It was pretty clear from the beginning that Patricia Mae Andrzejewski, otherwise known
as Pat Benatar, was going to pursue her love of music as far as it would take her.
Four Grammy wins, a dozen albums, and decades of touring later, it's safe to say that Pat
had successfully fulfilled her life's dream.
In her autobiography, Between a Heart and a Rock Place, Benatar revealed that it wasn't
her initial intention to become a solo artist.
Her original dream was to be the lead singer of a rock band – just as Robert Plant was
to Led Zeppelin or Van Morrison was to the Doors.
She yearned to form a musical partnership like the one that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
had.
In her head, Benatar pictured being in a band that was rowdy, with heavy guitars leading
everything, but she was a classically trained singer - and even though she possessed a great
deal of musical knowledge, she had no clue how to make that intense vision a reality.
Benatar had to learn to believe in her own dreams.
At first, she doubted herself.
When she was young and studying so that she could go to Julliard, there was this one point
where she suddenly started to panic.
While everyone around her was constantly telling her how great of a singer she was, she couldn't
actually see how that translated into a future career.
She almost abandoned her dreams entirely and instead pursued a career in education but
fortunately, she didn't give up on her dreams so easily.
She's Remarkably Self-Confident
Pat Benatar was born on January 10, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York City.
Her mother was a beautician and her father was a sheet-metal worker.
Her hardworking family eventually moved to Lindenhurst, New York which is located in
Suffolk County on Long Island.
When she was 8 years old, she discovered that she was quite passionate about theater and
music.
She then started taking voice lessons and performed her first solo at Daniel Street
Elementary School.
From that point onward she was dedicated to her craft.
Musical theater became an important part of her story while she attended Lindenhurst Senior
High School.
Her most notable credit while there was playing Queen Guinevere in the school production of
the musical Camelot.
The doubts that she later would express while preparing to go to Julliard had very little
to do with insecurity.
In all actuality, Benatar knew she was good enough to succeed.
She had full confidence in her ability but she questioned the likelihood of that actually
happening.
The numbers frankly didn't look like they were in her favor.
But instead of letting these doubts consume her, she did what she's been historically
quite good at – that is, putting one foot in front of the other and pressing on.
It's this tenacity coupled with her confidence that made her stand out in such a competitive,
dog-eat-dog, industry.
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She Worked As A Bank Teller To Make Ends Meet
Although Pat at one point had her heart set on attending Julliard, she ultimately elected
to study education at Stony Brook University.
Unsurprisingly, that didn't pan out.
She ended up dropping out of college and got married to her High School boyfriend Dennis
Benatar, who was at the time enlisted in the U.S. Army.
In 1973, the couple moved to Richmond, Virginia where Pat got a day job working as a bank
teller.
Eventually, she quit that job so that she could invest more of her time and energy in
chasing her dream of becoming a singer.
Around that time, she found a gig with a lounge band named Coxon's Army.
Things started picking up steam when Pat, whose marriage to Dennis would fall apart
and end in divorce by the end of the decade, decided in 1975 that she wanted to move to
New York City to improve her chances of succeeding in the music industry.
One night in 1975, Benatar decided to out singing at an open mic night at a comedy club
in the upper east side of Manhattan called Catch a Rising Star.
She was number 27 in line to go on and didn't get a chance to go out on stage until 2 am.
It may have been late, but after singing Judy Garland's 'Rock a Bye Your Baby with a Dixie
Melody', the crowd went wild.
Hearing the room erupt in applause, Rick Newman, the owner of the club, rushed out to see who
was inspiring such an enthusiastic response with the audience.
He sat around and caught the rest of the performance and when she had finished, Newman approached
Benatar and inquired as to who she was.
Newman soon became Benatar's manager and they continued their working relationship for the
next 15 years.
Benatar Sure Did Love Spandex
In 1976, Benatar gave acting a shot, playing the role of Zephyr in Harry Chapin's futuristic
off-Broadway rock musical The Zinger.
A couple years later in 1977 on Halloween, Benatar dressed up as a character from the
sci-fi cult classic film Cat Women of the Moon and went out with a few friends to Cafe
Figaro in Greenwich Village.
The club was putting on a costume contest so Benatar decided to enter it.
What did she have to lose?
After winning the said contest, she and her friends stopped by Catch a Rising Star where
she ended up performing in her costume.
The audience absolutely loved her get-up and gave her a standing ovation.
Realizing that wearing spandex garnered quite the response, Pat did the same thing again
the following evening and received a very similar reaction.
As time went on, the outfits were modified a bit – the spandex was tweaked, and just
like that, the signature look that everyone knows and loves came to be.
In 1978, not only was Pat Benatar regularly performing in the New York club scene but
she was recording jingles for Pepsi as well.
After headlining at New York City's Tramps nightclub, Benatar was discovered and signed
to a recording contract by Terry Ellis of Chrysalis records.
Writer and producer Mike Chapman introduced her to guitarist Neil Giraldo and they ended
up having tremendous chemistry – first as fellow musicians and later as husband and
wife.
Benator and Giraldo tied the knot in 1982 and are still married today after all of these
years.
The couple eventually had two children together.
Pat Benatar's Impressive Discography
Benator released her first album, In the Heat of the Night, in 1979.
She followed that up with 1980s Crimes of Passion, 1981s Precious Time, 1982s Live from
Earth, 1984s Tropico, 1985s Seven the Hard Way, 1988s Awake In Dreamland, 1991s True
Love, 1993s Gravity's Rainbow, 1997s Innamorata, and 2003s Go.
Those albums produced hit singles like 'Heartbreaker, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot', 'Love is a Battlefield',
'Fire and Ice', 'Sex as a Weapon', and many others.
Her most recent single was the 2020s 'Together'.
In between recording and promoting all of those albums, Benatar has toured extensively.
Her first tour was back in 1979 and 1980 for her In The Heat of the Night and Crimes of
Passion albums.
She continued to regularly tour throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Benatar would often appear alongside other artists such as Fleetwood Mac, REO Speedwagon,
Cheap Trick, Journey, and Cher – just to name a few.
In 2019, she set out on her 40th Anniversary Tour proving that she still had it in her
even after all these years.
'You Better Run' Was The 2nd Video Ever Aired On MTV
On August 1, 1981, the music video for Pat Benatar's song 'You Better Run' was the second
video to be broadcast on MTV.
The first song was the famous 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles.
Benatar's video was fantastically simple.
It featured her and her band in what looked like an industrial warehouse while playing
the song and jamming out to it.
There is one detail from that video that stood out, however.
Benatar rocked her signature black spandex pants thus introducing the look to the masses.
Since its initial airing in 1981, the music video for 'You Better Run' has racked up more
than two million views and 14 thousand likes on YouTube.
Timing Is Key
Pat Benatar believes strongly that her success was largely due to the timing of her arrival
on the music scene.
Back when she first started making waves in the music industry in the late 70s, the women's
movement was going strong.
Benatar and her fellow female stars were the first generation of women who grew up indoctrinated
with that idealogy.
Now that they were adults, they were going to put what they learned into practice.
From her perspective, women were the same as men.
In some ways, she even suspected that they might be even superior.
So, she set out into the world with that in mind.
She wanted to prove that women were just as capable as men were at pretty much anything.
But when she would tell people what she wanted to accomplish, they would look at her as if
she had two heads or something while saying cringey things like 'women can't be on the
road' or 'women can't sell out Madison Square Garden.
When they told her stuff like that, it hadn't even occurred to her that what she envisioned
couldn't be done.
So without fear, she pressed on and successfully managed to prove all of the naysayers wrong.
Flash forward 40 years later to today, Benatar can look back at her career complete with
of its successes and failures and no doubt feel incredibly accomplished.
Not only has she experienced professional success, but she's also maintained a marriage
that has stood the test of time which is a rare feat in itself.
She's also been blessed with two incredible children who mean more to her than practically
anything else.
At this point, she really has nothing left to prove.
There's no fighting, holding on for dear life trying to capture some sort of fleeting feeling
that has long since faded.
She's achieved everything that she set out to find.
She's been a singer, lover, businesswoman, daughter, friend, wife, and mother – and
she's most definitely earned the right to feel proud about all of that.
Her Music Is Ubiquitous
Benatar's music has been featured in everything from video games, movies, television shows,
and commercials.
'Love is a Battlefield' can be heard on South Park as well as in the romantic comedy flick
13 Going on 30.
The song was also included in the soundtrack for the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice
City Stories.
Benatar's song 'Heartbreaker' was featured in an episode of Charmed in which Benatar
and Giraldo also made cameo appearances.
And since her songs have been included in popular music-oriented video games such as
Rock Band and Guitar Hero, Pat Benatar's music is now being introduced to an entirely new
generation of music lovers.
Pat Benatar is widely regarded as the leading female rock vocalist of the 1980s, but even
decades later she's still going strong with no signs of slowing down.
While she hasn't been on tour since 2019 and hasn't put out a new album in quite some time,
it's still pretty safe to say that we haven't seen the last of her.
Anyway, we're just about out of time for this video, but before you go, let us know in the
comments section which Pat Benatar song you like the best.
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