Dean Martin possessed the talent and laid-back coolness to make him a movie, recording, television and night club star for four decades.

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OPINION

Who would have guessed in the late 1950s that the coolest guy in America for the next quarter-century would be a fella named Dino Paul Crocetti from Steubenville, Ohio?

Of course, he became better known as Dean Martin to millions of fans worldwide…“The King of Cool” and a quadruple-threat star by the mid-1960s. Martin had hit songs and movies, top television programs and record-breaking nightclub appearances…making him one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th Century.

Like most overnight sensations, Martin toiled for nearly two decades in jobs that really didn’t pass for careers…and were often less than entertaining…all while he was singing. As a 15-year-old, he called himself “Kid Crochet”…a prize-fighter collecting bruises, broken knuckles (he couldn’t afford tape for his hands) but little money.

As an older teenager, he was a bookie, ran numbers for an illegal gambling operation and drove liquor across state lines during Prohibition. All the while, he sang in small clubs around Ohio where he was too young to drink…often accompanied by his mom.

(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

By the time Martin was 21, he was the featured singer for The Sammy Watkins Orchestra in Cleveland…developing a following in Ohio and beyond. He changed his name to Dean Martin in 1940, and by 1943 he was in New York City…singing under exclusive contract at the Riobamba Room, which along with The Latin Quarter and The Stork Club, was the pinnacle of nightclubs in Manhattan.

In 1944, Martin had his own 15-minute radio program entitled “Songs by Dean Martin”, broadcast from New York City. In 1946, he signed a recording contract with Diamond Records…but only cut four singles. He was then drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II, but after 14 months was honourably discharged after suffering a hernia.

Martin and Jerry Lewis got together in the Summer of 1946, and soon became one of America’s leading comedy teams…Lewis playing a buffoon and Martin a sophisticated singer.

The act invariably revolved around Dean singing, with Jerry heckling or interrupting him in some clownish way. They were a hit on radio, television, movies and nightclubs…appearing on the first broadcast of CBS-TV network's “Toast of the Town” on June 20, 1948…a show later re-named “The Ed Sullivan Show”. He signed a good recording contract with Capitol Records in 1948.

Martin and Lewis lasted as a team exactly ten years to the day. It was an acrimonious break-up, but both proved critics wrong after their split…becoming gigantic stars with solo acts. Twenty years later with some help from mutual friend Frank Sinatra the two reconciled on The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon.

Dean carefully groomed his persona as a solo performer. He was seen as a happy-go-luck drinker on stage…but rarely drank before, during or between shows. But he knew how to act tipsy better than any real drunk…all while sipping apple juice on the rocks…and always smoking a cigarette.

“You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on,” Martin would quip with a sly smile. He loved cultivating a slightly bad boy image, saying: “I once shook hands with Pat Boone and my whole right side sobered up!”

Even the license plate on his car - “Drunky” - played up his made-up lifestyle. He had hundreds of seemingly off-the-cuff remarks that endeared him to audiences. Men wanted to be him…women wanted to be with him.

Dean couldn’t read music, but those who worked with him - producers, recording engineers and studio musicians - agreed Martin was one of the easiest singers to work with…famous for getting what was needed with one or two takes.

Martin became a member of the “Rat Pack” and - along with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford - practically owned Las Vegas…influencing each others careers in film, television, recording studios and nightclubs.

The original iteration of the “Rat Pack” started in the late 1940s, with celebrities changing over the years. The name stuck when Lauren Bacall saw her husband Humphrey Bogart and his friends return from a stint in Las Vegas, and said: "You look like a goddamn rat pack.”

That first “Rat Pack” was a fluid group of show biz friends over the years, with Frank Sinatra the unofficial head rat after Bogart died. Members of the first pack included Judy Garland, Sid Luft, Swifty Lazar, David Niven, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, and Jimmy Van Heusen.

Over the years, stars like Marilyn Monroe, Shirley MacLaine, Angie Dickinson, Don Rickles and Nat King Cole, among others, became unofficial members or “mascots”.

But by the early 1960s, it was Sinatra, Martin, Davis and Bishop that the public acknowledged as the “Rat Pack”…Lawford kicked out by Sinatra. The four starred as an ensemble cast in Vegas and in movies like, “Ocean’s Eleven”, “Sergeants Three” and “Robin and the Seven Hoods.”

Martin’s singing was always at the forefront of his career…and he had big hits in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. His signature song, “Everybody Loves Somebody” was a huge hit in 1964…knocking “A Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles from its Number One Top 40 spot.

Elvis Presley was such a Martin fan that he styled his “Love Me Tender” hit after Martin’s smooth style, admitting he crafted some of his image on Martin’s devil-may-care style.

Martin’s list of hits are the envy of most singers…with “That’s Amore”…“Sway”…”Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”…“Volare”…“Dream a Little Dream of Me”…“Mambo Italiano”…“Buono Sera”…“Memories are Made of This”…among his 56 hit songs over 35 years.

Martin once quipped, “It’s Frank’s world…we just live in it.” But Martin never lived in Sinatra’s shadow…starring in 58 movies, 264 episodes of “The Dean Martin Show” on television, recording 125 singles and 35 studio albums and thousands of night club performances.

Martin could do it all…dressed in a tux, drink in hand and with a finger-popping coolness that no one…not even Sinatra could diminish.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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