50 Fun Facts About Dean Martin

Which 1964 Dean Martin single knocked the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night off the top of the US chart?

Everybody Loves Somebody hit No. 1 in August 1964, after Dean told his Beatles-mad son he would knock the band off the charts. His pianist Ken Lane had co-written it back in 1947.

Which drink often filled the glass Dean Martin carried while playing a tipsy playboy on his TV variety show?

Apple juice was often all the glass held: the boozy act was borrowed from comic Joe E. Lewis, and Dean was usually the first to call it a night. His vanity license plate still read DRUNKY.

In which 1959 Howard Hawks Western did Dean Martin play Dude, a drunken ex-deputy helping John Wayne's sheriff?

Rio Bravo let Dean prove he could act: his shaky Dude was so convincing that it fed unfounded rumors about his own drinking. It was the highest-grossing Western of 1959.

Which Dean Martin hit from the 1953 comedy The Caddy earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song?

That's Amore lost the Oscar to Secret Love from Calamity Jane but outlasted it as a signature tune. Jerry Lewis said he secretly paid the writers $30,000 to hand his partner a hit.

Dean Martin refused to finish the 1962 film Something's Got to Give after the studio fired which co-star?

Marilyn Monroe was replaced by Lee Remick, but Dean's contract gave him approval of his leading lady and he would work with no one else. The film was never completed.

Which future martial arts star was the karate advisor on Dean Martin's 1968 spy comedy The Wrecking Crew?

Bruce Lee trained the cast and staged the fights, later grumbling that Dean was too lazy and clumsy to learn a kick. A stand-in did most of the star's fighting.

Which sitting governor and future president was the first person roasted on The Dean Martin Show in 1973?

Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, took the first roast in September 1973, with his wife Nancy among those teasing him. The roasts were added to lift the show's sagging ratings.

Which sport, Dean Martin's great passion, had a professional tour event in Tucson named after him in the 1970s?

Golf was the love of his off-duty life: the Dean Martin Tucson Open ran on the PGA Tour from 1972 to 1975, and he even sold a signature line of balls.

Which nickname of Dean Martin's became the title of a Time-Life DVD set of his variety show?

The King of Cool tag suited a star who refused to rehearse and read his lines off cue cards. He could not read music either, yet he recorded more than 550 songs.

Which seasonal standard, written in a July 1945 heatwave, did Dean Martin record on both his Christmas LPs?

Let It Snow was dreamed up by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne as they sweltered in California, and its words never mention Christmas at all. Dean cut it in 1959 and again in 1966.

Which network aired The Dean Martin Show on Thursday nights for eight years before moving it to Fridays?

NBC wanted him so badly that it met a list of demands he had made outlandish on purpose, hoping to be turned down. The show ran for 264 episodes from 1965 to 1974.

Which rock and roll star, a fan, is said to have patterned a 1956 ballad on Dean Martin's crooning style?

Elvis Presley was said to have based his delivery of Love Me Tender on Dean's easy croon. Both men were also steeped in country music, which Dean recorded by the album in the 1960s.

Which 1960 Rat Pack film introduced Dean Martin's Ain't That a Kick in the Head, a flop single at the time?

Ocean's 11 has Dean croon the tune inside a Las Vegas casino, but the single failed to chart and went unreleased on any album for years. A 1989 compilation finally revived it.

In which 1970 disaster hit, based on an Arthur Hailey novel, did Dean Martin star with Burt Lancaster?

Airport cast Dean as a philandering pilot facing a bomber in mid-flight. It became Universal's highest-grossing film to that point and set off the disaster-movie craze of the 1970s.

Which actress does Margot Robbie play watching herself beside Dean Martin in a 2019 Quentin Tarantino film?

Sharon Tate slips into a cinema in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to watch The Wrecking Crew, her 1968 spy caper with Dean. Her murder soon after its release led him to refuse another sequel.

Which sport did a teenage Dean Martin pursue, earning a broken nose and a scarred lip?

Boxing brought him little glory: he joked that he won all but 11 of his 12 bouts. He soon swapped the ring for a job working the roulette wheel in an illegal casino.

Which Las Vegas hotel hosted the Rat Pack's shows, its marquee teasing that Frank and Sammy might join Dean Martin?

