Today In History

Dean Martin – Timelessly Cool When your biographer refers to you as a classical menefreghista (pronounced meh-neh-freh-gi-stah) which is Italian for one who literally does-not-give-a-expletive, Dean Martin, the definition of Mr. Cool, needs no further introduction. Crooner, actor, comedian, film producer and a member of the legendary Rat Pack, Martin, who rubbed elbows with the likes of Jerry Lewis, Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando, rose to stratospheric heights of American icon by transcending his talents through several mediums including film, stage and television. Born in 1917 in Steubenville, Ohio a small steel-mill town located on a port off the Ohio River, Dean was raised by a Italian father and Italian-American mother, learning to speaking Abruzzese, a dialect of Italian, before learning English at school at the age of 5. Dean was bullied for his broken English during his early years and decided to drop out of high school in 10 grade because he thought he was smarter than his teachers. As a teenager, Dean bootlegged liquor, got a job as a card shark, worked in a steel mill and, at the age of 15, became a boxer calling himself “Kid Crochet”. According to Dean, he fought in 12 matches, winning in his words “all but 11 of them.” Though he didn’t earn much during his boxing days, he did earn a broken nose, a scarred lip, broken knuckles, and bruised body. Dean befriended and roomed with Sonny King, who introduced him to comedian Jerry Lewis. Martin and Lewis, would go on to team up together, reaching superstardom with films such as At War with the Army (1950). But it didn’t start out that way. Martin and Lewis’s debut at Atlantic City’s 500 Club in 1946 was ill-received, so bad was their first act that the club owner threatened to fire them if they didn’t come with a better act for their second show. The duo regrouped, performing an array of ad-libbed songs and skits that had the audience roaring with laughter by the end of it. They eventually built up their success with a series of well-paid gigs and eventually landed on television’s Ed Sullivan Show. Martin and Lewis would eventually break up after over 10 years together and although critics predicted Lewis’s star power to rise and Martin’s to fade, the opposite happened. Martin became a true superstar, achieving solo success for his roles in the Young Lions (1958) with Marlon Brand and Montgomery Clift and Some Came Running (1958) with Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine. In 1965, Martin transitioned to television by hosting one of the most successful TV series in history with The Dean Martin Show which lasted in 1973. During that time, he skewered all-time greats such as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, James Stewart and more, earning a Golden Globe Award for his efforts. Martin stayed out of the limelight through the 1980s and when his beloved son Dean “Dino” Paul Martin was killed in a plane crash in 1987, Martin was devastated by the loss of his son, and never fully recovering from it. He died on Christmas Day in 1995.