Dean was the ultimate American dreamer....with a charm and smoothness of character that seem like something out of the age of the dinosaurs...

Hey pallies, the incredibly iconic , colossal centennial celebration of our Dino's entry onto pad Earth continues today with a visit with a new-to-ilovedinomartin blog tagged "jcorradoblog -Sports, Politics, Current Events and Assorted Nonsense."  Likes doin' a wee bit of searchin' at this blog has yielded the fact that the "j" in "jcorrandoblog" is Joe, so we are guessin' that this is Joe Corrando's blog.  And, likes since quite a number of his posts refer to the City of Brotherly Love....Philadelphia, we are also submisin' that Joe hails from Philly.

Mr. Corrando's most Dino-honorin' post is tagged, "A Century of Cool: Happy Birthday, Dino," and likes what we digs the mostest 'bout this post is how Joe, likes so so many of the Dino-centennial posts we have and will share, speaks has his own powerfully personal perspective on our King of Cool...and it is completely, coolly clear that Joe is an awesome Dino-affectionado!!!!!

Likes a couple of Joe's terrific thoughts on our Dino that brought the biggest of big Dino-buddha grins to our face include:

".....Dean’s style and persona had unquestionable mass appeal. His epic “coolness” knew no demographic."

"Dean was the ultimate American dreamer, who rose from a small, sleepy Ohio town to the bright lights of New York City with a charm and smoothness of character that seem like something out of the age of the dinosaurs in this era of fading masculinity, sanitized comedy and dumbed-down entertainment on both the stage, the screen and in the music industry."

Likes, how great it is pallies to find delightful dudes likes Philly's Mr. Joe Corrando who "get Martin" and loves sharin' their deepest of deep devotion to our Dino with their readership!  We shout out our terrific thanks to Corrando for his thoughtful time 'n talent and his effervescent  energy in hugely homagin' our cooler then cool Dino on his centennial of entry onto our planet.  To checks this out in it's original source, likes simply clicks on the tag of this here Dino-report.

We remain,

Yours in Dino,

Dino Martin Peters


A Century of Cool: Happy Birthday, Dino

JUNE 7, 2017 ~ JCORRADOBLOG




To quote a lame Philly sports radio bit, give me your Mount Rushmore of “cool”. Only three faces would ever adorn it, and all have first name credentials: Frank, Sammy and Dean. All three of these guys were unique in their own way despite being the same in many others. Frank was obviously the undisputed leader of the Rat Pack, with an arrogance that was rooted in the fact that he refused to change his last name because it sounded too “ethnic” for the times, and a generational singing voice to boot. The biggest all-around talent of the three was unquestionably Sammy (even a man with Frank’s ego and pride admitted this repeatedly), who was blessed with the fortune of excelling at singing, dancing, and acting from the time he could walk until his death in 1990 at the age of just 64.

Then there was Dino, who was the undisputed leader of the Rat Pack in a category that is just as universal, and in these days a rarity: the art of being cool, and 100 years ago today the coolest cat on Earth was born in a small Ohio town two hours from Cleveland.

The little boy from Steubenville who was born Dino Crocetti certainly possessed an arsenal of talent himself, to be sure. The silky smooth vocals, the acting and comedic ability, and the looks to boot. But unlike the in-your-face style of Sinatra or the penchant of Sammy to completely take over a stage, Dino was content to play it cool, and did he ever. He was raised in a blue-collar, working class town just west of Pittsburgh to Italian immigrants, and honed his skills at mob-owned nightclubs outside of Cleveland, where he combined his triple-threat combination of good looks, a smooth singing voice and a laid back sense of humor that would serve him well throughout his career. These were the smoke-filled days where the night life was rife with real-life tough guys who were in attendance with the wives on Saturday nights and the girlfriends on Fridays, to quote a Scorsese flick you may be familiar with, and Dino didn’t disappoint. And despite his Italian-American upbringing, Dean’s style and persona had unquestionable mass appeal. His epic “coolness” knew no demographic.

After his brief stay on the Ohio club scene he realized his talents were too vast to be contained, and New York City came calling. By the early 1940s as World War II raged on, Dean was opening for Sinatra at the legendary Riobamba Club, and by chance met an up and coming comedian by the name of Jerry Lewis. Martin and Lewis teamed up as a singing and comedy partnership for the ages, spanning both the stage and the screen with their combination of wit and music. But Dean’s penchant for being more of the laid back type compared to Lewis’ firebrand all-business attitude spelled doom for the partnership after just ten years together. The two would have a falling out that was only resolved decades later when Sinatra reunited them both on the Jerry Lewis Telethon in one of the more memorable moments in television history.

When the Martin-Lewis juggernaut flamed out, popular opinion was that Jerry would have a meteoric career on his own given his unmatched comedic talent and business acumen, but the opposite actually occurred. Dean was determined to be a Hollywood actor, and he successfully accomplished this in the coming years while continuing his epic singing career as well as joining the legendary Rat Pack in their virtual takeover of Las Vegas. Dean was the perfect foil for the boisterous firebrand that was Frank Sinatra, charming audiences with his boozing, crooning and wise cracking style that blended perfectly with the times and the company he was sharing on stage. Every guy wanted to be Dino, and every woman wanted to be with him. He was that cool.

The entertainment that was provided by the Rat Pack and later personified in the epic Dean Martin Roasts might as well be ancient history these days, as the age of hypersensitivity and political correctness has forced both performers and audience members to walk a fine line for fear of offending some group ready to pounce. The modern-day entertainer, like the modern-day male, isn’t allowed to be “cool” anymore in the Rat Pack style, and none of us are better for it. Martin also had the admirable trait of being able to laugh at himself, another lost art these days that is probably more needed than ever before.

Friends and family will agree that Dean was never the same after his son Dino was killed in a 1987 jet fighter crash with the California National Guard. The epic coolness was replaced by sadness, depression and a detachment from his longtime Rat Pack cohorts. By 1990 Sammy was gone, and 5 years later on Christmas Day (fitting given all of his memorable holiday tunes), Dean died of emphysema at age 78. Five decades of acting, singing and comedic genius were silenced as Sinatra remained the last man standing until his death in May of 1998.

Dean Martin’s legacy remains as one of the most iconic figures in entertainment history. It was not just his timeless tunes like “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime”, “That’s Amore”, or “Return to Me”, his comedy films and stage acts with Jerry Lewis, or his Rat Pack credentials that we remember the most, however. It was instead the epic coolness with which he delivered on all three. Dean was the ultimate American dreamer, who rose from a small, sleepy Ohio town to the bright lights of New York City with a charm and smoothness of character that seem like something out of the age of the dinosaurs in this era of fading masculinity, sanitized comedy and dumbed-down entertainment on both the stage, the screen and in the music industry.

There is an annual Dean Martin Festival in Steubenville, Ohio, that draws fans of all ages to this day. Its founder, Rose Angelica, who started the festival with his daughter Deana shortly after his passing, sums up the legacy of Dean perfectly:

“They say in New Jersey every Italian family had a picture of the pope and Frank Sinatra in their living room. In Steubenville, every family had a picture of the pope, and Dean…”

That’s real swag. That’s Dean Martin.