Whitey had in right!

The Dean Martin Show. The decades have passed, I should have listened to the late great Whitey Littlefield In my dream La Famiglia in Beverly Hills was nearly empty that night in 1985. The last waiters moved quietly through the dining room, folding napkins and straightening chairs. In the corner booth, Dean Martin sat alone. No cue cards. No audience, there was only Dean, sitting quietly. Whitey's Sinatra’s right-hand man was right, “You could’ve walked over and sat down with him,” In my dream I did. We talked about his days with Frank. "Let's have a Vino for Dino!"

The Dean Martin Show Chapter 5

"BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" In my dream sitting with Dean at "La Famiglia​," ​Sinatra's lyrics were spinning through my head, "As the end draws near​!" The restaurant was almost empty that ​September night in 19​95. ​ Dean ​spoke about a life of love, loss, and hard choices, determined to face his final curtain on his own terms.The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more like​ somebody had thrown open every backstage door at Studio 4. ​and I was standing next to a legend. "Let's have a Vino for Dino."

The Dean Martin Show Chapter 5 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream Continues The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more like Stage 4 after somebody had thrown open every backstage door at once. I mentioned the cue cards, and Dean immediately started laughing. Cue cards were supposed to keep television under control, but on his show they occasionally became part of the entertainment. A card would come up late, another would appear in the wrong order, somebody would flip too quickly, or Dean would look toward the card man and discover that the sentence he was expecting had apparently gone on vacation. Most performers would have frozen. Dean almost seemed to enjoy it.

He would squint toward the card, realize something had gone wrong, then glance at the audience with that expression that said, without saying a word, Dean Martin glanced at the cue cards and delivered the line with perfect innocence: Dean would improvise something. During an openinng monologue he onces said, "You know....“The mayor of Bevery Hills, "there's and L in Beverly looking at the Cue Card guy, posted a new sign on my block—‘Crawl’ and ‘Don’t Crawl.’”​ Sometimes the improvised line was funnier than the one the writers had spent hours creating. Behind the cameras, however, Greg Garrison wasn't always enjoying the adventure quite as much. Greg was trying to direct cameras, musicians, dancers, guest stars and Dean Martin at the same time, which may have qualified as one of the more dangerous occupations in television. I can still picture him signaling from the floor, trying to get somebody's attention while Dean seemed perfectly content to let the moment wander wherever it wanted to go. “Greg didn’t direct the show,” Dean said with that familiar grin. “He survived it.”​ Even in my dream, Dean’s timing was perfect.

The Dean Martin Show Chapter 5 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream Continues.. In my dream We began laughing as we remembered those wonderful nights when Greg Garrison appeared to be conducting an orchestra in which every musician had secretly been handed different sheet music. One camera was pointed in the wrong direction, a guest had changed a line, a cue card had vanished, a prop refused to cooperate—and Dean had decided that a thirty-second joke deserved another five minutes.​ Greg would be waving his arms as though he were trying to land an airplane in Studio 4, while Dean stood beneath the lights looking as relaxed as a man waiting for his dry cleaning.​ That was the magic between them. Greg worked desperately to keep the show under control. Dean’s gift was convincing the audience that control had never been necessary in the first place.​ Then Dean reminded me about the runaway piano.​ The details have become a little fuzzy over the years, but the confusion remains crystal clear.

The piano started moving when it wasn’t supposed to. Crew members chased after it. One man tried to stop it while another shouted directions that nobody could understand. Someone wanted to know where the rest of the set belonged. Greg was signaling frantically from the sidelines, looking as though his entire career were rolling away with the piano.​ Dean simply watched it pass.​ Then he looked toward the audience and said, “There goes my accompanist. He finally got a better offer.”​ The audience exploded.​ That was Dean. Nothing ever went wrong around him—it merely became new material.

