He was playing saxophone in a dance band at Detroit's Graystone Ballroom when he met Lucille May Sawasky of Port Arthur, Ontario.

When older, she suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and Bernardi, by then a City Council member, would bring her to work with him from their home in Van Nuys[2][3] to watch television in his office.

Ernani went on to become a musician, performing under the pseudonym Noni Bernardi as lead alto sax for several of big bands of the era such as those of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Kay Kyser.

Ironically, as the Los Angeles Times pointed out, his star—and those of 29 other musicians and actors—was funded by the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, an organization that Bernardi had been fighting with for years.

[12] The Times reported: When this guy takes his spot in front of a 16-piece ensemble of blaring trumpets and gleaming saxes—The Way It Was Orchestra, as he calls it—his frail arms start pumping, his toes tap and his body begins to radiate a vigor that energizes the old musicians like swigs from a fountain of youth.

[12]By 1957 a contractor in the San Fernando Valley, Bernardi ran for the Los Angeles City Council District 7 seat that year but finished third in the primary election, after James C. Corman, the eventual victor, and Kay Bogendorfer.

[6] In 1986, a 12-vote majority of the City Council moved Bernardi's 7th District to a "largely new" part of the Valley for him, the northeast area,[2] which contained more minorities than his former territory.

[2] Yet he was reelected in 1989 by 55% to 45% over Fire Captain Lyle Hall, "who had more money, a more sophisticated mail campaign and labor unions' support that translated into scores of ready volunteers."

[6] He did this by "enlisting the support of the League of Women Voters and a ragtag group made up mostly of retirees to qualify an initiative for the ballot.

"I think he reflects a philosophy of misery" because of his efforts to cut allocations for human services, fellow Councilman David S. Cunningham, Jr.

"[6] In a ceremony marking his 25th anniversary on the council, he was presented with the "no" voting button from his desk, "which Councilman John Ferraro quipped was 'worn out' from overuse.

[2] Critics claimed that "as an aging white man," he lacked "modern-day sensitivity" when, in August 1991, he called African-American Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas "Curly" during an "emotionally charged discussion of racism."

[7] In his last years on the council, he continued casting "no" votes: against building the Metro Rail subway, against establishing a downtown redevelopment project, against declaring Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a city holiday.

In a related comment, on his last day in office he issued a press release applauding the U.S. Supreme Court in its Shaw v. Reno decision invalidating the drawing of a serpentine-shaped Congressional district whose parts seemed to have nothing to do with each other than the fact they were inhabited mostly by black people.

[17] Bernardi ran for mayor of Los Angeles while he was in his last few months on the City Council in 1993, saying that the other candidates failed to address issues that were important to him—mostly slashing the size and cost of government.

[9] In 1999, City Council President John Ferraro appointed Bernardi to a committee to oversee the spending of $744 million in bond funds for police and fire stations.