NEW YORK – Tony Danza does not have a housekeeper. He said he prefers to “deep clean” his two-bedroom Upper West Side apartment once every week while singing Frank Sinatra tunes.

As he belted out Drinking Again, the 73-year-old actor stood beside his 1988 Yamaha Disklavier – a piano controlled by a computer.

It was mid-afternoon, but he had been singing throughout his 1,046 sq ft apartment that is filled with art, including signed prints by Spanish artist Joan Miro, since early morning. This was in preparation for his new cabaret show Tony Danza: Sinatra & Stories, which will kick off the Cafe Carlyle’s fall season on Sept 10.

Danza’s television credits include Taxi (1978 to 1983) and Who’s The Boss? (1984 to 1992), and he had roles in Broadway’s The Iceman Cometh, The Producers and Honeymoon In Vegas.

“I can start singing at six o’clock in the morning and nobody hears me, and I don’t hear them. That’s one of the reasons I love this apartment.”

Above the piano is a framed replica poster by Swiss artist Celestino Piatti that was used to advertise the Harlem closed-circuit showing of the “Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier on March 8, 1971.

“I was watching a rerun of Taxi, and I saw the poster hanging in Tony Banta’s (the character Danza portrayed on the television show) apartment. I was like, ‘What happened to that?’

“That’s what’s wrong with me. I never worried about memorabilia. Anyway, I found a replica online. It’s better than nothing.”

Before he started his acting career in 1977, Danza was a professional boxer. He trained at Gleason’s Gym at 30th Street and Eighth Avenue. “Ali trained at Gleason’s while I was there,” he said.

At the gym in the late 1970s, a television producer saw Danza fight and later cast him in Taxi, which ran for five years. That was followed by the actor’s eight-year run starring in Who’s The Boss? as professional baseball player-turned-housekeeper Tony Micelli.

In his pass-through kitchen, two air-fryers sit atop a wood plank covering the stove.

“Someone in the building was renovating their apartment a few years ago and hired a guy who drilled through the building’s gas line,” said Danza. “The building contacted me and said 54 apartments do not have gas for months. So, I got myself air-fryers and never used the stove again.”

Initially, the cosy two-bedroom condo served as a pied-a-terre that Danza rented while he filmed the first season of The Tony Danza Talk Show in 2004. The following year, he purchased the apartment for US$1.7 million and did a gut renovation. Danza often walked to work at ABC Studio 7 Lincoln with his neighbour and friend, TV host Regis Philbin.

Danza had a recurring guest with a lot of star power on his show: American singer and actress Liza Minnelli.

“Liza is my dear, dear friend. She appeared on my first show, the 100th show and the last show. She was a big booster of the show,” he said. “Here we are dancing to I Can’t Give You Anything But Love on the 100th episode.”

“I was optimistic because the show got picked up for a second season. So, I bought this apartment, but it wasn’t supposed to be where I lived full-time. I was going to go back to Los Angeles and live in my big house, and this was going to be my place while I was in New York.

“Unfortunately, the show didn’t work out. So, now I have an apartment with a great view of the job I used to have,” he said, laughing.

After his second divorce, the doorman building officially became Danza’s primary residence in 2011. Danza has three adult children. His former wife chose the living room’s beige and brown decor before they split, but Danza has managed to make the space his own by papering the walls with nostalgic prints, old photographs and paintings by his granddaughter.

During Season 5 of Who’s The Boss?, Sinatra did a guest spot on the show.

Danza had been a lifelong fan. “My mum turned me on to Sinatra and exposed me to the finer points of his music. She would say, ‘Listen to how he sings this part,’” said Danza.

After meeting Sinatra on the set of Cannonball Run II in 1984, Danza was determined to get the icon to do a cameo. Five years later, he approached Tina Sinatra at Morton’s, a restaurant and show-business institution in Los Angeles, and asked if her father would come on Who’s The Boss?.

“The next day, I got a call saying Sinatra would do it,” Danza said. “I don’t know why he decided to do it, but I made everybody crazy on set when he came because I told them, ‘He only does one take. I will kill anybody who messes up the take.’”

The day of filming, the crew followed Danza’s directions. “So, everybody is stiff, and we do the take, and it was good, and then Frank goes, ‘Do you want another take?’ Everybody looked at me like, what a dope you are,” Danza recalled.

The day was also special because he granted his mother, Anna Camisa Iadanza, her fondest wish by arranging for her to meet Sinatra.

The 75-minute Sinatra & Stories will begin with three Sinatra songs: Come Fly With Me, I’ve Got The World On A String and I’ve Got You Under My Skin.

Danza, who was inspired to start singing and tap dancing after a near-fatal ski accident in 1993, said he will not try to replicate Sinatra’s voice.

“I’m not going to sing like him or anything like that. I will take charge like he did when he took the stage,” he said. “The, ‘I’m here, and I belong here, approach.’” NYTIMES