- Born
- Birth namePatricia Mae Andrzejewski
- Nicknames
- Patti-B
- The Five Foot Giant
- The Queen of Rock 'n' Roll
- Height5′ 1″ (1.55 m)
- Pat Benatar was born Patricia Andrzejewski in Brooklyn and raised in suburban Lindenhurst, Long Island. Her mother Millie had sacrificed her own career as an opera singer to bring up Pat and son Andrew. Years later, it was Pat who sang classically, honing the powers of her 4.5-octave voice as a member of Lindenhurst High's musical theater department. Having been accepted at Juilliard, Pat shocked friends and family by marrying her high-school sweetheart Dennis T. Benatar, a soldier, and moving off to Virginia where he had been stationed. Before long, the tedium of life as a housewife/bank teller proved too much for Pat, and she joined Coxon's Army, a cabaret band on the Richmond club circuit. Coxon's Army rose to new heights of fame, and Pat was instilled with the confidence to move to New York City and pursue her own dream, which brought her to Manhattan's "Catch A Rising Star".
Having thrilled the audience with her first performance on amateur night, Pat soon found herself with a paying gig, a manager and a recording contract, but her image was still in limbo. Primarily singing torch songs and Judy Garland classics, she longed to perform hard-rocking tunes in the Led Zeppelin vein. Her wishes were fulfilled when her handlers introduced her to Cleveland guitar-man Neil Giraldo, whose aggressive playing unleashed Pat's inner rocker. She had found her muse, and when her audience roared one Halloween night over a sultry costume she wore on stage, she had found her image.- IMDb Mini Biography By: A. Nonymous
- SpousesNeil Giraldo(February 20, 1982 - present) (2 children)Dennis T. Benatar(July 1972 - 1979) (divorced)
- Her onstage costumes
- Mezzo-soprano vocals
- Small stature
- Her groundbreaking music video "Love is a Battlefield" (directed by Bob Giraldi and choreographed by Michael Peters) was the first ever music video to integrate spoken dialogue into recorded music.
- Has two daughters: Haley Giraldo (February 16, 1985) and Hana Juliana (March 12, 1994).
- Married Neil Giraldo on Maui on February 20, 1982. Daughter Hana Juliana is named for one of the nearby cities on the Island of Maui.
- Winner of four consecutive Grammy Awards for "Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female" (1980-1983) and nominated four more times in 85, 86, 88 and 89.
- Ranked #39 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll.
- Most chick-singers say "If you hurt me, I'll die"...I say, if you hurt me, I'll kick your ass.
- A kid named Joey lived across the street from me once, and he'd push snow in my face before school. I could never do anything about it, because I was a girl and real small. But after about a week, I got real pissed off. So I had two friends hold him on a slide. Then I punched his teeth out.
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