Dean Martin

• 1. Introduction

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  Dean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti, delivered one of his sharpest hometown jokes in a 1967 spy spoof. In The Ambushers, his secret agent Matt Helm is about to be executed and is offered a last cigarette. Helm tells the man who hands it over that he will remember him from the great beyond. Then, under his breath, he adds, "somewhere around Steubenville, I hope".

  Steubenville, Ohio, was where Martin was born in 1917. He became a singer, actor, comedian and television host, and he was nicknamed the "King of Cool". He died in 1995, and he is still regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century.

  His rise raises some real puzzles. What happened between Martin and the comedian Jerry Lewis, the partner who first made him famous? How did he turn a reputation as a carefree drunk into a weekly television hit? And how much of that reputation was an act?

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• 2. Steubenville Years

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  On the 7th of June 1917, Dino Paul Crocetti was born in Steubenville, Ohio. His father, Gaetano Alfonso Crocetti, was a barber from Montesilvano in the Abruzzo region of Italy. His mother, Angela, was born in Fernwood, Ohio. Her father, Domenico Barra, had emigrated from Monasterolo. Dino also had an older brother, Guglielmo, who went by William.

  At 15, he began boxing under the name Kid Crochet. The sport left him with a broken nose, later straightened, a scarred lip and many broken knuckles. He could not afford the tape that boxers use to wrap their hands. Of his 12 bouts, he claimed that he "won all but 11."

  In New York City, he shared an apartment with Sonny King, another young performer with very little money. The two reportedly charged people to watch them box bare-knuckle there, fighting until one of them was knocked out. In an amateur match, Martin knocked King out in the first round.

  Boxing then gave way to gambling. Martin worked as a roulette stickman and croupier in an illegal casino behind a tobacco shop, where he had started out as a stock boy. At the same time, he sang with local bands under the name Dino Martini. He had borrowed it from Nino Martini, a tenor at the Metropolitan Opera.

  His break came with the Ernie McKay Orchestra. His crooning style drew on Harry Mills of The Mills Brothers and on Perry Como. By late 1940 he was singing for Cleveland bandleader Sammy Watkins, who suggested he change his name to Dean Martin. He stayed with Watkins until at least May 1943, and by that fall he was performing in New York.

  World War II reached him too. Martin was drafted into the U.S. Army, but a hernia led to his discharge after 14 months. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures both took notice of him, yet no Hollywood contract was offered.

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• 3. Martin and Lewis

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  In August 1944, at the Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York City, Martin walked up to a comic in the lobby. According to Jerry Lewis, Martin said, "Hey, I saw your act, you're a funny kid." Martin was singing at the hotel's famous Glass Hat Club, and the two happened to share a bill. A fast friendship followed. Soon each joined the other's act, and a music-comedy team was born.

  Their debut as a pair came on the 24th of July 1946 at the 500 Club in Atlantic City, and the crowd did not warm to them. The owner, Skinny D'Amato, warned that they would be fired unless the second show that night was better. In the alley behind the club, they agreed to "go for broke". They split the act between songs, skits and ad-libbed material.

  On stage, Martin sang while Lewis, dressed as a busboy, dropped plates and wrecked the performance. Lewis was finally chased from the room as Martin pelted him with bread rolls. The audience laughed. Well-paying bookings along the Eastern seaboard followed, ending in a run at New York's Copacabana. Both men said the secret was that they ignored the audience and played to each other.

  On the 20th of June 1948, the duo made their television debut on the first broadcast of the CBS show The Toast of The Town, later renamed The Ed Sullivan Show. The composers Rodgers and Hammerstein also appeared that night. To sharpen their act, the pair hired young comedy writers Norman Lear and Ed Simmons, who helped carry them beyond nightclubs.

  In 1949, a radio series began, and the pair signed with Paramount producer Hal B. Wallis as comedy relief for the film My Friend Irma. Their agent, Abby Greshler, negotiated one of Hollywood's best deals. They received only $75,000 between them for their films with Wallis. But they could make one outside film a year, which they co-produced through their own York Productions. They also controlled their club, record, radio and television appearances, and these earned them millions of dollars. Lewis later called Martin one of the great comic geniuses of all time in Dean & Me, and he served as Martin's best man when Martin remarried in 1949.

  But harsh comments from critics wore on Martin. So did the sameness of the Martin and Lewis movies, which Wallis refused to change. Martin put less enthusiasm into the work. During the filming of 3 Ring Circus in 1954, a publicity photo of Martin, Lewis and actress Sheree North appeared on the cover of Look magazine, and Martin was shocked by it. The team's publicity manager, Jack Keller, remembered Martin arriving on set "with a copy of Look and he threw it right in my face and called me every vile name he could think of."