The unexpected wasn’t the enemy. Sometimes it was the best comedy writer in the building.​ The dressing-room hallway provided its own nightly variety show. Dean’s room had the magnetic pull of a Hollywood cocktail party. Friends stopped by, musicians wandered in, producers appeared with notes Dean had no intention of reading, and performers arrived looking for rooms that were nowhere near Dean’s.​ Occasionally, someone like Angie Dickinson or Joey Heatherton would appear and sweet-talk a young NBC Page into letting her pass.​ They didn’t need permission, of course, but we were twenty-something-year-old Pages in freshly pressed uniforms. A beautiful actress could have asked us for the keys to Studio 4, and we probably would have handed them over with directions to the parking lot.​ I learned one important backstage rule: never assume who—or what—is behind a dressing-room door.​ You knocked.​ You waited.​ And no matter what happened next, you tried to look professional.​

I once forgot that rule when Lainie Kazan was visiting Dean. I knocked, heard something that sounded vaguely like “Come in,” and opened the door with the confidence of a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing.​ I froze.​ Lainie looked at me.​ Dean looked at Lainie.​ Then Dean looked at me and said, “Kid, either close the door or start selling tickets.”​ I closed it so quickly I nearly left my NBC Page cap behind.​ The hallway was filled with singers in robes, comedians halfway inside their costumes, dancers rushing between changes, actors searching for somebody else’s dressing room, and enough unexpected glimpses of backstage Hollywood to provide a young man from Long Beach with an education never mentioned in the university catalog.​

In the dream, Dean laughed again and raised his glass.​ “You learned a lot at NBC, kid.”​ “I certainly did,” I told him.​ He nodded thoughtfully. “And none of it was on the Page exam.”​ For a moment, we were back there again—Greg shouting, cue cards falling, scenery moving, beautiful women slipping past security and that runaway piano searching for a show of its own.​ It was glorious confusion.​ And somehow, with Dean standing in the middle of it, everything always seemed to come out right.

The Dean Martin Show Chapter 5 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dean Martin Show Chapter Three The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more likesomebody had thrown open every backstage door at Studio 4. "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream Continued.... La Famiglia was almost empty that night in 1985 “Greg didn't direct the show,” he said with that familiar grin. “He survived it.” Dean laughed when I reminded him of it. There were nights when Greg seemed to be conducting an orchestra in which every musician had secretly been given different sheet music. A camera wasn't where it was supposed to be. A guest had changed a line. A cue card disappeared. Dean had decided to stretch a joke. A prop refused to cooperate. Greg would be waving his arms as though he were trying to land an airplane on Stage 4 while Dean stood beneath the lights looking as relaxed as a man waiting for his dry cleaning. That was part of their chemistry. Greg worked desperately to maintain control. Dean's gift was making the audience believe control had never been necessary in the first place.

One of the backstage stories that stayed with me involved the piano. Over the years, some of the precise mechanics of those old television moments become fuzzy, but I remember the glorious confusion. ​ Crew members moved. Somebody tried to stop it. Somebody else tried to figure out where the set was supposed to go. Greg was signaling frantically. Dean watched the entire thing unfold and, instead of becoming upset, saw the comedy in it.

The unexpected was never entirely the enemy. Sometimes it was the best writer in the building. The dressing-room hallway produced another kind of chaos. Dean's dressing room had an almost magnetic quality. Friends came by. Performers dropped in. Producers appeared. Musicians wandered through.

People arrived who had legitimate reasons for being there, and occasionally someone appeared like Angie Dickenson or Joey Heatherton flirting with Pages to sneak them in. I learned very early that a Page should never assume who was behind a dressing-room door. You knocked. You waited. I made that mistake when Lannie Kazan was visiting Dean in his dressig room. And you tried to look professional no matter what appeared when the door opened. There were singers in robes, comedians halfway into costumes, dancers between changes, actors looking for somebody else's room and enough accidental glimpses of Hollywood backstage life to give a young man from Long Beach an education that wasn't offered at the university.

The Dean Martin Show Chapter 6 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dean Martin Show Chapter Three The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more like"BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream La Famiglia was nearly empty that night in 1985 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" Dean seemed almost impossible to surprise. Somebody could wander into his dressing room as though they had known him for twenty years, and Dean might simply look up, give them that half-smile and ask, “You lost, pal?” He had a way of defusing the ridiculous without embarrassing anybody. The stranger might leave laughing, and Dean would return to whatever he had been doing as though unexpected visitors were simply part of the furniture.

