GLENYS ROBERTS: The day Tony Bennett took my hands and sang Fly Me To The Moon

When the plane landed in Los Angeles in the summer of the 1970s, I was as unhappy as anyone could be.

My marriage to star tailor Doug Hayward was falling apart and I had decided to get away from it all and visit my best friend Sandy, wife of American singer Tony Bennett, who died last month at the age of 96.

In 1969, when Tony was working in London, Sandy and I were pregnant together. Doug made Tony’s suits and was happy to take him home for dinner, so the Bennetts spent a lot of time at our Mayfair flat. Tony was a man of few words, but he always came back for my toad in the hole.

Sandy was and is one of the funniest women I have ever met. My daughter and I still call her in Las Vegas, where she lives now, if we ever want to shake off a bout of depression.

After the children – Joanna, named after one of Tony’s songs, and my beautiful Polly – were born just under two weeks apart, we were so relieved to have our characters back that we spent a lot of time on London’s Bond Street shopping for clothes to buy.

Family: Tony Bennett and his daughter Antonia Tony Bennett at a concert at the 2012 Monte Carlo Sporting Summer Festival

Sandy soaked it all up in the Yves Saint Laurent boutique on the way to my husband’s restaurant club on Savile Row, where we met Tony.

Many times when Sandy got home she had decided she didn’t like what she had bought and gave it to me. And so I became the owner of a beautiful silk chiffon Halston dress – the designer only made two, one for Jackie Kennedy, the other for Sandy.

I don’t think Tony cared what we wore. He didn’t like the life of luxury and wasn’t particularly impressed with the stars — except when it came to Frank Sinatra, who he thought was the best in the business.

Actually, he only liked working and painting, which he did under his real name, Benedetto. Whenever he got stuck, he liked to grab a pen and any old piece of paper and start scribbling. That’s how he got around to making a sketch of me, which still hangs in my bedroom.

Looking back, it seems obvious that neither Sandy nor I were the kind of wives men wanted back then. In fact, at Cambridge, my supervisor refused to read my essays. ‘What’s the use?’ he said. “In the end you just end up with your hands in the sink.”

Sandy was the daughter of a Louisiana sharecropper, one of twelve children who escaped her mother’s toil and father’s violence because of her beauty and wit. She was not easy to tame.

But back then we had four wonderful times in London, spending evenings at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho where Tony jammed with singer Annie Ross and watching Doug play football in Hyde Park on Sundays.

When Tony’s work brought them back to the US, he was so sure they would return to London that he left his turntable and record collection to me for safekeeping.

They never came back to life. Instead, they bought a beautiful house in Beverly Hills – and now they invited me to stay in their guest room while I took care of my personal life.

As I pulled my rental car into the driveway after an 11-hour flight, Tony was standing in the doorway in white tennis attire, two racquets in hand, and a big smile on his face.

“Come with me,” he said, opening the door of his Rolls-Royce, whereupon he drove me to the Beverly Hills Hotel seats and insisted on playing five sets. Physical exercise was one of his recipes for chasing away the blues.

I don’t think Tony (middle) cared what we wore. He didn’t like the high life and wasn’t particularly impressed — except when it came to Frank Sinatra, writes Glenys Roberts (left).

Another lay in the midday sun with a tinfoil umbrella behind his head to magnify the rays. He told me he asked actor Cary Grant the secret to his fame, and Grant’s response was, “Get a tan.” But that summer, his career faltered.

With the arrival of the Beatles, the era of big bands came to an end. Sandy thought he knew the answer to reviving his fortune – but Tony’s son from his first marriage knew that too. It was a classic recipe for family conflict. Tony’s response was to head to the pool house at the end of the garden and smoke drugs with his favorite musicians playing in the background.

But despite his problems, Tony was very generous to me. When he went to Hawaii to perform, he took me and the rest of the family with him. That’s when I really realized the pressure he was under.

His musicians’ pay, as well as all flights, food and lodging – and mine – came from his lump sum. He could no longer afford large orchestras, even if he wanted to.

In Honolulu, we were greeted ecstatically, given lei garlands around our necks, and driven in open-topped carriages to the hotel, where we had the entire top floor at our disposal.

We met John Sturges, the film director of The Great Escape, who now lives on a shrimp boat in the harbor. He was a hard-drinking man who decided to give it all up and live like the hero of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

John decided he wanted to write a screenplay with me. He put me in a hotel near the beach in Los Angeles where we could work—and where he could watch paramedics drive speedboats to boating accidents.

That’s what his friend, the actor Steve McQueen, would do, he told me. Steve was so fond of mechanical things that he watched a washing machine run for hours.

One day my hotel room caught fire due to a broken TV. Sandy arrived in her personalized Mercedes wearing a long white mink coat – it was July – and apparently wearing every diamond Tony had ever given her.

“I’m Mrs. Tony Bennett,” she announced to the hotel manager. “You tried to kill my boyfriend and I’m going to sue you outright.” I moved back into the Bennetts’ zebra-lined guest bedroom.

Whenever he got stuck, he liked to grab a pen and any old piece of paper and start scribbling. That’s how he got around to making a sketch of me, which still hangs in my bedroom

Tony was out all the time and Sandy and I used to hang out with him a lot. In Las Vegas, we shivered in our flimsy designer dresses during the show due to the over-the-top air conditioning.

One day we visited casino owner Bill Harrah’s home, which featured an underwater dining room overlooking the depths of Lake Tahoe. Bill shined the searchlight on the lake and assured us it was quite common to see bodies floating by, sent there after a mafia attack.

There was always plenty of money at Sandy’s at Christmas, and half of Beverly Hills was invited to drop by – songwriter Sammy Cahn lived next door, across the street from Gene Kelly.

When I had to travel to Mexico for work, the Bennetts insisted my eight-year-old Polly stay with them. I don’t think it helped her marriage that she started crying the moment my car pulled out of the driveway and would only comfort herself if she slept in the marital bed between them.

Unfortunately we were all different characters and when it came to our inevitable divorces I got custody of Sandy while Tony got custody of Doug. I’ve often seen Doug and Tony cross our street in London to avoid me, giggling behind their hands like two schoolboys.

“Psst, there’s the enemy,” Tony would say. But behind the scenes he was a gentle soul, always watching over us.

My fondest memory of him is the time he invited me to hitchhike to New York on a private jet. It was a small plane, swaying terribly in the hot desert winds. Even at the best of times I hate flying and when he saw how I felt he sat down across from me, took my hands, looked me in the eyes and sang “Fly Me To The Moon”.

He sang the same song at the London Palladium in 2011 for his 85th birthday. But I will never forget this privileged private appearance and the friendliness behind it.

There are no better memories.