Dean Martin Wallpapers

Dean Martin Wallpapers

Dean Martin (June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer and film actor.
Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in the West Virginia-Ohio border-town of Steubenville, Ohio in the Pittsburgh Tri-State region. His parents were Italian-born barber Gaetano Crocetti and his wife, Angela. He spoke only Italian until age five. The traces of Italian are perhaps what lent a certain Southern drawl to Martin's speaking voice, which led many who did not know he hailed from Ohio to assume he came from the South.

Martin dropped out of school in the tenth grade and took a string of odd jobs ranging from steelworker to bootlegger; at the age of 15, he was a boxer who billed himself as "Kid Crocett." (Kro-Shey) It was from his prizefighting years that he got a broken nose (it was later fixed), a permanently split lip, and his beat-up hands (often unable to afford tape to wrap his hands, Dean came away from many fights with broken knuckles). Dean was known to have won almost all of his matches, although the prize money was meager, and he finally gave up boxing to pursue more potentially lucrative opportunities. For a time, he worked as a roulette stickman and croupier in an illegal casino behind a tobacco shop where he had started out at a stock boy. At the same time, he practiced his singing with local bands. Billing himself as "Dino Martini" (after the then-famous Metropolitan Opera tenor, Nino Martini), he got his first break working for the Ernie McKay Orchestra, performing in a crooning style heavily influenced by Bing Crosby and the Mills Brothers, among others. But in the early 1940s, he started singing for bandleader Sammy Watkins. It was here that he changed his name to Dean Martin. A hernia got Martin out of the Army after a year-long Stateside stint during World War II, and with wife and children in tow, he worked for several bands throughout the early 1940s, scoring more on looks and personality than vocal ability until he developed his own smooth singing style.

Although he worked more or less steadily (and when club gigs were lacking, he drove a cab), money was tight for Dean, and he found he had to send much of what he earned back home to Betty and their growing family. He often slept on couches of friends, rather than spend the money for a hotel room, even in a flop house. What money he could save he usually spent on living the good life, including wining and dining young ladies, gambling, and garbing himself in tailored suits. He struck upon one scam to put some extra dollars in his pocket: He would sell 10% of his career, promising his benefactor (one of whom was comedian Lou Costello) a dime on every dollar Martin made as a singer in exchange for a cash stake upfront. Dean did this so often, he quickly found he had sold over 100% of himself! But as he had no intention of ever making good on the deals, he happily took the money, filled his closets with elegant suits, and even had plastic surgery to reduce the size of his nose. Such was the power of Martin's charm that most of his marks forgave him of his debts to them, and continued to be his friend.

By 1946, Dean was doing relatively well for himself, but he was still nothing more than an East Coast nightclub singer with a style still clearly rooted in that of Bing Crosby...and there were already plenty of other singers like that. He could be counted on to bring a good sized crowd to the clubs where he played (although he famously flopped at the Riobomba when he followed Frank Sinatra's record-breaking stint there...although it did give the two men the opportunity to meet for the first time), but he ignited none of the hysteria that Sinatra did. What he needed was something that would elevate him above the pack, and give him a real shot at the big time.

Filmography

* Film Vodvil: Art Mooney and Orchestra (1946) (short subject)
* My Friend Irma (1949)
* My Friend Irma Goes West (1950)
* Screen Snapshots: Thirtieth Anniversary Special (1950) (short subject)
* At War with the Army (1950)
* That's My Boy (1951)
* Sailor Beware (1952)
* Jumping Jacks (1952)
* Road to Bali (1952) (Cameo)
* The Stooge (1953)
* Scared Stiff (1953)
* The Caddy (1953)
* Money From Home (1953)
* Living It Up (1954)
* 3 Ring Circus (1954)
* You're Never Too Young (1955)
* Artists and Models (1955)
* Screen Snapshots: Hollywood, City of Stars (1956) (short subject)
* Pardners (1956)
* Hollywood Or Bust (1956)
* Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957)
* The Young Lions (1958)
* Some Came Running (1958)
* Rio Bravo (1959)
* Career (1959)
* Who Was That Lady? (1960)
* Bells Are Ringing (1960)
* Ocean's Eleven (1960)
* Pepe (1960) (Cameo)
* All in a Night's Work (1961)
* Ada (1961)
* Something's Got to Give (1962) (unfinished)
* Sergeants Three (1962)
* The Road to Hong Kong (1962) (Cameo)
* Who's Got the Action? (1962)
* 38-24-36 (1963)
* Come Blow Your Horn (1963) (Cameo)
* Toys in the Attic (1963)
* 4 for Texas (1963)
* Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963)
* What a Way to Go! (1964)
* Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
* Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)
* The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)
* Marriage on the Rocks (1965)
* The Silencers (1966)
* Texas Across the River (1966)
* Murderers' Row (1966)
* Rough Night in Jericho (1967)
* The Ambushers (1967)
* Rowan & Martin at the Movies (1968) (short subject)
* How to Save a Marriage (and Ruin Your Life) (1968)
* Bandolero! (1968)
* 5 Card Stud (1968)
* The Wrecking Crew (1969)
* Airport (1970)
* Something Big (1971)
* Showdown (1973)
* Mr. Ricco (1975)
* The Cannonball Run (1981)
* Cannonball Run II (1984)

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