After all these many years, Bennett’s heart is still in it

Tony Bennett chose a good time to be born – and a fine time to be a nightclub singer.

“It was a golden age,” says Bennett, one of the focal points of “Kennedy Center Honors,” airing tonight at 9 on CBS.

And it was a time when modern microphones allowed songs to be done with subtlety and style.

“The art of intimate singing was invented by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra,” Bennett says. “It’s not like Ethel Merman, where you had to hit the back of the house.”

Sinatra – who once called Bennett “the best singer in the business” – and Crosby are gone now, but Bennett thrives at 79.

“He’s one of those people who just keep growing in stature,” says George Stevens Jr., the “Honors” producer.

Now he’ll be recognized alongside singer Tina Turner, actors Robert Redford and Julie Harris and dancer Suzanne Farrell.

Bennett’s songs are sung by Vanessa Williams, John Legend, k.d. lang and Diana Krall, but one is strictly a Wynton Marsalis trumpet solo.

“Nobody could sing ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ the way Tony Bennett does,” Stevens says.

That 1962 tune has dominated the singer’s career.

“It’s my signature song,” Bennett says.

Bennett cut his first album in 1951 and won the best-album Grammy for his 1994 “MTV Unplugged” album.

“It’s the modern age,” he says. “If you really take care of yourself, it can work out.”

As a boy in a small Italian village, Bennett’s father, Giovanni (John) Benedetto, apparently had untreated rheumatic fever. He was often sick and barely made it past 40.

“He affected my brother and me in so many ways with his love of life and music,” Bennett says. “He told us that in Italy, in this little village, he would go on top of the mountain and sing. The whole valley would talk about him.”

Bennett’s mother worked days and nights as a seamstress.

“My family was surrounded by warmth and love,” he says. “We had very little money, but we knew it would work out.”

Bennett, born Anthony Benedetto, was rejected by the New York High School for the Performing Arts but made it into New York’s High School of Industrial Arts. That’s where he developed as a painter – something he continues to do – and singer.

He fought in the Army during World War II, then sang in military bands until he was sent home. While performing in clubs he drew the attention of Bob Hope.

“He met me in the (Greenwich) Village,” Bennett recalls. “He and Jane Russell came to see a show.”

Hope promptly took him on tour – and changed his name to Tony Bennett.

“It was just a great era,” Bennett says. “It’s just like art had the era with Van Gogh and Cezanne and Pissarro and all the others. The Great American songbook was written in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s.”

Bennett straddled ethnic traditions. On one hand, he had the rich Italian heritage. On the other, he grew up in New York’s Astoria neighborhood filled with variety.

“That’s what I love about America,” says Bennett, who joined in civil rights marches in Alabama. “You don’t have just one society or philosophy.”

The birthday bunch

Actor Gerard Depardieu is 57. Singer Karla Bonoff is 54. Guitarist David Knopfler (Dire Straits) is 53. Actor Wilson Cruz (“My So-Called Life”) is 32.