinking to cope with her Alzheimer’s. In turn, her behavior and memory problems were blamed by everyone on her drinking. The author is a fan, and this book is written from public sources, and includes extensive footnotes and a bibliography, but he did not able to include any interviews with her daughter and caretaker Yasmin. You would enjoy reading this book if you are a Rita Hayworth fan.
Our primary sources were the magazine and website articles from the AARP organization and the Alzheimer’s Association.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Bennett
[2] https://www.alz.org/news/2021/tony-bennett-keep-the-music-playing and https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/celebrities/info-2021/tony-bennett-alzheimers.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Hayworth
[4] https://www.alz.org/news/2023/rita-hayworth-a-bombshell-diagnosis
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