by Chris Ware Reference: 2658881Comedy duo Dean Martin (1917 - 1995) and Jerry Lewis quenching their thirst with a bottle of coke. (Photo by Chris Ware/Getty Images)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
our Dino and the jer sharin' a coke
Hey pallies, went back to Jamd to look for some stellar Dinopixs of our Dino and the kid and found this one that I so Dinoloves...with the boys sharin' a bottle of Coke...how cool is that...clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram to see this photo in it's original Dinoformat at Jamd. Dinodiggin', DMP
by Chris Ware Reference: 2658881Comedy duo Dean Martin (1917 - 1995) and Jerry Lewis quenching their thirst with a bottle of coke. (Photo by Chris Ware/Getty Images)
by Chris Ware Reference: 2658881Comedy duo Dean Martin (1917 - 1995) and Jerry Lewis quenching their thirst with a bottle of coke. (Photo by Chris Ware/Getty Images)
our Dino and the jer bromancin' from April 1951 LIFE mag
Hey pallies, gotta say my Dinothanks to a new pallie 'round these Dinoparts tagged Sarah Jo who not only put me on to this Dinoglorious Dinopix of Martin & Lewis taken in April 1951 by LIFE photographer Allan Grant (clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram to see it in it's original format) but a whole treasure trove of Dino and the kid Dinopixs from our pallies at google. Woulda loves to know the Dinoscene of this very bromantic Dinopix of our great man and the kid. Certainly the jer loves our Dino. Again, thanks to Sarah for all her Dinoassistance..... Dinoawed, DMP
Dino-Jammin
Hey pallies, loves to search the 'net for what others are sharin' 'bout our Dino...from a blog tagged "Musical Stew Daily" comes this cool pix of our Dino jammin'on a guitar and that classic Dinoclip where our Dino intros the "Rolling Stones" and sends the crowd into laughter and makes the stones mad.
Glad to see so much Dinopassion bein' shown all over the 'net for our Dino. To view this in it's original Dinoformat, just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram. And gotta Dinowonder is our Dino jammin' in his pjs? In our Dino, DMP
Dino Jammin’May 7, 2009
Whoa, pallie! Is that Dino shredding an electric guitar solo? Looks like it. Dino wasn’t a big fan of rock and roll, even though his son, Dino Jr., played with Desi Arnaz Jr. in 60’s bubble gum pop group, Dino, Desi & Billy. Here’s Dino introducing The Rolling Stones on his show in 1964. Apparently the Stones didn’t appreciate Dean’s sarcasm when speaking about them to the crowd and didn’t play their scheduled second song.
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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Dino Desi & Billy
Posted by Musical Stew Daily
Filed in The Rolling Stones
Tagged: Dean Martin, The Rolling Stones
Glad to see so much Dinopassion bein' shown all over the 'net for our Dino. To view this in it's original Dinoformat, just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram. And gotta Dinowonder is our Dino jammin' in his pjs? In our Dino, DMP
Dino Jammin’May 7, 2009
Whoa, pallie! Is that Dino shredding an electric guitar solo? Looks like it. Dino wasn’t a big fan of rock and roll, even though his son, Dino Jr., played with Desi Arnaz Jr. in 60’s bubble gum pop group, Dino, Desi & Billy. Here’s Dino introducing The Rolling Stones on his show in 1964. Apparently the Stones didn’t appreciate Dean’s sarcasm when speaking about them to the crowd and didn’t play their scheduled second song.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Dino Desi & Billy
Posted by Musical Stew Daily
Filed in The Rolling Stones
Tagged: Dean Martin, The Rolling Stones
Monday, May 11, 2009
five.eleven.oh.nine Dean Martin at 3am
Hey pallies, gotta 'fess up that I just never ever know what is goin' to be shared at this here ilovedinomartin Dinoblog any given Dinoday 'til I reads the Dino'lerts from our pallies at google....Takes today for Dinoexample, thanks to our Dinofriends at google I gets to share this cool blog post from a chick tagged Ali (to visit her blog, "Everything Happens For A Reason" just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram). Seems that Miss Ali has a pallie tagged B.H. who loves our Dino that he does a bit of Dinoemulation a la song....reads all 'bout his Dinosingin' in the wee hours of the Dinomorn... Can't tell you pallies how cool it is to find more and more pallies bein' so open 'bout their Dinopassion. Dinosharin', DMP
Sunday, May 10, 2009
five.eleven.oh.nine
Dean Martin at 3am
So here it is almost 3am and I am wide awake, only because I've spent the last hour being serenaded on the phone by BH. Our conversation started around 12 when he got home from the Bruins Game and the Bahhh ( as he says lol ). He called to talk and see how my days was and what not. Well 2 hours into the conversation he was telling me all about his love for Dean Martin and how he sings all his songs. I of course I thought he was joking as Dean Martin is a phenomenal singer. Well I was definitely proven wrong. BH proceeded to tell me to go to youtube.com and listen to a Dean Martin song as he sang it to me over the phone. It was the funniest thing I have ever heard, only because he was soooooo drunk hahaha.
It was cute at the same time though. As I'm sure he was singing and dancing around the room while on the phone with me lol. About 5 songs later he took a break and I told him it was 3am. Seeing how he has to be up and at wok tomorrow by 8am. I was exhausted from being on the train all day and being out till 3am in Lowell the night before. We said out good nights and that he would call me in the morning.
As I fall asleep tonight I will be listening only to Mr. Martin haha. Okay well its been like 16 minutes cause I clearly just dozed off. So that means its time for me to sign out and get some sleep. Its been a longgggg but great weekend.
Maybe you'll hear from me again tomorrow .....
Posted by Ali O at 11:42 PM
Sunday, May 10, 2009
five.eleven.oh.nine
Dean Martin at 3am
So here it is almost 3am and I am wide awake, only because I've spent the last hour being serenaded on the phone by BH. Our conversation started around 12 when he got home from the Bruins Game and the Bahhh ( as he says lol ). He called to talk and see how my days was and what not. Well 2 hours into the conversation he was telling me all about his love for Dean Martin and how he sings all his songs. I of course I thought he was joking as Dean Martin is a phenomenal singer. Well I was definitely proven wrong. BH proceeded to tell me to go to youtube.com and listen to a Dean Martin song as he sang it to me over the phone. It was the funniest thing I have ever heard, only because he was soooooo drunk hahaha.
It was cute at the same time though. As I'm sure he was singing and dancing around the room while on the phone with me lol. About 5 songs later he took a break and I told him it was 3am. Seeing how he has to be up and at wok tomorrow by 8am. I was exhausted from being on the train all day and being out till 3am in Lowell the night before. We said out good nights and that he would call me in the morning.
As I fall asleep tonight I will be listening only to Mr. Martin haha. Okay well its been like 16 minutes cause I clearly just dozed off. So that means its time for me to sign out and get some sleep. Its been a longgggg but great weekend.
Maybe you'll hear from me again tomorrow .....
Posted by Ali O at 11:42 PM
Sunday, May 10, 2009
our Dino sings "I Know Your Mother Loves You"
Hey pallies, it's Mother's Day and under Dinodirection I searched the words Dean Martin and mother to see what woulda comes up in honor of Mother's Day...and Dinolo and Dinobehold this great Dinoclip of our great man singin' " I Know Your Mother Loves You" from the Dino and the jer classic "You're Never Too Young" (1955). Enjoys pallies and remember not only does your mother loves you, but so does our Dino.... Dinodevotedly, DMP
Saturday, May 09, 2009
our Dino cracks Mr. Dom up
Hey pallies, in our on goin' salute to the memory of Mr. Dom DeLuise and his wonderful relationship with our Dino, here is 'nother short clip from the Dinoshow.
In this sketch our Dino plays the Secretary of Defense with Mr. Dom tryin' to get a contract for his weapons company. And as usually happens our Dino sez somethin' randy and cracks Mr. Dom up...these two can never ever keeps a straight face when they are workin' with each other. Gotta wonder what it was that our Dino said that got bleeped by the censors.....but they our great man is always ahead of his times. Enjoys our Dino and Mr. Dom. Dinosharin', DMP
In this sketch our Dino plays the Secretary of Defense with Mr. Dom tryin' to get a contract for his weapons company. And as usually happens our Dino sez somethin' randy and cracks Mr. Dom up...these two can never ever keeps a straight face when they are workin' with each other. Gotta wonder what it was that our Dino said that got bleeped by the censors.....but they our great man is always ahead of his times. Enjoys our Dino and Mr. Dom. Dinosharin', DMP
Lewis And Martin’s 50’s Love Makes Today’s Bromance Look Like Bromide
Hey pallies, likes here is an intense piece of Dinoprose 'bout the bromantic relationship between our Dino and the jer. From the blog Mark Simpson (clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram to view it in it's original format) this Dinoessay is sure to be controversial in the Dinocommunity....but loves to share the latest on our great man...so leaves some Dinopatter 'bout your Dinothoughts on Mark's Dinoperspective. Dino-only, DMP
MARK SIMPSON .com
The (Absent) Father of the Metrosexual & the Retrosexual & Spawner of Sporno
May 8th, 2009
Lewis And Martin’s 50’s Love Makes Today’s Bromance Look Like Bromide
This month’s Out features a column by yours truly explaining how my childhood love for early Jerry Lewis made me the man I am today — and why his anarchic comedy partnership with Dean Martin in the ‘repressed’ 1950s was a kind of queer punk rock before even rock and roll had been invented:
‘Their heads were so close together in those tiny ’50s cathode-ray tubes — gazing into each other’s eyes, rubbing noses, occasionally stealing kisses or licking each other’s neck to shrieks of scandalized pleasure from the audience. They were a prime-time study in same-sex love. And they were adored for it — literally chased down the street by crowds of screaming women and not a few men…’. (‘In Defense of Jerry Lewis’)
Though these clips below probably explain it all rather better.
