April 30, 2001 Vol. 55 No. 17 Dean's Genes By Samantha Miller
Dean Martin's Grandson Alex Gets His Feet Wet in the Family Business Growing up in one of show business's famous families has its privileges. When Alex Martin was in middle school in 1986, "all I wanted to do was meet Roger Moore," he says. "I loved James Bond." Martin revealed his wish to his grandmother, and during the next family Christmas party, "I was in my room, and Roger Moore and Sean Connery came in," says Martin. "I had both the Bonds with me watching Road Warrior. It was unbelievable." [
Or as Martin's grandfather Dean would have put it, ain't that a kick in the head? The legendary entertainer, who died in 1995 at age 78, would have gotten a charge out of his grandson's budding movie career—though heaven only knows what he would make of the numbers Alex, 28, croons as a member of Dujour, a boy-band spoof in the new movie Josie and the Pussycats. Make that lip-synchs. "I'd love to be able to sing," admits Martin, "but I can't."
The small part is the biggest yet for the son of actor-singer Dean Paul Martin, who died in a plane crash in 1987 at age 35, and actress Olivia Hussey, 50, known for the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet. Alex, whose résumé includes a role in 1998's Can't Hardly Wait, tends to keep quiet about his heritage. His best friend, Josie costar Breckin Meyer, 26, recalls being pals with Alex "for months" at Beverly Hills High before finding out about his famous forebears. Sure, he had seen photos of Dean in Alex's home, but "I was like, 'What is this obsession?' " says Meyer. "And then he was like, 'Oh, yeah, that's my grandfather.' "
His grandfather and father, says Martin, "were like gods to me when I was growing up." When Alex was 3, his mother and father divorced. For the next five years, while his Argentinean-born mother acted in movies overseas, he stayed with grandmother Jeanne Martin, 74, who had been divorced from Dean in 1973 but remained close to him until his death. (Dean's 1973 marriage to Cathy Hawn ended in divorce after three years.) Alex remembers bonding with his grandfather at about age 7. "He was always sitting on the couch watching golf," Alex says, "and it took me about an hour to get up the guts to crawl across the couch to him. Not because he was Dean Martin but because he was, you know, the gruff grandfather. I ended up falling asleep in his lap."
Alex was 14 and living with his mother when his father—who played in the rock band Dino, Desi &c Billy as a teenager, starred in the 1979 movie Players and was married to skater Dorothy Hamill for three years in the mid-'80s—died during a routine exercise for the California Air National Guard. Alex and a friend of his father's were listening in the control room when his father's F-4C Phantom jet inexplicably crashed. "They brought [LB]Alex| back here to me, and he just went into his room and closed the door," says Jeanne. Alex credits his mother (who lives outside L.A. with fourth husband David Eisley and Alex's half siblings Max, 18, and India Joy, 7) for his ability to cope. "My mom introduced me to a guru in India, and because I was exposed to that kind of philosophy, [the accident[RB] was obviously terrible but I understood it," he says.
A self-described "drama geek" at Beverly Hills High, Martin attended acting school in London for two years before returning to L.A. in 1994 and hitting the audition circuit. During Dean's last years, Alex often met him at La Famiglia restaurant in Beverly Hills, where the singer, shattered by his son's death and stricken with emphysema, dined almost every night. "He'd say, 'Hey, pallie, come sit down,' and it was great," says Alex. "He was so mellow and casual. He was never 'on.' He was just him."
The single, unattached actor spends off-hours visiting family, playing guitar and reading voraciously ("I have something like 6,000 books") in his one-bedroom L.A. apartment. Last year, after Alex traded quips with family members at their annual Christmas Eve gathering, Jeanne took him aside. "She said to me, 'You know, you would have made your grandfather and your dad very proud tonight. You were just as funny as they were,' " Martin says. "That meant a lot."
Samantha Miller Julie Jordan in Los Angeles
Contributors: Julie Jordan.
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