Then there was Jonathan Winters. Jonathan didn't need a script so much as a launching pad. Give him a broom, a hat, a chair or almost any ordinary object and within seconds it had become a character. Then the character had relatives. Then the relatives had a dispute with the government. Jonathan's imagination seemed to operate faster than the rest of us could follow. Dean loved performers who could genuinely surprise him because surprise broke through the professional armor. When Dean really laughed, you knew it. The head went back. The shoulders loosened.

The famous cool disappeared for a few seconds and there was simply a man having a wonderful time. Jonathan could do that to him. Dean remembered those moments fondly. “You never knew where Winters was going,” he told me. “The problem was, I don't think Winters knew either.” That was exactly why it worked. Dom DeLuise brought a different kind of unpredictability. Dom seemed to enter Stage 4 with enough energy for three performers and an appetite large enough to threaten any food being used as a prop.

A sketch could begin perfectly normally and, once Dom got involved, somehow find itself sliding toward delightful disaster. Props weren't always safe around him. Neither were the other performers. Neither, for that matter, was Dean. Dom could break something, drop something or take a gag farther than anyone expected, and suddenly everybody was trying not to laugh. Dean remembered him with tremendous affection. Beneath Dom's wild comedy was warmth, and Dean responded to warmth. The audience saw a large, exuberant comedian. Dean remembered the man. That became clearer to me throughout the dinner.

Whenever we mentioned one of those performers, Dean didn't begin by listing television credits. He remembered personality. He remembered how they made him feel. Kenny Lane brought back another side of Dean altogether. Long before the tuxedo and the nightclub cool, Dean had boxed, and the language of boxing never completely left him. Kenny and Dean could begin kidding each other about fighters, footwork and punches, and suddenly the polished television star disappeared. Kenny might put up his hands backstage and demonstrate something, and Dean would answer with his own little move, both men shadowboxing in a hallway while people carrying costumes and scripts tried to squeeze around them.

The Dean Martin Show Chapter 3 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dean Martin Show Chapter Three The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more like "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream La Famiglia was nearly empty that night in 1985 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" There was something wonderfully incongruous about it: Dean Martin, minutes away from stepping beneath studio lights in a tuxedo, bouncing lightly as though he were still a young fighter thinking about slipping a left jab. “Everybody thinks I started with a microphone,” Dean told me. “I knew what gloves were first.” He smiled. “Microphones hurt less.” Sinatra was different from all of them. Frank didn't need an introduction. You could almost sense his arrival before you saw him because the atmosphere backstage changed. Crew members noticed. Executives noticed. Performers noticed.

Frank Sinatra carried his own weather system. Sometimes he would appear unexpectedly, without the kind of advance ceremony one might have expected for one of the biggest entertainers in the world. Suddenly somebody would say, “Frank's here,” and there he was, walking down the hallway. Dean loved that. Around Dean, Sinatra could stop being Sinatra for a while and become Frankie. That may have been one of the reasons their friendship lasted. They didn't need to impress each other. They could tease. They could disagree. They could sit quietly. Frank might walk into Dean's dressing room, say something that nobody else in the room would have dared say, and Dean would answer without missing a beat.

The Dean Martin Show Chapter "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dean Martin Show Chapter Three The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more like "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream La Famiglia was nearly empty that night in 1985 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The mythology eventually turned the Rat Pack into something larger than life, but backstage they were still men who knew one another's weaknesses, habits and histories. At La Famiglia, Dean's expression softened when Frank's name came up. “Frank was Frank,” he said. It sounded simple, but the way he said it carried years inside it. We moved from television to movies almost naturally.