They also show how compared to Martin and Lewis, today’s much vaunted ‘bromance’ comedies are more akin to bromide. Instead of going out of their way to purge their stage romance of any hint of passion or anything physical at all in the way that irritatingly self-conscious, college-educated 21st Century buddy comedies do - the word ‘bromance’ itself suggests that any hint of erotics would be akin to incest - Martin and Lewis’ blue-collar, mid-century love-affair constantly injects it. Flags it up. And slaps your face with it. Theirs is literally a much more ticklish affair. And a whole lot funnier for it.
What’s more, it looks very convincing.
(Oh, and yes, it may be that I still feel fond of Jerry Lewis because his telethons never made it to the UK….)
An exploision of D&J kisses in this cheeky and charming clip painstaking compiled by a YouTube fan.
‘It’s physical attraction.’
The noise made by the audience when Dean falls on top of Jerry in the bath wouldn’t be heard again until Elvis shook his pelvis.
Jerry gets some big pricks in the Navy and then sprays fluid everywhere.
Dean and Jerry join the Army as paratroopers. Watch Dean’s eyes during the blanket scene.
‘I was loinesome.’
Spot James Dean giving a boxer a rub-down while scoping the competition.
A slightly fictionlised account of how our boys met, complete with closet clinch climax.
Never been kissed… Yeah, right.
Special thanks to the Canadian playwright Elise Moore and Hannah for re-kindling my unhealthy Lewisian love-affair, offering insightful observation - and sending me some really great YouTube Martin & Lewis love.
MARK SIMPSON .com
The (Absent) Father of the Metrosexual & the Retrosexual & Spawner of Sporno
May 8th, 2009
Lewis And Martin’s 50’s Love Makes Today’s Bromance Look Like Bromide
This month’s Out features a column by yours truly explaining how my childhood love for early Jerry Lewis made me the man I am today — and why his anarchic comedy partnership with Dean Martin in the ‘repressed’ 1950s was a kind of queer punk rock before even rock and roll had been invented:
‘Their heads were so close together in those tiny ’50s cathode-ray tubes — gazing into each other’s eyes, rubbing noses, occasionally stealing kisses or licking each other’s neck to shrieks of scandalized pleasure from the audience. They were a prime-time study in same-sex love. And they were adored for it — literally chased down the street by crowds of screaming women and not a few men…’. (‘In Defense of Jerry Lewis’)
Though these clips below probably explain it all rather better.
They also show how compared to Martin and Lewis, today’s much vaunted ‘bromance’ comedies are more akin to bromide. Instead of going out of their way to purge their stage romance of any hint of passion or anything physical at all in the way that irritatingly self-conscious, college-educated 21st Century buddy comedies do - the word ‘bromance’ itself suggests that any hint of erotics would be akin to incest - Martin and Lewis’ blue-collar, mid-century love-affair constantly injects it. Flags it up. And slaps your face with it. Theirs is literally a much more ticklish affair. And a whole lot funnier for it.
What’s more, it looks very convincing.
(Oh, and yes, it may be that I still feel fond of Jerry Lewis because his telethons never made it to the UK….)
An exploision of D&J kisses in this cheeky and charming clip painstaking compiled by a YouTube fan.
‘It’s physical attraction.’
The noise made by the audience when Dean falls on top of Jerry in the bath wouldn’t be heard again until Elvis shook his pelvis.
Jerry gets some big pricks in the Navy and then sprays fluid everywhere.
Dean and Jerry join the Army as paratroopers. Watch Dean’s eyes during the blanket scene.
‘I was loinesome.’
Spot James Dean giving a boxer a rub-down while scoping the competition.
A slightly fictionlised account of how our boys met, complete with closet clinch climax.
Never been kissed… Yeah, right.
Special thanks to the Canadian playwright Elise Moore and Hannah for re-kindling my unhealthy Lewisian love-affair, offering insightful observation - and sending me some really great YouTube Martin & Lewis love.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Bird Matin' With Our Dino And Mr. Dom
Hey pallies, as ilovedinomartin continues to remember classic moments from the Dinoshow between our Dino and Mr. Dom DeLuise upon the Dom's leavin' this planet, we share with you this wildly funny Dinoclip of our Dino goin' to Mr. Dom to arrange a matin' for our Dino's love bird....as Dinousual, these two classic comics can't keep straight faces as they cracks each other up. What a total Dinopleasure to see how much fun our great man and Mr. Dom have in makin' fun together... In our Dino, DMP
"it reminds him of his halcyon days with Dean Martin."
Hey pallies, the more I read of the jer's love for our Dino, the more the gain respect for the kid. Jer is back on the live circuit and below are his Dinocomments from a telephone interview conducted by Steve Penhollow of the Fort Wayne, Indiana's "The Journal Gazette." (If you wanna reads the entire article, just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram.) So Dinorefreshin' to hear why the jer is back on tour "is it reminds him of his halcyon days with Dean Martin." And the highlight of his time with our Dino...“10 solid years.”
How wonderful to hear from the kid how much his time with our great man still means to him...and likes who wouldn't of wanted to be with our Dino is such an intimate Dinoway....so am sure that the jer refers often to his Dinopartnership in his stand up show. Truly only Dino matters.... Dinoreportin', DMP
One reason live performance is still so important to him, Lewis says,
When I ask him for a Martin and Lewis highlight, he says “10 solid years.”
“I live those 10 years every time I am getting ready to do a show,” he says. “I lived them. They were magic. I had the best fun, and the very best reason to do what I do is to try to recapture that fun. I can’t do it unless I’m out there. I’ve gotta be in an arena. You can’t talk that kind of pleasure.”
How wonderful to hear from the kid how much his time with our great man still means to him...and likes who wouldn't of wanted to be with our Dino is such an intimate Dinoway....so am sure that the jer refers often to his Dinopartnership in his stand up show. Truly only Dino matters.... Dinoreportin', DMP
One reason live performance is still so important to him, Lewis says,
When I ask him for a Martin and Lewis highlight, he says “10 solid years.”
“I live those 10 years every time I am getting ready to do a show,” he says. “I lived them. They were magic. I had the best fun, and the very best reason to do what I do is to try to recapture that fun. I can’t do it unless I’m out there. I’ve gotta be in an arena. You can’t talk that kind of pleasure.”
Thursday, May 07, 2009
our Dino and his amore Cathy makin' the scene at Discothèque Candy Store
Hey pallies, thanks to our pallies at Jamd for 'nother cool pix of our Dino and his amore Cathy....yet again makin' the scene at the swingin' Candy Store Discothèque in Beverly Hills....takes a look at our great man...gotta Dinowonder what our Dino is ponderin' in this Dinopose....(clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram to see this in all it's original Dinoglory over at Jamd).
Oh, how I wishes I had made my way to the Hills tagged Beverly and to the Candy Store Discothèque where our Dino was hangin' out in those early days of the '70's...bein' one of those young mods who gots to be blessed by bein' in our Dino's presence and see him swingin' with his amores.... Dinodesirin', DMP
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MAY 1: Singer Dean Martin and date Catherine Hawn being photographed on May 1, 1970 at The Candy Store in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Oh, how I wishes I had made my way to the Hills tagged Beverly and to the Candy Store Discothèque where our Dino was hangin' out in those early days of the '70's...bein' one of those young mods who gots to be blessed by bein' in our Dino's presence and see him swingin' with his amores.... Dinodesirin', DMP
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - MAY 1: Singer Dean Martin and date Catherine Hawn being photographed on May 1, 1970 at The Candy Store in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Our Dino And Dominick The Great......
Hey pallies, likes as ilovedinomartin continues to remember our Dino and his relationship with Mr. Dom DeLuise, here is 'nother stellar Dinoclip from the Dean Martin Variety Hour where our Dino plays a volunteer from the audience helpin' "Dominick The Great" do his magical act....there is such Dinoclassic Dinocomedic Dinoenergy between our great man and Mr. Dom...enjoys pallies..and likes stay tunes for more Dinoclassic Dinoclips with our Dino and Mr. Dom comin' your Dinoway.....