The Sands would fill with wealthy gamblers whenever the group played, each man singing solos, duets and trios between bouts of seemingly improvised clowning, always in a tuxedo.

Which Ohio town, Dean Martin's birthplace, renamed its stretch of Route 7 as a boulevard in his honor in 1997?

Steubenville has honored him for years with a June festival of impersonators, friends and family. His Italian-born father worked there as a barber.

What surname was Dean Martin born with in 1917, the son of a barber who had emigrated from Abruzzo in Italy?

Crocetti gave way to Dean Martin around 1940, when a Cleveland bandleader urged the change. Before that he had sung under the surname Martini, borrowed from a Metropolitan Opera tenor.

In which New Jersey resort did Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis debut as a team at the 500 Club in 1946?

Atlantic City nearly saw the act die on its first night: the owner threatened to fire the pair unless they improved by the second show. They threw out the script and improvised.

Which future 1970s sitcom giant wrote Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis's television sketches with partner Ed Simmons?

Norman Lear, who went on to create All in the Family, was hired with Simmons to sharpen the duo's material. By 1950 the two newcomers were the main writers for the team.

During which annual broadcast did Frank Sinatra reunite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis onstage in September 1976?

A Labor Day telethon for muscular dystrophy, hosted by Lewis, was where Sinatra walked his old partner out unannounced. By Lewis's account the two had not spoken privately for twenty years, and they embraced.

Which 1958 war drama with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift launched Dean Martin's comeback as a solo actor?

The Young Lions paid Dean just $20,000, less than a week of his nightclub earnings, after Tony Randall was bought out of the part. Splendid reviews remade him as a dramatic actor.

Which Donald Hamilton secret agent did Dean Martin play in four 1960s spy spoofs, starting with The Silencers?

Matt Helm was gritty on the page, but Dean, who co-produced the films and shared the profits, played him as broad camp comedy. Five films were planned and only four were made.

Which actress joined Dean Martin in several films, including Artists and Models, Career and Some Came Running?

Shirley MacLaine earned her first Oscar nomination for Some Came Running, which was also the first film Dean made with Frank Sinatra.

In The Cannonball Run, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. race a red Ferrari disguised as which professionals?

Catholic priests was the cover for their washed-up racing drivers, who stop to bless a rival team's fake patient and let down its tire. The film and its sequel were Dean's last feature films.

Which 1955 recording, backed by its writers the Easy Riders, was Dean Martin's only UK No. 1?

Memories Are Made of This spent five weeks at No. 1 in America in 1956. In Hungary it was reworked into a song of homesickness that became an anthem for refugees of that year's uprising.

Which 1958 Dean Martin hit was a part-English version of Domenico Modugno's Sanremo winner Nel blu, dipinto di blu?

Volare reached No. 2 in Britain for Dean, one of more than a dozen rival versions on sale at once. Modugno's original won the first Grammy for Record of the Year.

Dean Martin left Capitol in the early 1960s to join which record label founded by his friend Frank Sinatra?

Reprise promised its artists creative freedom and eventual ownership of their work, and it brought Dean his first real album-chart success. Sinatra had started it after failing to buy Verve.

Dean Martin agreed to host his weekly variety show only if he could turn up on which single day of the week?

Sunday was his one working day: he skipped rehearsals, read his lines off cue cards and taped the show that evening. He set the terms expecting a refusal, and the network agreed to them all.

How did Dean Martin famously make his entrance on his variety show, an hour that leaned on physical comedy?

Down a fireman's pole he slid, straight onto the stage. Flubbed lines and forgotten lyrics went to air as well, because he would not do a retake.

Which troupe of chorus girls on The Dean Martin Show was named after Warner Bros. musicals of the 1930s?

The Golddiggers were a dozen performers recruited by producer Greg Garrison for a 1968 summer series saluting the 1930s. It was such a hit that they joined the main show and toured nightclubs.

Which hit sketch series grew out of a 1966 summer replacement for The Dean Martin Show, hosted by a duo?

Laugh-In arrived two seasons after Dan Rowan and Dick Martin filled Dean's slot for the summer of 1966. Their stand-in run did so well that the pair were handed a series of their own.

Which American, played by an impersonator, was the only person honored posthumously on Dean Martin's roasts?

