Troy Smith
Dean Martin was truly one of the great singers of the 1950s and 1960s. His work serves as a timeless collection of great songs that are still enjoyed by millions of people to this very day.
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His music is even still included in popular television shows like the Sopranos years after his death. Along with being a great singer, Martin was also a bit of a drinker.
Some of Martin’s appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson are the greatest appearances by any guest that we have.
One night in 1975, Martin showed up to the Tonight Show absolutely hammered drunk. He was in awe of the crowd, beginning by asking Carson “How you been Joey? How’d you get all of these people in your room?”
This was truly entertaining television.
See this interview from the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson embedded below…
Dean Martin sadly passed away in 1995 at age 78 in Beverly Hills, California. One of the most iconic Italian Americans who ever lived, Martin will surely live on for decades to come through his music.
A report from the Washington Post in 1995 covering Martin’s death reads as following…
Dean Martin, 78, whose disarmingly disheveled elegance, breezy charm and baritone ballads made him an immensely popular comic, actor and singer, died of acute respiratory failure Dec. 25 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He had a kidney ailment.
A high school dropout, failed boxer and former steelworker, he was only a moderate success as a club singer when he and a struggling comic named Jerry Lewis decided to team up. The Martin-Lewis duo shot to the entertainment heights. By the early 1950s, they were headliners in clubs across the country, stars of highly successful films and among the most popular “guest performers” on the new medium of television.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/12/26/dean-martin-crooner-and-comic-dies-at-78/77c0d668-c50f-4e67-a1b9-719de26fbe71/
I didn’t know that Martin was a steelworker and failed boxer! With a face like his, I’m sure the ladies in our audience are glad he failed!