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Our Dino and beloved boypallie Dino Jr. celebratin' premiere of "Airport"
Hey pallies, I have admired these Dinopix of our Dino and beloved boypallie Dino Jr. partyin' together ever since I saw one of 'em in Nick Tosches' stellar Dinobio "DINO: Living High In The Dirty Business Of Dreams." But, likes only very Dinorecently did I Dinodiscover that the settin' of the pixs is the premiere of "Airport"....that epic Dinopix for which our Dino received $7 mil in salary...the hightest paid amount any actor had received up to that Dinopoint.
Betcha Dino Jr. was thrilled to be his daddy-o's companion for this festive event...you can truly see the admiration that these Martin men had for each other in these stellar Dinopixs. Woulda loves to have been there and been able to over hear the Dinopatter between the Dino's. In these pixs you can also see how much Dino Jr. resembles our Dino...certainly our Dino was hopin' that his beloved boypallie Dino Jr. woulda be followin' in his Dinosteps... Thanks to Jamd for more of these wonderful Dinotreasures...clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram to finds this cool site with so much Dinopleasure.... Dinoawed, DMP
HOLLYWOOD - MARCH 19: Actor/Singer Dean Martin and son Dean Paul Martin attend the 'Airport' Hollywood Premiere Party on March 19, 1970 at a Hollywood Sound Stage in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Betcha Dino Jr. was thrilled to be his daddy-o's companion for this festive event...you can truly see the admiration that these Martin men had for each other in these stellar Dinopixs. Woulda loves to have been there and been able to over hear the Dinopatter between the Dino's. In these pixs you can also see how much Dino Jr. resembles our Dino...certainly our Dino was hopin' that his beloved boypallie Dino Jr. woulda be followin' in his Dinosteps... Thanks to Jamd for more of these wonderful Dinotreasures...clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram to finds this cool site with so much Dinopleasure.... Dinoawed, DMP
HOLLYWOOD - MARCH 19: Actor/Singer Dean Martin and son Dean Paul Martin attend the 'Airport' Hollywood Premiere Party on March 19, 1970 at a Hollywood Sound Stage in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Rememberin' our Dino's pallie Dom DeLuise
Hey pallies, one of Hollywood's greatest and a great pallie of our Dino's, Mr. Dom DeLuise, departed our planet on May 4. Dino loved Dom so much that he made him a regular on the Dean Martin Variety Show....will be doin' some Dinopostin' of Dinoclips featurin' our Dino and Mr. Dom in the comin' Dinodays.
But, I first wanted to post this very very funny Dinoclip from "Cannonball Run I with this coolest of the cool Dinointeraction between our Dino and Mr. Dom....listen closely to the patter between our great man and Mr. Dom.......with our Father Dino "blessin'" Victor (Dom). Dinorememberin', DMP
But, I first wanted to post this very very funny Dinoclip from "Cannonball Run I with this coolest of the cool Dinointeraction between our Dino and Mr. Dom....listen closely to the patter between our great man and Mr. Dom.......with our Father Dino "blessin'" Victor (Dom). Dinorememberin', DMP
Monday, May 04, 2009
Suave Dino
Hey pallies, likes here is what I Dinoconsider to be the greatest of the great Dinopixs of all Dinotime.....no Dinowonder that this is the pix that all Dinoholics first Dinoencounter upon comin' to this here ilovedinomartin Dinoblog. Was so totally Dinodelighted to comes across this Dinoportrait at this great Jamd site (clicks on the tagg of this Dinopost to see it at Jamd).
Have so often been Dinoinquisitive 'bout the Dino-origins of this stellar Dinopix and loves to have the Dinoinfo provided here. The poster of this Dinoimage taggs it "Suave Dino" and indeed our Dino is so suave in this Dinopix.
But, I thinks the reason that I loves this Dinoimage so very Dinomuch is 'cause it shows our Dino bein' so aloof and detached....we all knows that our Dino is so unknowable...so removed from the rest of us that walk this planet...and this particular Dinoportrait shows our great man at his cool as steel best....our irresistable icon who knows how to totally resist the world.
Even the way our Dino holds his smoke could not be any Dinocooler. Indeed this Dinoportrait shows our Dino to be the true egnima that he so Dinotruly is!!!!!!! Dinodevotedly, DMP
circa 1955: Studio headshot portrait of American actor and singer Dean Martin (1917 - 1995) holding a cigarette. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Have so often been Dinoinquisitive 'bout the Dino-origins of this stellar Dinopix and loves to have the Dinoinfo provided here. The poster of this Dinoimage taggs it "Suave Dino" and indeed our Dino is so suave in this Dinopix.
But, I thinks the reason that I loves this Dinoimage so very Dinomuch is 'cause it shows our Dino bein' so aloof and detached....we all knows that our Dino is so unknowable...so removed from the rest of us that walk this planet...and this particular Dinoportrait shows our great man at his cool as steel best....our irresistable icon who knows how to totally resist the world.
Even the way our Dino holds his smoke could not be any Dinocooler. Indeed this Dinoportrait shows our Dino to be the true egnima that he so Dinotruly is!!!!!!! Dinodevotedly, DMP
circa 1955: Studio headshot portrait of American actor and singer Dean Martin (1917 - 1995) holding a cigarette. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
our Dino and Miss Cathy groovin' at the Candy Store
Hey pallies, earlier this Dinoday I expressed my Dinodesire in the last Dinopost that I..." Woulda loves to find some candids of our Dino inside the disco fruggin' with Miss Cathy"
Wells pallies, as our Dino croons in "Welcome To My World"...."Knock and the door will be open, seek and you will find, ask and it shall be given, the key to this heart of mine. Well pallies, likes I went Dinoseekin' and our very generous Dino rewarded this pallie witha findin' a pick of our Dino and Miss Cathy dancin' at the Candy Store disco....not sure if our Dino is doin' the frug...but he is groovin' to the beat with his young amore...so here it is pallies, my Dinodesire has been Dinofulfilled....although will be still Dinosearchin' for even more Dinogroovy Dinopixs. Dinofilled, DMP btw, to sees this Dinopix in it's original format at Jamd, just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram....
BEVERLY HILLS,CA - MARCH 26: Actor/Singer Dean Martin and Catherine Hawn on March 26, 1970 leaving the Candy Store in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Wells pallies, as our Dino croons in "Welcome To My World"...."Knock and the door will be open, seek and you will find, ask and it shall be given, the key to this heart of mine. Well pallies, likes I went Dinoseekin' and our very generous Dino rewarded this pallie witha findin' a pick of our Dino and Miss Cathy dancin' at the Candy Store disco....not sure if our Dino is doin' the frug...but he is groovin' to the beat with his young amore...so here it is pallies, my Dinodesire has been Dinofulfilled....although will be still Dinosearchin' for even more Dinogroovy Dinopixs. Dinofilled, DMP btw, to sees this Dinopix in it's original format at Jamd, just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram....
BEVERLY HILLS,CA - MARCH 26: Actor/Singer Dean Martin and Catherine Hawn on March 26, 1970 leaving the Candy Store in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Our Mod Dino Candy Storin' WIth His Amore Miss Cathy
Hey pallies, well pallies o'mine likes it doesn't gets much Dinobetter then this. While doin' some Dinoresearchin' to find out more 'bout our Dino and Cathy with a candified K....our Dino guided me to this cool site tagged Jamed that includes some very cool pixs of our great man...some of which I have never laid my eyes on before.
Will be postin' more of these Dinopixs in the near Dinofuture...but likes just had to begin with this stellar pix of our Dino and Miss Cathy makin the scene leavin' the Candy Store Discothèque....probably the most swingin' place in all of Beverly Hills circa the '70's.
Loves so much our Dino's very modish threads...diggs that very mod jacket...so so hip and cool...likes our great man his Dinoself. Woulda loves to find some candids of our Dino inside the disco fruggin' with Miss Cathy...can you imaged how blessed all the young mods of that time were to have Dino in their midst....knows that if I have been in Cali, I certainly woulda been hangin' out at the Candy Store every Dinoevenin' hopin' to be in our Dino's presence.
I loves so much every Dinoera, but I have an 'special Dinoapprecito for how our Dino cut loose durin' the groovy '70's scene. When our Dino broke the strings from the Jeanne his personal life really was the most swingin' of times. It was sometime durin' this Dinoperiod that our great man declared (from Tosches) that his Dinodesire was "to put the accent on youth"...and so he did. His personal persona becames likes totally totally Dinocongruent with his stage and screen Dinoimage...and what could be cooler then that.
Am Dinowonderin' who the dude is to the right of our Dino and where Dino and his amore were headed next. Again, likes on a total Dinohigh over bein' Dinodirected to this totally Dinoawesome Dinopix...just makes me all that more eager to continue my Dinosearchin' for more and more Dinotreasure. To view this in it's original format at Jamd, just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram. Dinodevotedly, DMP
BEVERLY HILLS,CA - APRIL 7: Actor/Singer Dean Martin and Catherine Hawn on April 7, 1970 leaving the Candy Store in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Will be postin' more of these Dinopixs in the near Dinofuture...but likes just had to begin with this stellar pix of our Dino and Miss Cathy makin the scene leavin' the Candy Store Discothèque....probably the most swingin' place in all of Beverly Hills circa the '70's.
