[Dixielandjazz] "The Dean Martin Show"

[Harry Callaghan]

Excellent article.  It really makes one yearn for the days of music & comedy
shows such as this as well as the Carol Burnett show and of course, the
grand-daddy of them all, The  Ed Sullivan Show.

I remember a line in Sinatra's act when he was performng at the Sands some
years after the Meeting at the Summit, as the Rat Pack's performance was
billed.

He said, "Sammy Davis Jr. wrote a book entitled 'Yes I Can'.  After I saw
his first TV show, I sent him a wire, 'No You Can't'"

HC

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 9:38 PM, Robert Ringwald <rsr at ringwald.com> wrote:

> Calling a Bluff
> Dean Martin figured his demands would kill a TV offer he really didn't want
> to accept.
> He was wrong.
> by Susan King
> Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2011
> Dean Martin didn't have any interest in doing a weekly musical-variety
> series when
> NBC approached him in 1965.
> "In those days you were either a movie star or a TV star," said his
> daughter Deana
> Martin, who is also a singer. "He came home one night and said, 'They are
> going to
> offer me a TV show. I don't want to go in every day and do a TV show.'"
> Martin was a huge star at the time. Despite the "British Invasion" of such
> musical
> groups as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Martin's albums continued to
> land at
> the top of the charts. In fact, his 1964 recording of "Everybody Loves
> Somebody"
> knocked the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" out of the No. 1 spot. His
> engagements
> in Las Vegas were sellouts. Plus there was his flourishing movie career --
> Martin
> made several films with Rat Pack buddies Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr.,
> Joey Bishop
> and Peter Lawford, such as 1960's "Ocean's 11" as well as such highly
> regarded movies
> as 1958's "The Young Lions" and 1960's "Bells Are Ringing."
> But NBC didn't take no for an answer. "They called him again," his daughter
> recalled.
> "He said, 'They want to have a meeting with me.' He told all [of the
> family], 'When
> I go in tomorrow, I am going to ask them for a ridiculous amount of money
> so they
> will turn me down. I am going to tell them I don't want to rehearse, so I'm
> sure
> they will turn me down. And then I am going to tell them I only want to
> tape it on
> Sunday afternoons after 1. So for sure they won't go for it.'
> "He came home that night and said, 'They went for it. So now I have to do
> it.'"
> So for nine seasons, he headlined "The Dean Martin Show" at 10 Thursday
> nights on
> the peacock network (it was moved to Friday evenings its last season). An
> enjoyable,
> loosey-goosey romp -- Martin, true to his word, didn't rehearse before the
> taping
> -- the show featured Martin playing his drunken-playboy persona to the
> hilt, singing
> tunes, performing in sketches and welcoming guests such as Sinatra, Jimmy
> Stewart,
> Orson Welles and John Wayne.
> "It was a cocktail party," said Ron Simon, curator at the Paley Center for
> Media
> Study in New York.
> On Tuesday, three DVD sets of "The Best of the Dean Martin Variety Show"
> are being
> released. On June 7, a new Martin picture-book music collection, "Cool
> Then, Cool
> Now" will hit stores.
> Though Sinatra and Davis tried their hands at weekly series, Martin was the
> only
> Rat Pack member to succeed. "Frank, I think, was too intense and passionate
> to do
> a weekly series," Simon said. "Sammy, I think, was so multifaceted and
> talented,
> you were never sure what talent you should focus on. They never came up
> with a persona
> for Sammy that would work week in and week out. Dean Martin was very
> comfortable
> with the persona."
> The "Dino" character developed after he broke up with Jerry Lewis in 1956
> following
> a 10-year partnership as the enormously popular music-comedy team of Martin
> and Lewis.
> "Everybody needs a gimmick," said Deana Martin, who performed on her dad's
> series
> numerous times.
> "When he started to redo his nightclub act, he started at the Sands Hotel,
> he had
> some writers helping him," Martin explained. "It was like Jack Benny who
> had the
> violin thing and made fun about being cheap. It was something identifiable
> with him.
> Dad was so handsome, very cool and debonair. They just thought, 'We will
> put a drink
> in his hand and a cigarette.' Every man wanted to be him, and every woman
> wanted
> to be with him."
> But Martin, who died in 1995 at age 78, maybe played the role too well. His
> daughter
> is still shocked to this day that after her concerts, "I go out and talk to
> people
> and they come up and say, 'I adored your dad. I never missed a show. I
> can't believe
> he could do all of that and drink that much.' I said, 'What are you talking
> about?'"
> The truth be told, Martin was swigging apple juice and not hard liquor in
> his glass
> when he performed. "He would be home for dinner every night," recalled his
> daughter.
> "He would come home and he and mom would have their one cocktail at the
> bar. They
> had their half-hour alone time. He was kind. He would get up early in the
> morning
> and play golf. He was so different from what everybody thought he was.
> There was
> no one who could do Dean Martin better than Dean Martin."
>
>
> --Bob Ringwald
> www.ringwald.com
> Fulton Street Jazz Band
> 530/ 642-9551 Office
> 916/ 806-9551 Cell
> Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV
>
> "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would
> promise them missionaries for dinner."
> H. L. Mencken 1880-1956
>
>


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