Tony Romano was born to a musical family, one of 14 children. His parents emigrated from a small town near Napoli in southern Italy, (the same town as composer Harry Warren who became a lifelong friend) to Madera, California and then to Fresno, where his father became a shoemaker.

Tony's father taught all his children music and Tony learned violin and guitar. Like many families of the period, the evening's entertainment was musical performances accompanied by piano (his brother Nick) guitar (Tony and his brother John) and violin (Tony and his father). Everyone sang. When Tony was 15 his older brother John took him to San Francisco to introduce him to comedian Al Pearce who had a popular show The Al Pearce Happy Go Lucky Hour (a.k.a. Al Pearce and his Gang). Despite the fact that Tony had won a scholarship to study the violin in Milan, he accepted Pearce's offer to join the show so that he could support his entire family.

Romano is perhaps best known for having traveled 6 million miles during WW2 entertaining literally millions of G.I.s as one of the original 4 members of Bob Hope's USO show (with Hope, Jerry Colonna and Frances Langford). During this time he performed for Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower.