random friday, 1964 edition: dean martin, "everybody loves somebody"
-
Artist:
When I think of Dean Martin, two things in particular come to mind. One, obviously, is Rio Bravo. The other is my father, who was a big fan of Dino. I've been considering this in the context of today's random track. Sinatra ruled the roost for my parents when I was growing up, but now I wonder if that was more my mom's doing. Not to say my dad didn't like Frank, too, but it was my mom who loved Only the Lonely. And while my dad watched Dean Martin's TV show religiously, I don't remember if my mom even stayed up for it (memories are tenuous, of course). I think I'm at least right that my dad liked Dean Martin more than my mom did.
The basics of Martin's career: a mildly-popular crooner teams up with Jerry Lewis, they become the most popular act of the pre-rock and roll era, radio and movies follow.
They split, Martin's career stumbles a bit, then he hits his stride in movies and on record. (Yes, I posted this on the Ricky Nelson one, as well.)
In 1965, Martin's own TV series begins … it ran for nine seasons, and spawned celebrity roast specials that ran for another decade.
The thing I find most interesting is how Martin was able to maintain his popularity long past the time rock and roll had taken over popular music. He made the Top Ten in 1949, and hit #1 in 1955 with "Memories Are Made of This." By 1964, while Martin was still well-known as an actor, he hadn't made the Top Ten for years, and the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion would seem to have made Martin's music irrelevant. Even his own son played in a rock and roll band, Dino, Desi & Billy, which apparently didn't impress Dad very much. One day, the story goes, Dad told Son that he was tired of hearing about the Beatles, and he was going knock them off the charts. "Everybody Loves Somebody" did exactly that, pushing "A Hard Day's Night" aside. (Wikipedia notes, "Dean Martin became the only person in history to ever predict he'd knock the Beatles off the charts, and actually succeed.") Martin made the Top Ten twice more over the next year.
Why did my dad love this guy so much? The answer, I think, has something to do with the music, of course … Martin developed into a talented crooner over the years. But more than that, it was the Dean Martin persona. Not the amiable drunk (which was largely a myth), but the guy was so cool, he even out-cooled the other members of the Rat Pack. On his TV series, Martin perfected an aura of casualness that was extremely appealing. Men of my father's age might have used Sinatra to get their wives in the mood for love, but they wanted to BE Dean Martin. (And yes, I know I'm making a huge leap here, but hey, it's my blog, and my dad's no longer with us to set me straight.)
Dean Martin, forever cool. In fact, in 2007, one of those technological marvels whereby dead people sing duets with living people was released under Dean's name. It was called Forever Cool, and his duet with Martina McBride on "Baby, It's Cold Outside" made it to #7 on the Adult Contemporary charts.
A MOG playlist: http://mog.com/playlists/96830
Locating MOG account...
Comments (7)
Hey great post on Dino. I also loved him on the Flinstones. It's weird how being publicly drunk (even if you were pretending) was funny back then.
Then there's Foster Brooks, who used to show up on those televised roasts. His entire act was that he was drunk.
And he was "gruff but loveable", right?
I'm not sure he was even gruff. He was just drunk. Lived to be 89, finally changed his act when being drunk quit being perceived as funny.
This is a fascinating story. It's always been a casual mystery for me as to why Dino was so popular and I can remember being a bit stunned when I saw that Nick Tosches had written a biography - why spend all that time summing up such a lightweight?? Obviously he had deeper currents within, as you make clear.
Towards the end of his life the public drunk ceased to be a myth. I know I'm always coming with the stories and I do try to stop, but I can't help myself on this one.
In 1984 I saw one of the most amazing vignettes on fame and its consequences. I was in the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset, a very upscale hamburger restaurant about 100 yards outside the Beverly Hills city limits. They made a fantastic Bloody Mary - and probably still do. The very cool stars of the Dino era all lived in the streets above this place, so it was common to see the likes of Andy Williams, Don Rickles et al in there. On this night, Dino was sitting about 30 feet away, chatting up a very pneumatic blonde with her hair piled up in the style popular in the mid-60s. They're sitting with their back to the wall and it's clear even from my distance that Dean was really, really smashed. There was a buzz in the air that was purely the result of Dino's presence - you just could not help being aware of the man. So he's leaning in close to her face and hustling her and she's pulling on the cigarette and then from the left a guy starts approaching them. He was so obviously a fan - his face was radiant with joy at seeing Dean and he was moving with reasonable speed, pen out and going to ask for an autograph. What special nervous system does a star have that even when he is so drunk he probably has no peripheral vision he can sense a fan coming at him from 20 paces? Dino's head jerked away from the girl and turned to the fan. The guy was still some distance away and Dean just lit up with an amazing flow of invective - brutally swearing at the guy, telling him to fuck off and who the hell did he think he was - in a voice so filled with rage and a face of pure anger. How many times had he been bothered by guys like this, wanting a piece of his soul? The fan's face was amazing to see - from a big grin to absolute shock in a millisecond. He actually faltered in his step. Then he stopped, stared at Dino, unable to assimilate the reality in front of him to the guy in his mind, then turned and kind of sloped away. Dino just turned back to the woman and resumed the conversation.
I can remember feeling quite sad for Dean. Not just for the state of him, but for the rage within him. It really made me reevaluate the meaning of fame.
That's a great story. My only "talking to a famous person who is drunk" story involves me and Dan Hicks in the mid/late-70s. Far as I know, Dan has left those days behind him. And he wasn't really mean to me or anything, he was just drunk.
Hey pallie, likes thanks so much for a stellar homagin' of our most beloved Dino....cool to know that you daddy-o dug our Dino. Never was, never will be anyone as cool as the King of Cool....oh, to return to the days when Dino walked the earth. Know that your Dino-reflections are bein' shared this very day with all the pallies at ilovedinomartin.