New Book on George Cory & Douglass Cross Tells Tale Behind Tony Bennett's Signature Song

McFarland Publishing has released Bill Christine's new book, "They Left Their Hearts in San Francisco: The Lives of Songwriters George Cory and Douglass Cross."

The book tells about the tangled lives of the songwriters and lovers who wrote the song that revived Tony Bennett's career.

George Cory and Douglass Cross never wrote another hit. Their romance broke up and they both drank themselves to death, gone while still in their 50s. Cory's passing was widely believed to be a suicide, but Christine has found new facts that reveal how he really died. The battle for Cory's lucrative estate went on for almost a decade.

Christine gets inside the improbable way Bennett discovered "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," a song that sat around for nearly a decade before it landed on his doorstep. Tennessee Ernie Ford and the opera star Claramae Turner were among the singers who were offered the song before Bennett.