To Be Continued

Nice one Mikey

Answer: TONY BENNETT

Explanation: Four theme entries start with TO* BE*, in line with the title, where * represents any number of letters. (Love the phrase TORCHBEARER, especially for the upcoming '24 Olympics, but that is technically hyphenated or even one word as opposed to two, hence the disclaimer.) The middle row also illustrates the meta answer's trademark song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and perhaps the most notable 11-letter entry in the form TO* BE* not represented is the late, great TONY BENNETT. Our family loved his music, and we will continue to spin it in his honor.

Awwww... lovely tribute to a fantastic singer. And a fun puzzle and meta, To Boot!

Nice thanks.

Awww. Now I understand 34d. Only halfway through the grid, and my favorite clue is 42A. Thanks, Mikey!

Nice tribute. RIP Anthony Dominick Benedetto.

Is there really nobody else here yet? Where is everybody? Listening to to their old records, I guess.

Thanks for the puzzle, amazing find as always, I wish I could understand how you geniuses do it, but I understand now puzzle creation is like that quote from Harry potter: if you need to ask, you'll never know; if you know, you need only ask.

I feel like the center entry took me 5 minutes on its own, but thats a me problem, I need to get better (somehow). And thats not the reason why I'll be crying all day...

Total beaut

Quite a relief from last week, as advertised. Nice memorial tribute. Needed a lot of help on the grid, though.

Great tribute. Confession: I had ALENT in the center square before I had to hit "Reveal".

I tip my glass to the great one! Nice puzzle, Mikey.

Loved Tony, and loved your tribute.

I didn’t get the center square; I got impatient and “revealed puzzle”. And now I wish I hadn’t. Such a nice touch. I should have thought it out. (And I like to think Mr. Bennett will always be with us. How could you not love that guy?)

Nice one, Mikey, and a nice tribute. Never noticed the TO.. BE... thing. Just got it from the middle row. Very clever all the way around.

Glad to see I’m not the only one who revealed the center square.

Cool, I didn't know that!

Nice tribute. This isn't my area of expertise so I was madly googling San Francisco and singing and painting. It didn't help that I had T(ALENT)S for 34D.

Well-played...

Nice tribute puzzle, Mikey...and a great title. Clever center square. Super!

Had the worst time trying to fill the middle because I wanted to put in ARTS but that did not fit with cats. It had to be Tony because, well because of all the TO BEs (surprised there was no Shakespeare reference there). When I asked myself TO BE or not TO BE it ended up with good old Tony Bennett. For those of us of a certain age this is even harder. ALL of the crooners are gone (gone to the coroners anagramatically), no more Dean, Frank, Mel, Bing, and now Tony. Sure there are some good ones now; Bublé, Legend, etc. but the Chairman of the Board, Velvet Fog and now the granddaddy of them all Tony. Why he was so good some people went Gaga over him. Nice tribute puzzle Mike.

Amazing tribute puzzle! Very well done especially with the visual element in the middle :)… I also appreciate when you say what the intended difficulty is so I know not to unnecessarily go hunting for rabbit holes… (very brief rabbit hole hunting when I saw belch and thought belcher bay for hong kong… I should look for more bays!)… the meta skewed slightly harder since I didn’t grow up with tony bennett’s music so I googled “San Francisco heart” and there was a heart statue in SF named after tony Bennett… only realized later it was a song

Had the meta long before I gave up on the unexpected rebus. Otherwise enjoyed

Many years ago a young Anthony Benedetto was travelling with his pet deer. He was with a group of friends who insisted they go clubbing to a new spot in Manhattan, a dance club owned by Samuel Fahn. They all had a marvelous time, perhaps too marvelous because come the next morning everybody was very hung over and ruing the activities of the past evening. However, none were more depressed than young Tony. “Why are you beating yourself up so?” asked a friend, “Give it a couple of hours and you’ll feel like new!” “But you don’t understand” said Tony, “I left my hart in Sam Fahn’s Disco”…. And from that sad beginning an iconic song was born…no, not that one, “Dear Hart” by Andy Williams.

Didn't fill in the center square but the answer popped into my head. Now I get it! Very nice.

One of the cleverest metas I've seen. Bravo!

Nice one, cool tribute to a great performer. thanks for the puzzle.

Late to the party, but very enjoyable, thanks!

Absolutely the wrong demo here! Fortunately, after googling "famous singers who paint" and "famous painters who sing" for a while, I finally stumbled across a list that included the right To* Be*. Good puzzle, thanks Mikey!

Tony Bennett or not Tony Bennett? That is the question.