PHOTOS: Looking back on Tony Bennett's Las Vegas legacy

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The valley is remembering the life of singer Tony Bennett.

He died on Friday morning at the age of 96. His publicist said he passed away in New York. No specific cause of death has been announced. However, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016 and stopped touring in 2021.

Bennett made his debut in Las Vegas in 1952 at the El Rancho Vegas Hotel & Casino performing alongside people like Milton Berle, Frank Sinatra Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat King Cole.

At the time, Channel 13 operated behind the El Rancho as part of a lease agreement with Jake Katleman who served as the casino manager and was the principal stockholder at the casino. The El Rancho was destroyed after a fire burned down the main building, which house the showroom in 1960.

Over the years, Bennett performed at other casinos across town include the Sahara, Dunes, Sands, Las Vegas Hilton, Desert Inn, Golden Nugget, Wynn, and Park MGM. He even performed at the opening of Caesars Palace. He took the stage in 1966 and was the second headliner ever at the casino's Circus Maximus showroom. He was the only entertainer awarded a lifetime contract at the hotel, according to a news release from 2016.

Bennett got rave reviews from many famous friends including Frank Sinatra.

"He excites me when I watch him. He moves me," Sintra told Life magazine in 1965. "He's the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind and probably a little more."

It's something Bennett said stuck with him over the years.

"[Frank] was asked 'Everyone listens to you but who do you listen to?' He said for my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business," Bennett recalled in 2015. "It changed my whole career. People were saying if Frank said that, we need to check him out."

Sinatra's daughter posted this tribute to Bennett on Twitter on Friday.

Bennett won 20 Grammys over the years with hits like "Because of You", "Rags to Riches", "Stranger in Paradise", and "I Left My Heart In San Francisco".

Over the years, he recorded songs with artists like Barbra Streisand, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Aretha Franklin, Queen Latifah, Willie Nelson, and fellow Las Vegas headliner Carrie Underwood.

Perhaps one of his most famous collaborations in his later years was with Lady Gaga. The pair first worked together on Bennett's 2011 album Duets II. Over the next 10 years, they released two albums together and performed all over the world including right here in Las Vegas. The pair performed together in 2015 for a special New Year's Eve performance at The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan. In 2019, Bennett also joined Gaga on stage during her Jazz & Piano residency at the Park Theater at Park MGM.

In case you didn't know, Gaga even has a tattoo of a trumpet that was drawn by Bennett.

In 2016, Bennett's 90th birthday was honored as part of the festivities at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love gala inside the MGM Grand's Grand Garden Arena. The event raised money for the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and research into brain diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, frontotemporal dementia, and multiple sclerosis.

Bennett's last shows in Las Vegas was a three-show engagement at The Venetian Theatre in September 2019 and his last public performances were at Radio City Music Hall in August 2021.

The Fremont Street Experience will also honor the life of Bennett with a video tribute celebrating his legacy. It will feature excerpts from his songs "I Left My Heart In San Francisco", "Rags To Riches", and "The Best Is Yet To Come." Fans can see the show on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m., 9 p.m., 11 p.m., and 1 a.m.