From:   "Dik de Heer"  
Date:  Fri Jun 7, 2002  1:14 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Dean Martin
 
DEAN MARTIN

Born Dino Paul Crocetti, 7 June 1917, Steubenville, Ohio
Died 25 December 1995, Beverly Hills, California

Pop singer, actor, TV host.
In the fifties Dean Martin was one of the most prominent male vocalists
in the USA and UK. Before he started to sing professionally, he had a wide
variety of jobs, including coal miner, drugstore clerk and boxer. In 1946
he teamed up with comic Jerry Lewis. Soon they became the hottest
comedy team in the States, making 16 films between 1949 and 1956.
Martin later said that the two most important things that ever happened
to him were meeting Lewis and leaving him: the comedy had taught him
to act. When they split up in 1956, many thought that Martin would flop
while Lewis remained a star, but Lewis's films turned self- indulgent, while
Martin's laid-back flair for spoofing himself made him a hit on TV 1965-74.
Over 30 more films followed, including some with Frank Sinatra's 'rat pack',
of which he was a charter member. His best dramatic roles include The
Young Lions (with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift), Some Came
Running (with Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine) and Rio Bravo (with John
Wayne), all 1958-59; he also made The Sons Of Katie Elder (1965) with
Wayne and walked through spoof private eye films as Matt Helm.
Of his 34 Hot 100 entries 1950-69 in the pop charts, more than half made
the top 40. The Italian-flavoured love song "That's Amore", from the Martin
& Lewis film "The Caddy", went to # 2 in 1953 (both USA and UK) and
enjoyed renewed popularity when it was included in the 1987 film
"Moonstruck". "Memories Are Made Of This" from 1955 (written by the
Easy Riders, who backed him on the record) was his first chart topper,
both in the US and in Britain, and "Return To Me" was a # 4 hit in 1958.
Another 1958 hit was "Volare", of which there were five hit versions. The
original by Domenico Modugno (sung in Italian) was the biggest : # 1 for
five weeks until it drove everybody nuts. After 14 years at Capitol, Martin
moved to Sinatra's Reprise label in 1962, where his records were produced
by Jimmy Bowen and where he had 24 chart LP's, 1962-72. In 1964 he
scored his second # 1 with "Everybody Loves Somebody" (first recorded
by Frank Sinatra in 1948) ; it became his theme. His easy-going persona
made him far more successful than Sinatra on TV; on one occasion Sinatra
complained that Martin was getting all the laughs in their Las Vegas routine,
so they changed roles and the act fell flat: Martin had the comic timing. His
son Dino had pop hits on Reprise 1965-68 with the group Dino, Desi and
Billy, with Desi Arnaz's son and schoolmate Billy Hinsche; Dino was killed in
1987 when his Air National Guard jet crashed and Dean never really got over it.
He walked off his last tour with Sinatra in 1988 and soon stopped performing;
heavy drinking had been part of the act but became a hobby. He died of
acute respiratory failure on Christmas Day 1995, at his home in Beverly Hills.

Bear Family has issued an eight-CD set of the complete 1946-1955 recordings.
But I guess that for most of you, a Greatest Hits CD (like the Capitol Collector
Series) will suffice, if you want any Dino at all.
Biography: Nick Tosches, Dino : Living High In The Dirty Business Of Dreams.
New York : Doubleday, 1992. (Paperback : Dell, 1999.)
Website: http://www.deanmartinfancenter.com