DEAN MARTIN
By Michael Lombardi

Dino Paul Crocetti was born in Steubenville, Ohio on June 7, 1917 and spoke just Italian until he was five. Only later would his stage name become Dean Martin. Some of his most memorable hit songs are “Memories Are Made Of This,” “That’s Amore,” and “Mambo Italiano.” His father was Gaetano Crocetti, a barber from Abruzzi, Italy. His mother was Angela Barra. Martin dropped out of school in tenth grade and worked all sorts of odd jobs, everything from being a steel mill worker to bootlegging.

Martin took a job as a boxer known as “Kid Crochet” at the age of 15. He won most of the fights, however the prize money wasn’t very much. While involved in gambling and working as a card shark, he rehearsed his singing in local bands. From these local bands he then started working for the Ernie McKay Orchestra. In these years Martin was allegedly linked to the Mafia that owned saloons in Chicago and helped him when he was performing in this local band scene. He was heavily influenced by the style of such entertainers as Bing Crosby and the Mills Brothers.

Then during the early 1940s under the bandleader, Sammy Watkins, he changed his name to Dean Martin. At this time, in 1941 Martin married Betty McDonald. During there marriage they had four children, however divorced in 1949. In 1946 Martin teamed up with Jerry Lewis in a duo that started and lasted 11 years. Martin and Lewis starred in 16 movies together and achieved superstardom. Until this point Martin had attracted a little attention from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures, but didn’t have a contract. The duo didn’t succeed at first, but films such as At War with the Army in 1950 landed them their acclaim. For this film Martin learned from Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift for his role in The Young Loins in 1957.

Films that followed were Some Came Running in 1958 with Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra. This team later became the “Rat Pack,” which included them all: Brando, Clift, MacLaine, and Sinatra. In the 1960 Bells Are Ringing and in the 1964 film Robin and the 7 Hoods, again with the Rat Pack team including Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra. In the 1960s and 1970s Martin played the character of a playboy who liked his alcohol. He died on Christmas Day in 1995 at the age of 78. Dean Martin remains one of the most influential Italian musical artists of the 1950s.

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