Actors - Dean Martin

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	Actors - Dean Martin

Dean Martin (June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an Italian-American singer and film actor.

Biography

Dean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti in the West Virginia-Ohio border-town of Steubenville, Ohio, found phenomenal success in almost every entertainment venue and, although suffering a few down times during his career, always managed to come out on top. His parents were Italian-born barber Gaetano Crocetti and his wife, Angela. He spoke only Italian until age five.

Martin dropped out of school in the tenth grade and took a string of odd jobs ranging from steelworker to bootlegger; at the age of 15, he was a 135-pound boxer who billed himself as "Kid Crocetti." It was from his prizefighting years that he got a broken nose (it was later fixed), a permanently split lip, and his beat-up hands. For a time, he worked as a roulette stickman and croupier. At the same time, he practiced his singing with local bands. Billing himself as "Dino Martini" (after the then-famous Metropolitan Opera tenor, Nino Martini), he got his first break working for the Ernie McKay Orchestra. But in the early 1940s, he started singing for bandleader Sammy Watkins. It was here that he changed his name to Dean Martin. A hernia got Martin out of the Army during World War II, and with wife and children in tow, he worked for several bands throughout the early 1940s, scoring more on looks and personality than vocal ability until he developed his own smooth singing style.

Failing to achieve a screen test at MGM, Martin appeared permanently destined for the nightclub circuit until he met fledgling comic Jerry Lewis at the Glass Hat Club in New York, where both men were performing. Martin and Lewis formed a fast friendship which led to their participation in each other's acts, and ultimately forming a music-comedy team.

Martin and Lewis' official debut together occurred at Atlantic City's 500 Club on July 25, 1946, and club patrons throughout the East Coast were soon convulsed by the act, which consisted primarily of Lewis interrupting and heckling Martin while he was trying to sing, and, ultimately, the two of them chasing each other around the stage and having as much fun as possible. A radio series commenced in 1949, the same year that Martin and Lewis were signed by Paramount producer Hal Wallis as comedy relief for the film My Friend Irma. Martin and Lewis was the hottest act in nightclubs, films, and television during the early '50s, but the pace and the pressure took its toll, and the act broke up in 1956, ten years to the day after the first official teaming. Lewis had no trouble maintaining his film popularity alone, but Martin, unfairly regarded by much of the public and the motion picture industry as something of a spare tire to his former partner, found the going rough, and his first solo-starring film, Ten Thousand Bedrooms, bombed to a stunning degree. Jackie Gleason was virtually alone at the time in predicting that Martin would eventually be bigger than Lewis, since he had the comic timing, appearance, and singing voice, and could move well onstage.

Never totally comfortable in films, Martin still wanted to be known as a real actor. So, though offered a fraction of his former salary to co-star in the war drama The Young Lions
(1957), he eagerly agreed in order that he could be with and learn from Brando and Clift. Tony Randall already had the part, but talent agency MCA realized that with this movie, Martin would become a triple threat: they could make fortunes from his work in night clubs, movies, and records, so they engineered Randall's replacement, giving Martin one of the plum dramatic roles of the decade. The film turned out to be the cornerstone of Martin's spectacular comeback; by the mid-'60s, he was a top movie, recording, and nightclub attraction, even as Lewis' star had begun to fade.

He was also never above poking sly fun at his image as a smooth womanizer in such outings as the Matt Helm spy spoofs of the 1960s. As a singer, Martin was, by his own admission, not the greatest baritone on earth, and made no bones about having copied the styles of Bing Crosby and Perry Como. He couldn't even read music, and yet recorded more than 100 albums and 600 songs, racking up major hits such as "That's Amore", "Volare", "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" and his signature tune "Everybody Loves Somebody". Elvis Presley was said to have been influenced by Martin, and patterned "Love Me Tender" after his style.

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Actors - Dean Martin

Biography

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