Loves so much our Dino's very modish threads...diggs that very mod jacket...so so hip and cool...likes our great man his Dinoself. Woulda loves to find some candids of our Dino inside the disco fruggin' with Miss Cathy...can you imaged how blessed all the young mods of that time were to have Dino in their midst....knows that if I have been in Cali, I certainly woulda been hangin' out at the Candy Store every Dinoevenin' hopin' to be in our Dino's presence.
I loves so much every Dinoera, but I have an 'special Dinoapprecito for how our Dino cut loose durin' the groovy '70's scene. When our Dino broke the strings from the Jeanne his personal life really was the most swingin' of times. It was sometime durin' this Dinoperiod that our great man declared (from Tosches) that his Dinodesire was "to put the accent on youth"...and so he did. His personal persona becames likes totally totally Dinocongruent with his stage and screen Dinoimage...and what could be cooler then that.
Am Dinowonderin' who the dude is to the right of our Dino and where Dino and his amore were headed next. Again, likes on a total Dinohigh over bein' Dinodirected to this totally Dinoawesome Dinopix...just makes me all that more eager to continue my Dinosearchin' for more and more Dinotreasure. To view this in it's original format at Jamd, just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram. Dinodevotedly, DMP
BEVERLY HILLS,CA - APRIL 7: Actor/Singer Dean Martin and Catherine Hawn on April 7, 1970 leaving the Candy Store in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Friday, May 01, 2009
Burden of Sorrow
Hey pallies, here the the third great Dinoarticle from our pallies at People Mag...knew I had seen this before, but whens I went to finds it...it was no where in Dinosite.....but this evenin' our Dino was so good to this pallie that he helped me locate this intensely lovin' Dinotrib upon our great man's departure from our planet. So, the first article was 'bout Dino's grandboy pallie 'Xander, the second 'bout the death of Dino's boypallie Dino Jr., and this third one is 'bout the death of our Dino...so a real trinity of Dinofeatures..... Have to 'fess up that I don't believe the opening of this article is accurate....the part 'bout Dinowife #2, the Jeanne bein' with our Dino at the end.....other sources have stated that our great man died alone. Otherwise this is a stellar piece of Dinoprose in honor of our stellar man, the one, the only Dino. Sits back and enjoys some more wonderful words 'bout our wonderful DINO!!!!! Dinoawed, DMP
January 08, 1996 Vol. 45 No. 1 Burden of Sorrow By J.D. Reed
Dean Martin Perfected a 100-Proof Wink, but in His Last Years the Cool Crooner Could Not Recover from the Death of His Son "IT'S OKAY, DEAN, IT'S OKAY TO GO," JEANNE Martin said to her ex-husband on Christmas Eve as he lay in bed in his Beverly Hills home. "Your mom, your dad, your son, everyone is there on the other side waiting for you." Suffering from an acute respiratory problem brought on by emphysema, the 78-year-old crooner and actor weakly replied, "You're the only girl I ever loved."
Later that night, Jeanne, 60ish, who was divorced from Martin in 1973 after 23 years of marriage, returned from her own house just down the street and curled up with the unconscious Martin in his bed. On an earlier Christmas morning, in 1967, Jeanne had sat a similar vigil with Dean's mother, Angela, who died of bone cancer at 3:15 a.m. Martin breathed his last on Christmas morning 1995, at 3:30 a.m. "I put my hand in his hand," says Jeanne, "and stayed that way until they took him away."
It was a downbeat end to a soaring celebrity that Martin had played out with an endearing and singular nonchalance. First as part of a hit duo with screwball comedian Jerry Lewis in the '40s and '50s and then on his own in movies and on TV, Martin projected a debonair and slightly soused kind of cool, seemingly unaffected by the storms of real life. Over the past two decades, though, the image slowly evaporated like uncorked Scotch. After his third and final marriage ended in 1976, Martin, always a taciturn loner, became something of a recluse. By 1980, rarely performing, he had retreated into a daily cycle of golf at his beloved Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif., a drink or three, and a western on TV.
Martin's long slide steepened in the late '80s after a series of personal losses that pierced his devil-may-care shell. He endured the deaths of his old pal and assistant Mack Gray, 75, and Jeanne's mother, Peggy, 86, whom he adored and who had lived with him and his wife all their married life. But the most crushing blow was the death of his beloved and lavishly gifted son Dean Paul in 1987. Known as Dino Jr., the tall, dashing blond had become a convincing actor, a ranked tennis pro, a USC premed student and a California Air National Guard pilot. He married two glamorous women: first, actress Olivia Hussey, then gold medal Olympic skater Dorothy Hamill. But, at age 35, Dino died when his F-4C Phantom jet crashed into a mountainside on a training mission. It took rescue workers five days to reach the site and confirm the death. "They found his body on my birthday," says Jeanne. "Dean held out a lot of hope. He thought if anyone could survive, it was Dean Paul." For Martin, the wound never healed. "He couldn't handle it," says singer and friend Jerry Vale. "After [Dino's death] it seemed he was just walking through life."
The ripples spread. Martin's four-decades-long friendship with Frank Sinatra crumbled in 1988 when Martin . left a 29-city national tour with Sinatra and fellow Rat Packer Sammy Davis Jr. after some six performances. Martin couldn't remember lyrics, slurred his lines and was so contemptuous that he flicked a live cigarette into an Oakland audience. Furious, Sinatra later dumped a plate of spaghetti on his head. Martin went back to L.A. and checked in to a hospital, claiming kidney trouble. But he provoked Sinatra's wrath again when he appeared days later in Las Vegas, quipping, "Frank sent me a kidney, but I don't know whose it was."
Meanwhile, Martin's physical condition was deteriorating. A heavy smoker most of his life, he wheezed constantly from emphysema, each painful breath seeming to sap his strength. Beginning in the mid-'70s, he began having dinner at a favorite Beverly Hills Italian restaurant, La Famiglia, most every night. When the place closed last year, Martin simply switched destinations, to Da Vinci, arriving punctually at 7:30. His order never varied: a Scotch on the rocks, followed by spaghetti with fresh tomato and basil and creamy tiramisú for dessert. Sometimes he put his false teeth on the table.
"He decided to quit smoking and cut down on drinking a year or so ago," recalls son Ricci, 42, a composer. Martin improved for a while. But it was too late to halt the decay of his lungs. Finally, says Jeanne, "what made [dying] easier was when he stopped eating about two weeks ago. We sort of knew he wanted to go soon. He was perfectly lucid. I've known Dean Martin since I was a year out of high school, and this is what he wanted to do. He's always done what he wanted to do."
That single-minded stubbornness was forged early on. Born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917, in Steubenville, Ohio, Martin, who spoke only Italian until the age of 5, was ridiculed at school for his broken English. The son of immigrants Angela and Gaetano Crocetti, a barber, Dino dropped out of school at 16, had a few amateur fights as Kid Crochet and became a croupier in a backroom club called the Rex. Wired into the underworld of club owners, he began singing around the Midwest, and by the early '40s he was a regular at New York City nightspots. Untrained but gifted, Dino Martini, as he was known, shamelessly imitated the easy, jazzy Bing Crosby. "I copied Bing until I had a style of my own," Martin said.
When developed, that ultra-relaxed style made him the perfect foil for the take-no-prisoners bedlam of Jerry Lewis (who remained too distraught to comment on Dean's death). The 10-year installation of Martin and Lewis at the pinnacle of showbiz began as an accident. In 1946, when a performer who was ill canceled at the tony 500 Club in Atlantic City, the pair (who were performing there separately) took the stage together, and their riotous hour made them sensations nearly overnight. "I've been around 50 years," says comedian Alan King, "and no one created the kind of pandemonium they did." Martin was a natural comic and a peerless straight man. Frank's daughter Nancy remembers her "Uncle Dean" as "probably the funniest man I ever knew in my life. He was hysterical." The act had Lewis setting the band's sheet music on fire while Dean crooned ballads. "You never had [just] a handsome man and a monkey," Lewis reflected in biographer Nick Tosches's Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams. "[It was] sex and slapstick."
The pair made their first film, My Friend Irma, in 1949 for producer Hal Wallis. Through 15 more comedies, the money rolled in. "Can you pay two men $9 million to say, 'Did you take a bath this morning?' 'Why? Is one missing?' " Lewis wondered aloud years afterward. "Yet that's what we did."
There were tensions, however. Soured on each other by overfamiliarity and screen personae that were set in stone, Martin and Lewis split in 1956. Lewis, of course, went on to become a French cultural icon. Dean went on to become, well, Dean. By the late '60s, according to Tosches, Martin's contracts over three years would bring him $15 million per year. The lubricated baritone of his chart-toppers (like "Everybody Loves Somebody," which nudged the Beatles out of a No. 1 slot in 1964) captured a vast TV audience for his variety show in the '60s and '70s and made Elvis wish he could sing like Dean.
