‘Dino’ Dies At 78 Crooner Turned Into Top Comedian, Serious Actor

Dean Martin, who overcame the breakup of his comedy partnership with Jerry Lewis to become a successful film, television, recording and nightclub star in his own right, died Monday at his Beverly Hills home. He was 78.

“Dino,” as he was known to his old-time show biz cronies and generations of fans, died of acute respiratory failure at 3:30 a.m., said his longtime publicist Warren Cowan.

“Dean was my brother - not through blood, but through choice,” said Frank Sinatra in a written statement. “Our friendship has traveled down many roads over the years and there will always be a special place in my heart and soul for Dean.

“He has been like the air I breathe - always there, always close by,” the statement said.

Lewis, on tour Monday, was “completely shattered and grief-stricken” at news of Martin’s death, said Lewis’ manager, Joe Stabile.

The multifaceted Martin, whose rugged Italian good looks and melodic baritone voice charmed women but also appealed to men, perfected an on-camera and on-stage image of the laid-back alcoholic.

More than one guest on his phenomenally popular television variety show, which regularly attracted 40 million viewers from 1965 to 1974, went to Martin’s dressing room after the show expecting to find a paralytic drunk only to be offered coffee and cake. The glass Martin carried onstage usually contained nothing stronger than apple juice.

“You son of a … ” one guest said, cracking up the joke-loving star, “You’re stone cold sober!”

Known as chief deputy to the chairman of the board in Sinatra’s “rat pack,” Martin followed in the tradition of Sinatra, Perry Como and other Italian singers, frequently commenting that they all copied the style of veteran crooner Bing Crosby. Among Martin’s outstanding gold records were “That’s Amore” in 1953, “Return to Me” and “Volare” in 1958, and what became his theme song, “Everybody Loves Somebody” in 1964.

Despite those successes, he once told Variety: “I’m no singer. I can carry a tune and I have an easy style. But we crooners get by because we’re fairly painless.”

Although he was best known for comedy, Martin’s more than 50 films include a handful of critically acclaimed serious acting roles, as in “The Young Lions” with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift in 1958, “Some Came Running” with Sinatra in 1959, and Howard Hawks’ “Rio Bravo” with John Wayne, also in 1959.

In 1946, Martin met the young Jerry Lewis when both were appearing at the Glass Hat in New York. Soon after they were put on the same bill at the 500 Club in Atlantic City, N.J.

Making up their own material, Martin attempted to sing while Lewis interrupted as a bumbling bus boy. A legendary team that was to delight the nation for a decade was born.

Martin and Lewis made 16 movies from “My Friend

Irma” in 1949 to perhaps their best remembered and final “Hollywood or Bust” in 1956. In 1952, the duo moved into first place in the annual Motion Picture Herald listing of the top 10 movie stars.

But the magic partnership broke up in 1956 when Martin refused Lewis’ directive that he play a lowly policeman in “The Delicate Delinquent,” which Lewis wrote. Martin claimed he could no longer deal with Lewis’ egocentric demands.

“Two of the greatest turnin’ points in my career were, first, meetin’ Jerry Lewis, second, leavin’ Jerry Lewis,” Martin said in 1967. “I became a real actor because of these two things.”

After foundering for a couple of years after splitting with Lewis, Martin rebounded, recording “Volare,” which sold 3 million records in 1958.

About that time, he got a bid to join Brando and Clift in “The Young Lions,” at a miserly salary of $20,000, considerably less than he was used to earning for a film. He leaped at the chance, however, saying he would have done it for nothing to work with the acclaimed dramatic stars.

“Some Came Running” - in which he played a boozy gambler - followed, resurrecting Martin’s mood as well as his box-office appeal.

Martin was married and divorced three times - to Elizabeth McDonald from 1940 to 1949, with whom he had four children, Craig, Claudia, Gail and Deana; to Jeanne Beigger from 1950 to 1973, with whom he had three children, Dean Jr. known as Dino, Ricci and Gina, and to beauty parlor receptionist Cathy Hawn from 1970 to 1973.

Dino, an actor and member of the short-lived ‘60s teen pop group Dino, Desi and Billy, served as a captain in the Air Force National Guard. He was killed in 1987 when his Phantom jet fighter crashed into a California mountain during a snowstorm.

“I don’t think (Dean) ever quite recovered from the death of his son,” said Cowan and other friends Monday.

Despite repeated bouts with ulcers, which belied his relaxed style, Martin kept himself in relatively good physical condition with daily golf and other exercise.

“With all the children and grandchildren, I’m old,” he joked in 1984 when he was 67. “But I don’t feel old. … Death don’t come to me. I’m not going.”

However, his health deteriorated in the 1990s, and he stopped working about three years ago, Cowan said.