Wanderone moved into the Hermitage Hotel in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, in 1985, remaining there for several years. In 1992, while undergoing surgery for a knee injury, he suffered a massive heart attack but survived. In 1993, he met and married his second wife, Teresa Talley Bell. He lived in Bell's Nashville house until his death on January 15, 1996, four days shy of his 83rd birthday, although some sources, including "The New York Times", erroneously gave the date of his death as January 18.