His easy insouciance made Martin the clown prince of Sinatra's Rat Pack, which gathered in 1959. The Pack, writes Shirley MacLaine, were "primitive children who would put crackers in each other's beds and dump spaghetti on new tuxedos." Says Debbie Reynolds, an old friend of Martin's: "A lot of people wished they could have a third as much fun as they [the Pack] did."
The star shared the spirit of naughty fun on NBC's The Dean Martin Show, which became a top-rated TV variety series. Its unrehearsed air and saucy repartee captured a nation bored with the blandness of the era's play-it-safe sitcoms like Gidget and My Mother the Car. Martin always seemed half-bombed on the show ("Boy, I was so loaded last night that when I fell down, I missed the floor"), but the family and friends insist that the drinking was mainly an act. "On TV you always saw him with a drink," says Ricci, "but that was apple juice."
Dramatic roles in films, including Rio Bravo and Some Came Running, gave him status as an actor. He later made four Matt Helm pictures as a sort of American-roué James Bond. "He loved making westerns," Jeanne recalls. "He was happiest when he headed to Mexico on location. He would have a motel with a TV and room service. That's all he asked for."
He had not started out as such a homebody. In 1941 the young singer had wed fun-loving Betty McDonald, the daughter of a distillery salesman. The couple fought over Martin's indifference and his cheating. His infidelities became more flagrant in Hollywood, where he was linked with the likes of Ann Sheridan and Lana Turner.
Before his 1949 divorce from McDonald, Dean had been smitten by a young Miami model, Jeanne Biegger, a stunning blonde whose face was famous from ads for Wildroot Cream Oil and Dr Pepper. Wed in Los Angeles, the couple settled in at 601 Mountain Drive in Beverly Hills for some two decades of heady but uneasy family life. To his four children from his first marriage (he eventually won custody after the divorce), Martin added three more with Jeanne, beginning with Dino Jr.
Jeanne was no pushover. Sinatra, writes honorary Rat Packer MacLaine in her 1995 memoir, My Lucky Stars, called Jeanne "the U-boat commander, because he saw her as a Nazi who controlled Dean." But Jeanne always had Martin's love and respect. A few years after 1976, when he divorced third wife Cathy Hawn after three years of marriage, Martin and Jeanne began a quiet friendship, though they would not reconcile.
The shy actor's legendary disdain for pretension and small talk extended even to close friends, who valued his company for his kindness, his calm and his pranks. Sammy Davis Jr. told PEOPLE in 1988, "I don't think Dean ever did 2½ pages of conversation in his life." Jeanne recalls that during their marriage, family dinners were hysterical. "Dean wasn't much for chitchat," she says. "So I'd put the television behind me where he could see it, and we'd all sit there and watch Soupy Sales while we ate." Says Ricci: "He joked that it wasn't the chat that bothered him, it was the chit."
Although he wouldn't allow old pals like Don Rickles to come to his house to cheer him up, in his final years Dean seemed to enjoy his family, including his grandchildren, in small doses. "On Saturday nights I'd get dressed up and go down to Da Vinci, and we'd have a drink and talk," says Jeanne. "Then I'd come home and make myself a hamburger. He didn't want me to see him eat without his teeth." Even 01' Blue Eyes caved in. Just weeks before Martin's death, Sinatra joined him for dinner. The two were soon laughing and even indulged in a bread-throwing salvo. After Dean's death a sorrowful Sinatra echoed the feelings of many when he said, "There will always be a place in my heart and soul for Dean."
J.D. REED
TOM CUNNEFF, MICHAEL ARKUSH, DANELLE MORTON, TODD GOLD and JOHN HANNAH in Los Angeles
Contributors: Tom Cunneff, Michael Arkush, Danelle Morton, Todd Gold, John Hannah.
January 08, 1996 Vol. 45 No. 1 Burden of Sorrow By J.D. Reed
Dean Martin Perfected a 100-Proof Wink, but in His Last Years the Cool Crooner Could Not Recover from the Death of His Son "IT'S OKAY, DEAN, IT'S OKAY TO GO," JEANNE Martin said to her ex-husband on Christmas Eve as he lay in bed in his Beverly Hills home. "Your mom, your dad, your son, everyone is there on the other side waiting for you." Suffering from an acute respiratory problem brought on by emphysema, the 78-year-old crooner and actor weakly replied, "You're the only girl I ever loved."
Later that night, Jeanne, 60ish, who was divorced from Martin in 1973 after 23 years of marriage, returned from her own house just down the street and curled up with the unconscious Martin in his bed. On an earlier Christmas morning, in 1967, Jeanne had sat a similar vigil with Dean's mother, Angela, who died of bone cancer at 3:15 a.m. Martin breathed his last on Christmas morning 1995, at 3:30 a.m. "I put my hand in his hand," says Jeanne, "and stayed that way until they took him away."
It was a downbeat end to a soaring celebrity that Martin had played out with an endearing and singular nonchalance. First as part of a hit duo with screwball comedian Jerry Lewis in the '40s and '50s and then on his own in movies and on TV, Martin projected a debonair and slightly soused kind of cool, seemingly unaffected by the storms of real life. Over the past two decades, though, the image slowly evaporated like uncorked Scotch. After his third and final marriage ended in 1976, Martin, always a taciturn loner, became something of a recluse. By 1980, rarely performing, he had retreated into a daily cycle of golf at his beloved Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif., a drink or three, and a western on TV.
Martin's long slide steepened in the late '80s after a series of personal losses that pierced his devil-may-care shell. He endured the deaths of his old pal and assistant Mack Gray, 75, and Jeanne's mother, Peggy, 86, whom he adored and who had lived with him and his wife all their married life. But the most crushing blow was the death of his beloved and lavishly gifted son Dean Paul in 1987. Known as Dino Jr., the tall, dashing blond had become a convincing actor, a ranked tennis pro, a USC premed student and a California Air National Guard pilot. He married two glamorous women: first, actress Olivia Hussey, then gold medal Olympic skater Dorothy Hamill. But, at age 35, Dino died when his F-4C Phantom jet crashed into a mountainside on a training mission. It took rescue workers five days to reach the site and confirm the death. "They found his body on my birthday," says Jeanne. "Dean held out a lot of hope. He thought if anyone could survive, it was Dean Paul." For Martin, the wound never healed. "He couldn't handle it," says singer and friend Jerry Vale. "After [Dino's death] it seemed he was just walking through life."
The ripples spread. Martin's four-decades-long friendship with Frank Sinatra crumbled in 1988 when Martin . left a 29-city national tour with Sinatra and fellow Rat Packer Sammy Davis Jr. after some six performances. Martin couldn't remember lyrics, slurred his lines and was so contemptuous that he flicked a live cigarette into an Oakland audience. Furious, Sinatra later dumped a plate of spaghetti on his head. Martin went back to L.A. and checked in to a hospital, claiming kidney trouble. But he provoked Sinatra's wrath again when he appeared days later in Las Vegas, quipping, "Frank sent me a kidney, but I don't know whose it was."
Meanwhile, Martin's physical condition was deteriorating. A heavy smoker most of his life, he wheezed constantly from emphysema, each painful breath seeming to sap his strength. Beginning in the mid-'70s, he began having dinner at a favorite Beverly Hills Italian restaurant, La Famiglia, most every night. When the place closed last year, Martin simply switched destinations, to Da Vinci, arriving punctually at 7:30. His order never varied: a Scotch on the rocks, followed by spaghetti with fresh tomato and basil and creamy tiramisú for dessert. Sometimes he put his false teeth on the table.
"He decided to quit smoking and cut down on drinking a year or so ago," recalls son Ricci, 42, a composer. Martin improved for a while. But it was too late to halt the decay of his lungs. Finally, says Jeanne, "what made [dying] easier was when he stopped eating about two weeks ago. We sort of knew he wanted to go soon. He was perfectly lucid. I've known Dean Martin since I was a year out of high school, and this is what he wanted to do. He's always done what he wanted to do."
That single-minded stubbornness was forged early on. Born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917, in Steubenville, Ohio, Martin, who spoke only Italian until the age of 5, was ridiculed at school for his broken English. The son of immigrants Angela and Gaetano Crocetti, a barber, Dino dropped out of school at 16, had a few amateur fights as Kid Crochet and became a croupier in a backroom club called the Rex. Wired into the underworld of club owners, he began singing around the Midwest, and by the early '40s he was a regular at New York City nightspots. Untrained but gifted, Dino Martini, as he was known, shamelessly imitated the easy, jazzy Bing Crosby. "I copied Bing until I had a style of my own," Martin said.
