They Left Their Hearts San Francisco: The Lives of Songwriters George Cory and Douglass Cross

Their lives were a tangle. They eked out a meager living in San Francisco and Brooklyn for 15 years before Tony Bennett serendipitously came across the song, which had languished. His recording revived his career and made the songwriters rich. Wealth didn't beget happiness. The duo broke up. Cross drank himself to death. Cory died from drinking as well (widely believed to be a suicide). In 2016, San Francisco dedicated a monument to the city's official song in front of the iconic Fairmont Hotel—a statue of Tony Bennett.