  Lewis recalled Martin "saying he was fed up to the ears playing a stooge." Martin later looked back on the film bitterly. He said there was no sense of him being in that picture at all. The picture ran 35 minutes before he sang his first song, an old one called "It's a Big, Wide Wonderful World", and he sang it "to animals."

  Still, Martin honored his contract. It ran out on the 25th of July 1956, a decade after the team first formed.

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• 4. Comeback and the Clan

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  Ten Thousand Bedrooms, released in 1957, was Martin's first solo film, and it failed at the box office. His record "Volare" reached number 15 in the United States and number 2 in the United Kingdom. Even so, the age of the pop crooner was fading as rock and roll took hold. Martin wanted to be known as a dramatic actor, not only as a slapstick comedian.

  A war drama gave him his chance. In The Young Lions, released in 1958, his part would put him beside Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, though he was offered only a fraction of his former salary. Tony Randall already had the role. The talent agency MCA saw that the film would make Martin a triple threat, earning money from nightclubs, films and records. Randall was paid off to give up the part, Martin replaced him, and the film marked the beginning of his comeback.

  In 1958, Some Came Running, a drama directed by Vincente Minnelli, paired him with Frank Sinatra for the first time. In Rio Bravo, released in 1959 and directed by Howard Hawks, he played Dude alongside John Wayne and the singer Ricky Nelson. Six years later he and Wayne played brothers in The Sons of Katie Elder. A Golden Globe nomination came for the 1960 comedy Who Was That Lady?

  He kept reaching for serious parts. He played a Southern politician in Ada in 1961, appeared opposite Geraldine Page in Toys in the Attic in 1963, and joined Burt Lancaster in Airport in 1970, a huge box-office success. In Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid, from 1964, Martin played a satiric version of his own womanizing image. His character was a Las Vegas singer named Dino, and Kim Novak played opposite him. He poked fun at that image again in the Matt Helm spy spoofs of the 1960s, which he co-produced.

  As his solo career grew, Martin and Sinatra became close friends. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, they formed a circle with Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. The name Rat Pack came from an earlier social group in Holmby Hills, centered on Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, which Sinatra had belonged to. Martin's circle called themselves "The Summit" or "The Clan" and never used the name Rat Pack, though it stuck in popular imagination.

  The men made films together, including the crime caper Ocean's 11, the musical Robin and the 7 Hoods, the Westerns Sergeants 3 and 4 for Texas, and the romantic comedy Marriage on the Rocks. They also moved in Hollywood's social scene and carried political weight, through Lawford's marriage to Patricia Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy.

  Their Las Vegas Strip shows were legendary. At the Sands Hotel, the marquee might promise Dean Martin, then maybe Frank, then maybe Sammy. Their appearances mattered because the city would flood with wealthy gamblers. Always in tuxedos, they sang solos, duets and trios, mixed with seemingly improvised slapstick and chatter. Their jokes dwelt on adult themes, such as Sinatra's womanizing, Martin's drinking, and Davis's race and religion.

  Off stage, Sinatra and Martin supported the civil rights movement. They refused to perform in clubs that would not allow Black American or Jewish performers. Years after their deaths, the group's popular revival inspired the Ocean's Trilogy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

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• 5. The Singer

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  Dean Martin could not read music, and neither could Sinatra. Even so, Martin recorded 35 studio albums and over 550 songs. He began by copying Harry Mills, Bing Crosby and Perry Como. In time he developed a voice of his own, one good enough to hold its own in duets with Sinatra and with Crosby.

  In 1964, his signature tune, "Everybody Loves Somebody", knocked the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" off number one in the United States. "The Door is Still Open to My Heart" followed that year and reached number six. Elvis Presley was said to be a fan of Martin and to have patterned his performance of "Love Me Tender" after Martin's style.

  Country music pulled at both men. In 1963 Martin released Dean "Tex" Martin: Country Style and then Dean "Tex" Martin Rides Again. By 1965 some of his albums, among them Houston, Welcome to My World and Gentle on My Mind, were built from country and western songs by writers such as Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. He hosted country performers on his television show. The Country Music Association named him "Man Of the Year" in 1966.