When developed, that ultra-relaxed style made him the perfect foil for the take-no-prisoners bedlam of Jerry Lewis (who remained too distraught to comment on Dean's death). The 10-year installation of Martin and Lewis at the pinnacle of showbiz began as an accident. In 1946, when a performer who was ill canceled at the tony 500 Club in Atlantic City, the pair (who were performing there separately) took the stage together, and their riotous hour made them sensations nearly overnight. "I've been around 50 years," says comedian Alan King, "and no one created the kind of pandemonium they did." Martin was a natural comic and a peerless straight man. Frank's daughter Nancy remembers her "Uncle Dean" as "probably the funniest man I ever knew in my life. He was hysterical." The act had Lewis setting the band's sheet music on fire while Dean crooned ballads. "You never had [just] a handsome man and a monkey," Lewis reflected in biographer Nick Tosches's Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams. "[It was] sex and slapstick."
The pair made their first film, My Friend Irma, in 1949 for producer Hal Wallis. Through 15 more comedies, the money rolled in. "Can you pay two men $9 million to say, 'Did you take a bath this morning?' 'Why? Is one missing?' " Lewis wondered aloud years afterward. "Yet that's what we did."
There were tensions, however. Soured on each other by overfamiliarity and screen personae that were set in stone, Martin and Lewis split in 1956. Lewis, of course, went on to become a French cultural icon. Dean went on to become, well, Dean. By the late '60s, according to Tosches, Martin's contracts over three years would bring him $15 million per year. The lubricated baritone of his chart-toppers (like "Everybody Loves Somebody," which nudged the Beatles out of a No. 1 slot in 1964) captured a vast TV audience for his variety show in the '60s and '70s and made Elvis wish he could sing like Dean.
His easy insouciance made Martin the clown prince of Sinatra's Rat Pack, which gathered in 1959. The Pack, writes Shirley MacLaine, were "primitive children who would put crackers in each other's beds and dump spaghetti on new tuxedos." Says Debbie Reynolds, an old friend of Martin's: "A lot of people wished they could have a third as much fun as they [the Pack] did."
The star shared the spirit of naughty fun on NBC's The Dean Martin Show, which became a top-rated TV variety series. Its unrehearsed air and saucy repartee captured a nation bored with the blandness of the era's play-it-safe sitcoms like Gidget and My Mother the Car. Martin always seemed half-bombed on the show ("Boy, I was so loaded last night that when I fell down, I missed the floor"), but the family and friends insist that the drinking was mainly an act. "On TV you always saw him with a drink," says Ricci, "but that was apple juice."
Dramatic roles in films, including Rio Bravo and Some Came Running, gave him status as an actor. He later made four Matt Helm pictures as a sort of American-roué James Bond. "He loved making westerns," Jeanne recalls. "He was happiest when he headed to Mexico on location. He would have a motel with a TV and room service. That's all he asked for."
He had not started out as such a homebody. In 1941 the young singer had wed fun-loving Betty McDonald, the daughter of a distillery salesman. The couple fought over Martin's indifference and his cheating. His infidelities became more flagrant in Hollywood, where he was linked with the likes of Ann Sheridan and Lana Turner.
Before his 1949 divorce from McDonald, Dean had been smitten by a young Miami model, Jeanne Biegger, a stunning blonde whose face was famous from ads for Wildroot Cream Oil and Dr Pepper. Wed in Los Angeles, the couple settled in at 601 Mountain Drive in Beverly Hills for some two decades of heady but uneasy family life. To his four children from his first marriage (he eventually won custody after the divorce), Martin added three more with Jeanne, beginning with Dino Jr.
Jeanne was no pushover. Sinatra, writes honorary Rat Packer MacLaine in her 1995 memoir, My Lucky Stars, called Jeanne "the U-boat commander, because he saw her as a Nazi who controlled Dean." But Jeanne always had Martin's love and respect. A few years after 1976, when he divorced third wife Cathy Hawn after three years of marriage, Martin and Jeanne began a quiet friendship, though they would not reconcile.
The shy actor's legendary disdain for pretension and small talk extended even to close friends, who valued his company for his kindness, his calm and his pranks. Sammy Davis Jr. told PEOPLE in 1988, "I don't think Dean ever did 2½ pages of conversation in his life." Jeanne recalls that during their marriage, family dinners were hysterical. "Dean wasn't much for chitchat," she says. "So I'd put the television behind me where he could see it, and we'd all sit there and watch Soupy Sales while we ate." Says Ricci: "He joked that it wasn't the chat that bothered him, it was the chit."
Although he wouldn't allow old pals like Don Rickles to come to his house to cheer him up, in his final years Dean seemed to enjoy his family, including his grandchildren, in small doses. "On Saturday nights I'd get dressed up and go down to Da Vinci, and we'd have a drink and talk," says Jeanne. "Then I'd come home and make myself a hamburger. He didn't want me to see him eat without his teeth." Even 01' Blue Eyes caved in. Just weeks before Martin's death, Sinatra joined him for dinner. The two were soon laughing and even indulged in a bread-throwing salvo. After Dean's death a sorrowful Sinatra echoed the feelings of many when he said, "There will always be a place in my heart and soul for Dean."
J.D. REED
TOM CUNNEFF, MICHAEL ARKUSH, DANELLE MORTON, TODD GOLD and JOHN HANNAH in Los Angeles
Contributors: Tom Cunneff, Michael Arkush, Danelle Morton, Todd Gold, John Hannah.
Athlete and Dashing Pilot, Dean Paul Martin Dies When His Jet Crashes on a Mountainside
Hey pallies, likes as Dinopromised, here is the other Dinofeature that I found from People Mag (clicks on the tagg of this Dinopost to see it in it's original format).
From the April 13, 1987 edition writer Ron Arias shares of the tragic death of Dino's beloved boypallie Dino Jr. Loves what our Dino is quoted as sayin' 'bout his beloved Dino Jr......"I'm proud of him. I'd be proud even if he didn't become a jet pilot, because he's a good boy. He just doesn't know what he wants to be."
This is truly a well written trib to Dino Jr. with much Dinopleasure for all true lovers of our Dino and his swingin' boypallie.....enjoys pallies gettin' a better look at Dino Martin Jr. Am so so Dinoproud to be sharin' such stellar Dinofinds with all my pallies who can never ever gets 'nough of our great man. Dino-only, DMP
April 13, 1987 Vol. 27 No. 15
Actor, Athlete and Dashing Pilot, Dean Paul Martin Dies When His Jet Crashes on a Mountainside By Ron Arias
It was early Saturday afternoon, March 21, and Capt. Dean Paul Martin, 35, was doing what he liked best: piloting an F-4C Phantom jet on a routine exercise for the California Air National Guard. Before takeoff he said goodbye to his son Alex, 14, then taxied out for a flight over the snow-covered, cloud-laced San Bernardino Mountains. Martin's fully fueled craft, which also carried his weapons officer, Capt. Ramon Ortiz, 39, was the middle jet in a line of three Phantoms. Ten minutes later, at 1:55 p.m. and after unaccountably dropping down from 9,000 to 5,500 feet, his plane slammed into the top of a ravine at 400 mph, killing both men.
Thus ended the hard-driving, golden-boy story of "Dino" Martin, the handsome, multitalented son of entertainer Dean Martin and his second wife, Jeanne Bieggers. As a singer, actor, athlete and pilot, twice married Dean Paul "lived the life of 100 people and had the energy of 200 kids," says his sometime girlfriend, TV scriptwriter Wendon Swift. Adds Morgan Mason, son of James and Pamela Mason: "His life was fuller than most people 100 years old."
Yet for all Dean's efforts to carve a niche for himself apart from the Rat Pack glamour of his father, he never lost his image as a restless playboy unable to focus on a single passion. "The problem with Dean is that he was too good at too many things," says Mason. "He had a lot of money and he'd spend it freely. He went through Ferraris when he was a kid. He was terrific looking, from a famous family, and he had talent. When you have all those things on your plate—well, it's hard to resist someone like that."
At 11, coached by tennis ace Pancho Segura, Dean began playing junior tournaments. At 13, he abandoned tennis and formed a rock band with his friend Desi Arnaz Jr. and a neighbor, Billy Hinsche. The group was called Dino, Desi and Billy and produced several teenybopper hits (remember I'm a Fool?). Eventually Dean returned to tennis at UCLA, where he joined the NCAA championship squad, which included Jimmy Connors. At 19, after two semesters, he dropped out of college to marry 19-year-old actress Olivia (Romeo and Juliet) Hussey, who would become the mother of Dean's only son, Alex. Within four years they were divorced.
Then in the mid-'70s, the 6',175-lb. Martin played briefly as wide receiver for a semipro football team, the Las Vegas Casinos ("the most irrational act of my life"), before trying a stint as a race car driver and seriously trying the pro tennis circuit. An avid firearms collector, he was arrested in 1974 for possession of unregistered World War II guns. He pleaded guilty, explaining that he started his collection when he was 12 but forgot to keep up with registration laws. Fined $2,000, he was placed on probation and subsequently gave up the hobby.