George Washington got the treatment ahead of the 1976 Bicentennial, with Audrey Meadows playing Martha beside a professional impersonator. Every other guest of honor was alive to answer back.

Which comedian took over as roastmaster when Dean Martin himself was the target of his own celebrity roast?

Don Rickles ran the dais on the night the host took the insults. The specials, which ran until 1984, were patterned on the roasts held at the New York Friars Club.

Dean Martin's son Dean Paul formed a 1960s teen pop trio with the son of which comedy star?

Lucille Ball's son Desi Arnaz Jr. played drums in Dino, Desi & Billy, who gave their first audition to Frank Sinatra. Session players handled most of the instruments on their records.

Which country star's vocals were added to Dean Martin's Baby, It's Cold Outside for a 2006 Christmas radio hit?

Martina McBride overdubbed her part more than a decade after Dean's death, and the duet reached No. 7 on an adult contemporary chart. He had sung the tune on his radio show as far back as 1949.

Which song, first a hit for Bing Crosby, did Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra sing to open Dean's 1967 Christmas show?

A Marshmallow World had gone onto Dean's Christmas album a year earlier. His son Ricci recalled that record as the only one of his father's that was ever played in the family home.

Which comedian, a Dean Martin roast regular famed for a slurring drunk act, had in fact quit drinking in 1964?

Foster Brooks gave up alcohol to win a $10 bet, then built a career on his Lovable Lush routine. His turns on Dean's show earned him an Emmy nomination in 1974.

Which cable channel aired Dean Martin's first music video, created by his youngest son Ricci for a 1980s single?

MTV showed the veteran crooner alongside the pop acts of the day with Since I Met You Baby, a minor hit single. Ricci was a musician himself and once opened for the Beach Boys.

Which 1967 Dean Martin album, named after a Jim Reeves hit, includes A Place in the Shade?

Welcome to My World reached No. 20 on the Billboard album chart, riding the surprise success of two 1967 singles. Its title song had already appeared on one of Dean's albums two years before.

Which country star joined Dean Martin on a 1983 hit single from The Nashville Sessions, his final studio album?

Conway Twitty shared the vocal on a novelty about writing a first country song, which made a respectable showing on the country charts. Merle Haggard duetted with Dean elsewhere on the album.

Which 1957 picture, Dean Martin's first film without Jerry Lewis, turned out to be a box-office failure?

Ten Thousand Bedrooms flopped so badly that Dean accepted a fraction of his old salary for his next part, in a war drama that turned his career around.

Which pianist's fan club sent Dean Martin so many letters demanding more puppets that the Krofft Puppets were fired?

Liberace adored the Kroffts' puppets and urged his fan club to write in. By the brothers' account, the flood of often nasty mail, over 250,000 letters, got the act dropped after eight episodes.

Which 1956 comedy, the last film Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made together, did Lewis say he never watched?

Hollywood or Bust was shot while the partners were no longer speaking off camera, and it reached cinemas months after their split. Lewis called it too painful to watch.

Which 1949 Paramount comedy, based on a CBS radio sitcom, gave Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis their film debut?

My Friend Irma used the duo as comic relief, and producer Hal Wallis saw it as a low-risk way to try them on screen. Lewis's sidekick role was written in after he feared being left out.

Which name did Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and their friends use for the circle that the public called the Rat Pack?

The Summit, or sometimes the Clan, was what the five called themselves. The Rat Pack label came from an earlier set of friends gathered around Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Which Los Angeles cemetery holds the crypt of Dean Martin, who died on Christmas Day 1995?

Westwood Village Memorial Park marks his resting place with the opening line of his 1964 chart-topper. The Las Vegas Strip dimmed its lights in his memory.

Which screen legend played Dean Martin's brother in the 1968 Western Bandolero!, alongside Raquel Welch?

James Stewart plays Mace Bishop, who poses as a hangman to save his outlaw brother Dee from the gallows. The brothers then flee into bandit country with a hostage and a posse behind them.

Which 1959 album, Dean Martin's first Christmas-themed LP, was later reissued as Holiday Cheer?

A Winter Romance shows Dean hugging one woman on its cover while flirting with another. Only part of it is festive: the theme is cold weather, and a full Christmas album followed in 1966.