  For nearly a decade he recorded as many as four albums a year for Reprise Records. His last Reprise album, Once in a While, was recorded in 1974 but not issued until 1978. His final recordings were made for Warner Bros. Records. The Nashville Sessions came out in 1983 and produced a respectable country hit, "(I Think That I Just Wrote) My First Country Song", recorded with Conway Twitty.

  One song grew bigger after its time. "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?", which Martin sang in Ocean's 11, was not a hit when it came out. It has since revived in media and pop culture and has been his most frequently played song in media for two decades. Across his career, Martin sold 12 million records in the United States alone and over 50 million worldwide.

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• 6. The Weekly Show

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  NBC kept pressing Martin to host a weekly television series, and he rebelled against the idea. To end the pressure, he set conditions he was sure the network would refuse. He wanted an exorbitant amount of money and would come to the studio only on Sundays. He refused to rehearse during the week, so special-material creator Lee Hale stood in for him to block the action with the guests.

  He agreed to only one dress rehearsal, on Sunday afternoon, before taping began at 7:00 p.m. He would not memorize scripts, so the staff prepared cue cards. He even reserved the right not to sing if he did not feel like it. NBC agreed to everything. "They should have thrown them in my face, but they agreed to it all," Martin said. "So what the hell, I had to show up!"

  The Dean Martin Show launched in 1965 and ran for 264 episodes until 1974. Martin won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a television series, musical or comedy, in 1966, and he was nominated again in each of the next three years. The show was often in the top ten.

  The show exploited his image as a carefree boozer. Martin played a half-drunk crooner who hit on women and made snappy, slurred remarks about fellow celebrities. If he stumbled over a cue card, he could stay in character, cover the mistake with an offhand remark and move on. Lee Hale insisted that Martin was always professional and prepared. Les Brown's orchestral accompaniments were recorded on cassette tape, so Martin could learn the tempos while driving to the studio.

  After four or five shows, Hale recalled, the program was in trouble. Director Greg Garrison thought that involving Martin more might cure it. Martin responded with enthusiasm and joined the guest-star spots and the comedy sketches. The show cut back its variety acts to leave more room for him. Its loose format thrived on quick-witted improvisation, which led to battles with NBC censors. Martin also drew complaints from Italian-speaking viewers over his off-the-cuff use of obscene Italian phrases.

  In appreciation, Martin made a handshake deal giving Garrison, a pioneering television producer of the 1950s, 50% of the show. NBCUniversal has since brought a lawsuit over whether that ownership is valid.

  Martin's reputation as a drinker was fed by his vanity license plate, "DRUNKY". Yet his alcohol use was quite disciplined. He was the first to call it a night, and when not on tour or on a film location he liked to go home to his family. He had borrowed the lovable-drunk routine from Joe E. Lewis. His convincing portrayals of heavy drinkers in Some Came Running and Rio Bravo led to unsubstantiated claims of alcoholism.

  Outside the studio, he made his passion for golf profitable with a signature line of golf balls. The Dean Martin Tucson Open was a PGA Tour event from 1972 to 1975. At his death, he was reportedly the single largest minority shareholder of RCA stock.

  Once comfortable financially, Martin began cutting back. The show's final season, 1973-74, was retooled into a series of celebrity roasts that needed less of his time. After the cancellation, NBC kept airing The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast as specials through 1984, with Martin as roastmaster. A panel of his pals made fun of entertainment, sports and political figures, and the roast hall drew celebrities, comedians and politicians.

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• 7. Family and Final Years

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  In September 1976, on Jerry Lewis's Labor Day telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Frank Sinatra shocked Lewis by bringing Martin out on stage. The two men embraced, the audience gave them a standing ovation, and the phones lit up. It became one of the most profitable years the telethon had seen up to that time. Lewis later said it was one of the three most memorable events of his life.

  Lewis quipped, "So, you working?" Martin, playing drunk, answered that he was appearing at the "Meggum", meaning the MGM Grand Hotel. The two kept up a quiet friendship but performed together only once more, on Martin's 72nd birthday in 1989.

  Martin was married three times. In October 1941 he married Elizabeth Anne "Betty" McDonald in Cleveland. They had four children, Craig, Claudia, Gail and Deana, before they divorced in 1949. That year he married Dorothy Jean "Jeanne" Biegger, a former Orange Bowl queen from Coral Gables, Florida. Their marriage lasted 24 years and produced three children, Dean Paul, Ricci and Gina.