After another brief try at college (this time premed studies at USC), Dean continued pro tennis, and although he never rose above 496 in world ranking, he recalled his seven years on the circuit as "the happiest time of my life." His athletic flair served him well in his lead in a tennis picture, Players, with Ali MacGraw. Meanwhile he returned to flying, a thrill since getting his license at age 16. Encouraged by his mother, who noted that he was the only one among his six brothers and sisters to share her love of flying, he joined the Air National Guard, earning his wings and commission in 1981. The next year, in a star-filled, Beverly Hills ceremony, he proudly donned his dress uniform to marry Olympic gold medalist Dorothy Hamill. Friends for the previous five years, the storybook lovers overcame the strain of constant separation—she was skating and he was on the tennis tour. "Growing up in the celebrity environment," says a friend, "Dean early on learned how to play it cool, put up the walls. It was a beautiful romance, but living together did them in. He just told her he had to get on with his life." They were divorced in 1984.
Tina Sinatra, daughter of Frank and a friend of Dean's since childhood, recalls his supreme confidence. "There was nothing he felt he couldn't get," she says. "We were once in a movie theater watching Romeo and Juliet, and Dean pointed to Olivia Hussey on the screen. He said, 'I'm going to meet her one day and marry her,' which of course he did."
For all his bold career forays, Dean remains a promise unfulfilled even in the eyes of many who loved him. At his engagement party to Hamill, his father remarked, "I'm proud of him. I'd be proud even if he didn't become a jet pilot, because he's a good boy. He just doesn't know what he wants to be."
Martin began acting in earnest in recent years (landing a lead, for instance, as a science whiz in the 1985 TV series Misfits of Science and as a divorce in the comedy pilot A Single Man), but flying remained a great joy. He eagerly met his Guard requirement, flying about 125 days a year. While aloft, he once said, "The high I get seeing the sun come up is so great that if I die, it would have been worth it." The irony is that of all Dean Paul Martin's skills, piloting a jet was his true talent. And it killed him.
Contributors: Mary A. Fischer, Eleanor Hoover, David Lustig
From the April 13, 1987 edition writer Ron Arias shares of the tragic death of Dino's beloved boypallie Dino Jr. Loves what our Dino is quoted as sayin' 'bout his beloved Dino Jr......"I'm proud of him. I'd be proud even if he didn't become a jet pilot, because he's a good boy. He just doesn't know what he wants to be."
This is truly a well written trib to Dino Jr. with much Dinopleasure for all true lovers of our Dino and his swingin' boypallie.....enjoys pallies gettin' a better look at Dino Martin Jr. Am so so Dinoproud to be sharin' such stellar Dinofinds with all my pallies who can never ever gets 'nough of our great man. Dino-only, DMP
April 13, 1987 Vol. 27 No. 15
Actor, Athlete and Dashing Pilot, Dean Paul Martin Dies When His Jet Crashes on a Mountainside By Ron Arias
It was early Saturday afternoon, March 21, and Capt. Dean Paul Martin, 35, was doing what he liked best: piloting an F-4C Phantom jet on a routine exercise for the California Air National Guard. Before takeoff he said goodbye to his son Alex, 14, then taxied out for a flight over the snow-covered, cloud-laced San Bernardino Mountains. Martin's fully fueled craft, which also carried his weapons officer, Capt. Ramon Ortiz, 39, was the middle jet in a line of three Phantoms. Ten minutes later, at 1:55 p.m. and after unaccountably dropping down from 9,000 to 5,500 feet, his plane slammed into the top of a ravine at 400 mph, killing both men.
Thus ended the hard-driving, golden-boy story of "Dino" Martin, the handsome, multitalented son of entertainer Dean Martin and his second wife, Jeanne Bieggers. As a singer, actor, athlete and pilot, twice married Dean Paul "lived the life of 100 people and had the energy of 200 kids," says his sometime girlfriend, TV scriptwriter Wendon Swift. Adds Morgan Mason, son of James and Pamela Mason: "His life was fuller than most people 100 years old."
Yet for all Dean's efforts to carve a niche for himself apart from the Rat Pack glamour of his father, he never lost his image as a restless playboy unable to focus on a single passion. "The problem with Dean is that he was too good at too many things," says Mason. "He had a lot of money and he'd spend it freely. He went through Ferraris when he was a kid. He was terrific looking, from a famous family, and he had talent. When you have all those things on your plate—well, it's hard to resist someone like that."
At 11, coached by tennis ace Pancho Segura, Dean began playing junior tournaments. At 13, he abandoned tennis and formed a rock band with his friend Desi Arnaz Jr. and a neighbor, Billy Hinsche. The group was called Dino, Desi and Billy and produced several teenybopper hits (remember I'm a Fool?). Eventually Dean returned to tennis at UCLA, where he joined the NCAA championship squad, which included Jimmy Connors. At 19, after two semesters, he dropped out of college to marry 19-year-old actress Olivia (Romeo and Juliet) Hussey, who would become the mother of Dean's only son, Alex. Within four years they were divorced.
Then in the mid-'70s, the 6',175-lb. Martin played briefly as wide receiver for a semipro football team, the Las Vegas Casinos ("the most irrational act of my life"), before trying a stint as a race car driver and seriously trying the pro tennis circuit. An avid firearms collector, he was arrested in 1974 for possession of unregistered World War II guns. He pleaded guilty, explaining that he started his collection when he was 12 but forgot to keep up with registration laws. Fined $2,000, he was placed on probation and subsequently gave up the hobby.
After another brief try at college (this time premed studies at USC), Dean continued pro tennis, and although he never rose above 496 in world ranking, he recalled his seven years on the circuit as "the happiest time of my life." His athletic flair served him well in his lead in a tennis picture, Players, with Ali MacGraw. Meanwhile he returned to flying, a thrill since getting his license at age 16. Encouraged by his mother, who noted that he was the only one among his six brothers and sisters to share her love of flying, he joined the Air National Guard, earning his wings and commission in 1981. The next year, in a star-filled, Beverly Hills ceremony, he proudly donned his dress uniform to marry Olympic gold medalist Dorothy Hamill. Friends for the previous five years, the storybook lovers overcame the strain of constant separation—she was skating and he was on the tennis tour. "Growing up in the celebrity environment," says a friend, "Dean early on learned how to play it cool, put up the walls. It was a beautiful romance, but living together did them in. He just told her he had to get on with his life." They were divorced in 1984.
Tina Sinatra, daughter of Frank and a friend of Dean's since childhood, recalls his supreme confidence. "There was nothing he felt he couldn't get," she says. "We were once in a movie theater watching Romeo and Juliet, and Dean pointed to Olivia Hussey on the screen. He said, 'I'm going to meet her one day and marry her,' which of course he did."
For all his bold career forays, Dean remains a promise unfulfilled even in the eyes of many who loved him. At his engagement party to Hamill, his father remarked, "I'm proud of him. I'd be proud even if he didn't become a jet pilot, because he's a good boy. He just doesn't know what he wants to be."
Martin began acting in earnest in recent years (landing a lead, for instance, as a science whiz in the 1985 TV series Misfits of Science and as a divorce in the comedy pilot A Single Man), but flying remained a great joy. He eagerly met his Guard requirement, flying about 125 days a year. While aloft, he once said, "The high I get seeing the sun come up is so great that if I die, it would have been worth it." The irony is that of all Dean Paul Martin's skills, piloting a jet was his true talent. And it killed him.
Contributors: Mary A. Fischer, Eleanor Hoover, David Lustig
Dinolovin' Entertainer Takes The Stage: White lights ’em up
Hey pallies, likes it is so Dinofab to find more and more entertainers who are takin' their cues from our Dino...here's one of today's most popular stand up comedians, Ron White, who unabashedly proclaims his Dinodevotion...from the interview posted below....'A Dean Martin fan (so much so he’s adopted Deano’s undone tux to go with his onstage smoking and drinking and admits his styling is “probably sheer rip off”)' Thanks to a blog tagged Inforum and the writer John Lamb for lettin' us all knows 'bout Ron's Dinopassion. (Clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram to finds your way to the original post). With pallies like Ron speakin' so openly 'bout our Dino...surely will helps more and more pallies to come to know, love and honor our Dino.... Dinodelightedly, DMP
White lights ’em up
Chain-smoking comic enjoys success
Ron White is on fire. Admittedly, smoky references are natural for the cigar-sucking, scotch-soaked stand-up, but he’s on quite a roll that brings his show to the Fargo Civic Memorial Auditorium tonight. On Monday the Texas House of Representatives declared it “Ron White Day,” passing a resolution that referred to the native Texan as a “gifted entertainer” who “continues to bring laughter and mirth into the lives of countless fans.”
By: John Lamb, INFORUM
Comedian Ron White, made famous by his part in the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, comes to the Fargo Civic Memorial Auditorium at 8 tonight. Special to The ForumRELATED CONTENT
Ron White is on fire.
Admittedly, smoky references are natural for the cigar-sucking, scotch-soaked stand-up, but he’s on quite a roll that brings his show to the Fargo Civic Memorial Auditorium tonight.
On Monday the Texas House of Representatives declared it “Ron White Day,” passing a resolution that referred to the native Texan as a “gifted entertainer” who “continues to bring laughter and mirth into the lives of countless fans.”
