Few individuals need less of an introduction
than Dean Martin. He was known as the “king of cool” due to his charismatic
nature and is one of the most iconic comedians, actors, and singers of the 20th
century.
Dean Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti on 7
June 1917 in Jefferson County, Ohio. His parents were Italian immigrants and so
Dean didn’t even start learning to speak English until the age of five and
because of the language barrier, he was often bullied in his younger years. As
a teenager, he began to develop a love of music and took up playing the drums.
Like many young people, Dean had a bit of a rebellious streak and chose to drop
out of high school because he thought he was more intelligent than his
teachers. After dropping out, he picked up all sorts of different jobs working variously
as a blackjack dealer, a steel mill worker, and even a welterweight boxer and bootlegger
during the prohibition years.
By late 1941, Dean Martin had met and married Elizabeth McDonald and the couple had four children, Craig, Claudia, Gail, and Deana. However, the marriage was an unhappy one and ended in divorce in 1949 with Dean gaining custody of the children. During this period, he was a member of several different bands but succeeded almost entirely on his personality and looks. However, he eventually managed to develop his own singing style that began to attract some attention to his vocal skills as well.
He married again as soon as his divorce from
Elizabeth came through, marrying a former Orange Bowl queen from Florida called
Dorothy Jean Biegger. Their marriage was much more successful and lasted 24
years producing a further three children for Dean. The first of these was also
named Dean and was born on 17 November 1951. The second was Ricci born in 1953
and then Gina born in 1956. He did marry for a third time but that marriage, to
Catherine Hawn only lasted three years and produced no children although Dean did
adopt Catherine’s daughter Sasha.
Whilst working in New York, Dean Martin met the
comedian Jerry Lewis who, although famous now, was, like Dean, a nobody back in
the 40s, and the two of them performed together at Atlantic City’s 500
Club. The only problem was that their
act was very poorly received, so much so that the owner told them that if their
next performance was no better, then they were both fired. With the hindsight
of history, we can now smile knowing how successful these two became; however,
the two of them were desperate to improve their act and so they began
formulating a plan in the back alley behind the club and the two of them agreed
that if they were going to go out, then they were going to go out with a bang
and so they decided to go for broke.
The plan meant that they would turn their show
into a variety performance with different sections which included some ad-libbed
comedic jokes and skits as well as music. This would serve as a template for Dean
Martin’s comedic career that was to blossom in later years.
After many successful years with Jerry Lewis,
Dean Martin desired creative changes that ultimately led to his partnership with
Lewis coming to an end. He decided to try his hand at acting and so turned his
attention towards Hollywood. His first solo film, Ten-Thousand Bedrooms in 1957
failed miserably at the box office. He was by now a well-known singer who was
also known for slapstick comedy but rock ‘n’ roll was taking over the music
scene pushing crooners like Dean Martin aside and it was also difficult for
people to see him as a serious actor.
However, a short time after Ten Thousand
Bedrooms he was offered a co-starring role along with Marlon Brando and
Montgomery Clift in the movie Young Lions in 1958. The movie did well and as a
result, Dean Martin was offered more roles and so his Hollywood star began to
rise and his career began to recover with successes in such films as Some Came
Running in 1958, Rio Bravo in 1959 where he starred alongside John Wayne, The
Sons of Katie Elder, also starring John Wayne in 1965, and even occasionally
dipping back into comedy films like Who Was That Lady? which premiered in 1960
and also starred Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis.
Dean Martin first starred in a movie with Frank Sinatra in 1958. It was called Some Came Running and he went on to work with Sinatra on several other movie projects including 1960’s heist movie Ocean’s 11. He and Sinatra became friends and along with Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford they formed the Rat Pack. The group not only performed on stage together but also starred in movies, including the aforementioned Ocean’s 11. The Rat Pack became very popular, especially on Sunset Strip in Las Vegas. Their shows consisted mainly of singing but also included some comedy.
The 1960s continued to be successful for Dean
Martin as not only were his movie and music careers making him fabulously
famous and wealthy but he also became a household name for television audiences
as in 1965 he was given the chance to host his own television show. The Dean
Martin Show was a variety comedy series inspired by his experiences with Jerry
Lewis many years previously and more recently the Rat Pack. It was a
phenomenally successful weekly show that ran for over 260 episodes until the
mid-1970s and despite it having ended over 50 years ago, the Dean Martin show is
still popular in reruns to this day.
Like so many famous individuals though, and despite
a phenomenally successful public life within which he won many awards including
Golden Globes, Dean Martin’s personal life was quite a bit less successful. He
married three times and divorced three times, and his home life was often in a
bit of a shambles and was not improved any by the extensive use of alcohol throughout
his career.
Some have attempted to claim that Dean Martin
only played the drunk as a part of his stage performance and was actually quite
a moderate drinker, but these claims are disputed, and it is generally accepted
that Dean Martin was indeed a heavy drinker often drinking into the early hours
following live shows.
In 1987, Dean Martin’s 35-year-old son Dean was
killed when the F-4 Phantom II fighter jet he was flying crashed whilst he was
working for the California Air National Guard. The depression over the loss of
his son was not easy for him to cope with and although he still kept a fairly
busy performance schedule, many believe that after the event he was a changed
man. He toured again with Frank and Sammy but his heart wasn’t really in it and
he was left feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size of audiences that they were
playing to in various stadiums, preferring the more intimate shows of his earlier
career. His last two television appearances were in 1989 and 1990 at Sammy’s 60th
anniversary special and for Frank Sinatra’s 75th birthday.
As well as being a heavy drinker, Dean Martin had
also been a heavy smoker and he was diagnosed with lung cancer in September
1993. He rejected the surgery that could have prolonged his life and so on
Christmas Day 1995 Dean Martin died. He was 78 years old.
Dean Martin has three stars on the Hollywood
walk of fame, one each for his careers in movies, television and music and he was
posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.
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