  In 1972 Martin filed for divorce from Jeanne. Less than a month after that marriage had dissolved, he married 26-year-old Catherine Hawn on the 25th of April 1973, when he was 55. Hawn had been a receptionist at a hair salon in Beverly Hills. They divorced on the 10th of November 1976, and Martin adopted Hawn's daughter, Sasha. Though thought of as promiscuous, Martin spent much time with his family. As Jeanne put it before their divorce, "He was home every night for dinner."

  His life had its odd turns. In 1982 he was stopped on suspicion of drunk driving. No alcohol was detected, but he was arrested for carrying a concealed firearm without a permit. He pleaded guilty and received one year of probation and a $120 fine.

  His work wound down in stages. In 1973, he was the featured performer on the opening night of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, on the 23rd of December. His contract required him to star in a film for MGM, and that film was Mr. Ricco, his final starring role. He returned to the screen in The Cannonball Run and its sequel, which critics panned but audiences embraced. His first music video, made for "Since I Met You Baby", aired on MTV and was created by his youngest son, Ricci.

  On the 21st of March 1987, Martin's son Dean Paul died when his F-4 Phantom II jet fighter crashed during a flight with the California Air National Guard. Dean Paul had once been part of the 1960s teen rock group Dino, Desi and Billy. Martin's grief left him depressed and demoralized. In an on-stage interview in 2005, Lewis said Martin became a reclusive alcoholic afterward. A 1988 tour with Davis and Sinatra, undertaken partly to help Martin recover, sputtered.

  Martin, a lifelong heavy smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in September 1993. He was told that surgery was needed to prolong his life, but he rejected it. He retired from public life in early 1995. On Christmas Day that year, he died of acute respiratory failure from emphysema at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 78. The lights of the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed in his honor.

  Martin is interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. His crypt carries the epitaph "Everybody loves somebody sometime", the first line of his signature song.

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• 8. Afterlife

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  In 1997, Ohio Route 7 through Steubenville was rededicated as Dean Martin Boulevard. Road signs bear an Al Hirschfeld caricature of Martin. A historical marker with a small picture and brief biography stands in Gazebo Park, at Route 7 and North Fourth Street. Every June, Steubenville holds the Dean Martin Hometown Festival over a long weekend, with impersonators, friends and family, and many entertainers of Italian ancestry. The Dean Martin Association has led it since 2024.

  Other places followed. In 2005, Clark County, Nevada, renamed a portion of Industrial Road as Dean Martin Drive, and Rancho Mirage, California, dedicated a similarly named street in 2008. San Antonio, Texas, also has a street named for him. In Italy, Montesilvano, the town of his father's birth, dedicated a square to him and named a congress palace Pala Dean Martin.

  The awards kept coming. His footprints were set in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1964. He has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: at 6519 Hollywood Boulevard for movies, at 1617 Vine for recordings, and at 6651 Hollywood Boulevard for television. In February 2009 he received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, which his children Gail, Deana, Ricci and Gina accepted for him. In 2010 he received a posthumous star on the Italian Walk of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

  His records returned to the charts as well. The album Dino: The Essential Dean Martin earned his family a gold record in 2004, became his fastest-selling album, reached the iTunes Top 10 and was certified platinum in 2006. In the week ending the 23rd of December 2006, his duet of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Martina McBride reached No. 7 on the R&R AC chart. Forever Cool, an album of duets, followed in 2007 with Kevin Spacey, Shelby Lynne, Joss Stone, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Robbie Williams and McBride. A compilation, Amore!, debuted at number one on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in February 2009.

  His songs have also threaded through film and television. "That's Amore", "Sway" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" have turned up in Goodfellas, Casino and Moonstruck, in series such as The Sopranos, Mad Men and Friends, and in video games including Fallout: New Vegas. They even played at the 2008 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

  Actors have played him as well. Danny Gans portrayed Martin in the 1992 CBS miniseries Sinatra. Joe Mantegna played him in the 1998 HBO movie The Rat Pack and earned both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination. In 2002, Jeremy Northam portrayed him in the television movie Martin and Lewis, opposite Sean Hayes as Lewis. In 1998, the MTV animated show Celebrity Deathmatch staged a clay-animated fight between Martin and Lewis, and Martin won by whacking Lewis out of the ring.

  Tribute acts keep his style alive. Since 2000, the show The Rat Pack: Live from Las Vegas has toured Europe and North America with Martin impersonators. The slot machines Dean Martin's Wild Party and Dean Martin's Vegas Shindig play his songs during bonus rounds. In Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Sharon Tate, played by Margot Robbie, goes to a cinema to see The Wrecking Crew. Martin appears on screen there, as Matt Helm, in archival footage.

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