Actually, Comedy Central counted those fans, or at least the 3.3 million who tuned in April 19 to his new special, “Behavioral Problems.” That audience and White’s straight-talking (some call it foul-mouthed) humor, prompted the network to sign him to a development deal for a TV series.
Just don’t expect the success to go to his head, because that’s already a bit clouded.
“I’m either in Norman, Oklahoma, or there’s a guy named Norman who has a water tower. I don’t know which one it is,” White said over the phone the afternoon of April 24.
Asked about his new deal with Comedy Central, White says he didn’t know all the paperwork had gone through to make it publicly official.
Fans needn’t worry that he signed his life over while under the influence.
“I make my lawyers stay sober,” he says in his deep bullfrog drawl. And fans needn’t worry that his TV deal will take away from his stand-up, which will be the bulk of the half-hour program.
“At this point I don’t need TV at all, and I certainly won’t stop touring,” White says.
It was, after all, one particular tour that made him a household name – the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and subsequent specials.
While his Collar co-horts – Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engval – reveled in redneck jokes, White distanced himself without turning his back on his Southern roots.
“What it did for me was so positive I never really try to see the downside of it,” he says when asked if he feels typecast by the tour. “What it did was it cast me.
“Am I ashamed of the boys? No. Larry and I have a bit of a miff going right now, but I’m sure it’ll be fine in a week,” he adds.
White was upset about being left off Comedy Central’s celebrity roast of the Cable Guy, a slight he blames on Larry’s manager, who is also White’s former manager.
“I roasted (Larry) in a text message, I believe,” White says with a laugh.
A Dean Martin fan (so much so he’s adopted Deano’s undone tux to go with his onstage smoking and drinking and admits his styling is “probably sheer rip off”), White loves the old celebrity roasts.
“They used to be hilarious, now they’re just kind of Lisa Lampanelli-ish,” he says, referring to comedian and Comedy Central roast “Queen of Mean,” Lisa Lampanelli.
He claims Deano’s onstage drinking wasn’t an act and says his own has led to some botched jokes.
“There’s not a mistake on this planet I haven’t made at one time or another … I try to keep it under control, but I’m basically not in control myself some days, so I just do the best I can.”
He may be referring to his arrest last fall for marijuana and paraphernalia possession when his own plane landed in Vero Beach, Fla.
The news prompted former pilots to complain about his in-air inhalation. One told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the comedian “smokes marijuana like a chain smoker smokes cigarettes.” Another countered “we wore oxygen masks” to avoid getting high.
White has dismissed the accusations as those of disgruntled ex-employees
Still, he says he’s more likely to get politically active to legalize marijuana than to overturn public smoking bans.
“I agree with it. I’m just not going to abide by it,” he says of outlawing cigarette smoking in public. “I couldn’t agree more. I don’t want people smoking in restaurants, especially cigarettes. I smoke some of the finest cigars made on this planet and I think they smell like a bowl of smoky cream. Not everybody agrees.”
He says people who come to his shows, like the one tonight, aren’t offended by his onstage vices which serves a practical role.
“It’s a great timing mechanism,” he says, crediting George Burns. “It’s a great reason not to be talking. So I just got used to doing it.”
White says he knows this area’s been through some tough times with the floods and long winter and hopes to help people relax for a night. Well, not everyone.
“Did I mention don’t bring your kids to the show?”
If you go
What: Ron White
When: 8 tonight
Where: Fargo Civic Memorial Auditorium, 207 4th St. N.
Tickets: Tickets are $42.75. For more information, call (800) 745-3000
White lights ’em up
Chain-smoking comic enjoys success
Ron White is on fire. Admittedly, smoky references are natural for the cigar-sucking, scotch-soaked stand-up, but he’s on quite a roll that brings his show to the Fargo Civic Memorial Auditorium tonight. On Monday the Texas House of Representatives declared it “Ron White Day,” passing a resolution that referred to the native Texan as a “gifted entertainer” who “continues to bring laughter and mirth into the lives of countless fans.”
By: John Lamb, INFORUM
Comedian Ron White, made famous by his part in the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, comes to the Fargo Civic Memorial Auditorium at 8 tonight. Special to The ForumRELATED CONTENT
Ron White is on fire.
Admittedly, smoky references are natural for the cigar-sucking, scotch-soaked stand-up, but he’s on quite a roll that brings his show to the Fargo Civic Memorial Auditorium tonight.
On Monday the Texas House of Representatives declared it “Ron White Day,” passing a resolution that referred to the native Texan as a “gifted entertainer” who “continues to bring laughter and mirth into the lives of countless fans.”
Actually, Comedy Central counted those fans, or at least the 3.3 million who tuned in April 19 to his new special, “Behavioral Problems.” That audience and White’s straight-talking (some call it foul-mouthed) humor, prompted the network to sign him to a development deal for a TV series.
Just don’t expect the success to go to his head, because that’s already a bit clouded.
“I’m either in Norman, Oklahoma, or there’s a guy named Norman who has a water tower. I don’t know which one it is,” White said over the phone the afternoon of April 24.
Asked about his new deal with Comedy Central, White says he didn’t know all the paperwork had gone through to make it publicly official.
Fans needn’t worry that he signed his life over while under the influence.
“I make my lawyers stay sober,” he says in his deep bullfrog drawl. And fans needn’t worry that his TV deal will take away from his stand-up, which will be the bulk of the half-hour program.
“At this point I don’t need TV at all, and I certainly won’t stop touring,” White says.
It was, after all, one particular tour that made him a household name – the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and subsequent specials.
While his Collar co-horts – Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engval – reveled in redneck jokes, White distanced himself without turning his back on his Southern roots.
“What it did for me was so positive I never really try to see the downside of it,” he says when asked if he feels typecast by the tour. “What it did was it cast me.
“Am I ashamed of the boys? No. Larry and I have a bit of a miff going right now, but I’m sure it’ll be fine in a week,” he adds.
White was upset about being left off Comedy Central’s celebrity roast of the Cable Guy, a slight he blames on Larry’s manager, who is also White’s former manager.
“I roasted (Larry) in a text message, I believe,” White says with a laugh.
A Dean Martin fan (so much so he’s adopted Deano’s undone tux to go with his onstage smoking and drinking and admits his styling is “probably sheer rip off”), White loves the old celebrity roasts.
“They used to be hilarious, now they’re just kind of Lisa Lampanelli-ish,” he says, referring to comedian and Comedy Central roast “Queen of Mean,” Lisa Lampanelli.
He claims Deano’s onstage drinking wasn’t an act and says his own has led to some botched jokes.
“There’s not a mistake on this planet I haven’t made at one time or another … I try to keep it under control, but I’m basically not in control myself some days, so I just do the best I can.”
He may be referring to his arrest last fall for marijuana and paraphernalia possession when his own plane landed in Vero Beach, Fla.
The news prompted former pilots to complain about his in-air inhalation. One told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the comedian “smokes marijuana like a chain smoker smokes cigarettes.” Another countered “we wore oxygen masks” to avoid getting high.
White has dismissed the accusations as those of disgruntled ex-employees
Still, he says he’s more likely to get politically active to legalize marijuana than to overturn public smoking bans.
“I agree with it. I’m just not going to abide by it,” he says of outlawing cigarette smoking in public. “I couldn’t agree more. I don’t want people smoking in restaurants, especially cigarettes. I smoke some of the finest cigars made on this planet and I think they smell like a bowl of smoky cream. Not everybody agrees.”
He says people who come to his shows, like the one tonight, aren’t offended by his onstage vices which serves a practical role.
“It’s a great timing mechanism,” he says, crediting George Burns. “It’s a great reason not to be talking. So I just got used to doing it.”
White says he knows this area’s been through some tough times with the floods and long winter and hopes to help people relax for a night. Well, not everyone.
“Did I mention don’t bring your kids to the show?”
If you go
What: Ron White
When: 8 tonight
Where: Fargo Civic Memorial Auditorium, 207 4th St. N.
Tickets: Tickets are $42.75. For more information, call (800) 745-3000
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Dean's Genes
Hey pallies, likes while doin' some Dinoresearchin' for Dinoposts on our Dino's marriage to Miss Cathy, I just happened, actually feels very Dinodirected, to this cool Dinoprose tagged so so coolly, "Dean's Genes" from the April 2001 edition of People Mag 'bout our Dino's grandboy pallie 'Xander, and his cool relationship with his granddaddy-o. So Dinospecial to read the Dinowonderful Dinorelationship that 'Xander has with his Dino daddy-o and his Dino granddaddy-o...."His grandfather and father, says Martin, "were like gods to me when I was growing up." Thanks so much to our Dino for his Dinodirection in gettin' me to Dinodiscover this Dinotreasure of 'Xander sharin' so so many cool Dinodetails 'bout growin' up in family Martin. If you wanna read this amaxin' Dinoprose written by Samantha Miller in it's original format, likes just clicks on the tagg of this Dinogram....and btw pallies, there is more Dinotreasure from People Mag to share with all you Dinoholic pallies in the very near Dinofuture.... Dinoaddictedly, DMP
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.
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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