Mentioning Frank led to Ocean's 11, and suddenly we were in Las Vegas again, at least in memory. The 1960 picture has become inseparable from the mythology surrounding the Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Dean, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop moving through Vegas with the confidence of men who appeared to own every room they entered. But Dean's recollections weren't really about the mythology. They were about the people. Sammy Davis Jr. earned particular admiration. Dean respected extraordinary talent, and Sammy seemed to possess more talents than one man should have been allowed. He could sing, dance, act, imitate, play instruments and command a stage. “Sammy could do everything,” Dean said. “Made the rest of us look lazy.” He smiled when he said it, but there was genuine respect underneath. That was another thing I noticed about Dean.

The Dean Martin Show Chapter "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dean Martin Show Chapter Three The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more like "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream La Famiglia was nearly empty that night in 1985 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" He didn't have trouble praising somebody who was good. He didn't need to diminish another performer to protect himself. Sammy's gifts were Sammy's. Dean's were Dean's. Friendship didn't require competition every minute of the day. Ocean's 11 captured a moment before the years began taking people away, and sitting there in 1985 I don't think either of us fully understood how precious those moving pictures would eventually become. Movies do something memory cannot. They keep people permanently young. Turn on Ocean's 11 today and there they are again, walking through Vegas, alive and sharp and completely unaware of the future. For a couple of hours, nobody has died yet. Eventually our conversation moved to Rio Bravo. That was different.

If the Matt Helm pictures played with the public's idea of Dean Martin, Rio Bravo challenged it. John Wayne was already a towering figure, and Dean's role as Dude required him to let the audience see vulnerability. Dude wasn't simply charming. He was wounded. He was battling himself. He was trying to reclaim dignity after falling apart. Dean could hide behind humor almost anywhere, but Dude couldn't. I told him I always believed that performance proved people underestimated him as an actor. Dean looked at me over his glass. “They underestimated me?” There was a pause. “Should've told the studio. Maybe I'd have gotten sympathy.” Then came the grin. That was Dean's way. You could compliment him, but he rarely let the compliment remain serious for long.

Still, I could tell Rio Bravo mattered to him. John Wayne mattered too. Wayne carried enormous presence on screen, but Dean had held his own beside him. The film showed that the man famous for seeming effortless could portray someone for whom every step forward required effort. Maybe that was why Dude remained such an important performance. It showed the struggle Dean usually concealed.

"BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dean Martin Show Chapter Three The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more like "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream La Famiglia was nearly empty that night in 1985 Then came Matt Helm. The Matt Helm movies were almost the opposite of Rio Bravo. If Dude required Dean to peel away his image, Matt Helm allowed him to exaggerate it. The women, the gadgets, the clothes, the cocktails, the outrageous situations—it was Dean Martin's public persona turned into a spy movie and then turned up another twenty percent. Dean was in on the joke. That was essential. A performer insecure about his image could never have played Matt Helm properly. Dean understood exactly what people thought Dean Martin was, and he was perfectly willing to make fun of it.

“Bond had all those gadgets,” he said. “Helm had better room service.” The pictures never asked the audience to take the fantasy too seriously, and Dean certainly didn't. He winked at the whole enterprise. That willingness to puncture his own legend may be one reason the legend lasted.

The Dean Martin Show Chapter "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dean Martin Show Chapter Three The stories came easier once Dean started talking about the old NBC days. One memory opened another, and before long La Famiglia seemed less like a nearly empty Beverly Hills restaurant and more like "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream La Famiglia was nearly empty that night in 1985 "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" He never appeared desperate to protect it. Burt Reynolds came into the conversation as someone from a somewhat younger generation who nevertheless possessed qualities Dean recognized immediately. Burt had charm, but more importantly, he understood the value of laughing at himself. By the time Reynolds became one of Hollywood's biggest stars, he had mastered something Dean had understood for years: a man can be masculine without spending every second proving it. Burt could be the handsome leading man and then deliberately make himself the punch line. Dean respected that.

Their friendship carried the easy humor of men who didn't need to stand on ceremony. They could talk show business, sports, women, movies or nothing of consequence at all. Dean liked people who could leave their celebrity at the door. Burt could. Perhaps that was why Dean enjoyed him.

As I sat across from Dean listening to him move from Sinatra to Sammy, from Wayne to Reynolds, from Rickles to Winters, I began to realize that I wasn't listening to a catalog of celebrities. I was listening to a man reviewing the people who had passed through his life. Each name held a different room.

Greg Garrison was Stage 4 and controlled panic. Jonathan Winters was surprise. Dom DeLuise was laughter. Don Rickles was affection hidden inside insults. Kenny Lane was boxing and another version of the kid Dean had once been. Frank was friendship. Sammy was talent. John Wayne was respect. Matt Helm was Dean laughing at his own image. Burt was a younger friend who understood the same joke. We had begun the evening talking about television. Somewhere along the way we had started talking about time.

First Chapter "Before Dino Knew My Name."

BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME Chapter One — Pretty Baby Long before I ever stood backstage with Dean Martin, I knew his voice. I was a kid at St. Anthony High School in Long Beach when Dino was already part of the soundtrack of my life. My mother surprised me one day with his album Pretty Baby. I played those 33 RPM records until it seemed I might wear the grooves completely smooth. Back then Dean Martin belonged to another universe. Hollywood. Las Vegas. Movies. Television. I belonged to Long Beach. A decade later I would be standing only a few feet from him on The Dean Martin Show. Whenever I think about that journey, I think first about my mother. She bought the record. She couldn't possibly have known where it would lead. Neither could I.Sometimes the smallest gifts become the first page of a much larger story.

The Dean Martin Show Chapter Two "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" College, journalism, ambition and a phone call from my SAE pal John Roland eventually carried me to NBC in Burbank. NBC was a city within a city: studios, control rooms, wardrobe departments, artists’ entrances and Pages racing everywhere. Behind dressing-room doors were famous Hollywood stars. Becoming an NBC Page gave me the key to that world. The first Dean Martin Show I worked felt like a dream. While the other Pages supervised the audience outside, I finagled my way through the double doors of Studio 4. Inside dancers rehearsed, Les Brown’s musicians warmed up, stagehands moved scenery, the cue-card man arranged Dean’s lines, and producer-director Greg Garrison tried to impose order. In the middle of it all stood Dean—completely untouched by the commotion. I was about to witness what "Prime Time" really meant. His first guest, Eddie Fisher, stood beside me. Dean looked over, tossed out a mischievous ethnic wisecrack, about Fishers ethnicity, and the audience roared. It was my first taste of what the next two seasons would be like. "Let’s have a vino for Dino!"

The Dean Martin Show Chapter Three "BEFORE DINO KNEW MY NAME" The Dream La Famiglia was nearly empty that night in 1985. The last waiters moved softly between the tables, resetting silver and folding napkins with the quiet efficiency of people who had watched legends come and go. In the corner booth, the candles burned low. Dean Martin leaned back in that easy, familiar way of his, lifting a glass of real Jack Daniel’s—the amber catching the light the way the world never quite believed he did. I had always heard he ate alone here. The Late great Whitey Littlefield once told me as much, over beers. Sinatra had trusted him the Budweiser distributorship in Long Beach. “If you’d known,” Whitey said, “you could’ve sat down with him.” I never did. So sometimes I dream it instead. In the dream we stay late. The restaurant empties around us. I ask about the old show—the one that felt less like television and more like a long, loose party that somehow made it onto the air. Dean’s eyes warm. He starts talking about the guest stars, the friends, the unforgettable characters who drifted through those gold-curtained stages. The memories rise the way the liquor does in the glass: slow, golden, and still somehow bright after all these years. Two men, years apart, sharing a table at La Famiglia the way old friends do. Outside, Beverly Hills keeps its secrets. Inside, the candles keep flickering, and Dean keeps talking.

The Dean Martin Show

The Dean Martin Show. "You know...I slept like a baby last night, I woke up with a bottle in my mouth!" Let's have a Vino for Dino."

Dino

The Dean Martin Show. "I didn't know what time it was, I drank my watch." Let's have a Vino for Dino!"

Joe Scalissi

The Dean Martin Show. Deana Martin "I was sitting there while Joe was performing, I thought it was Dad…but it was Joe!" As someone who worked on The Dean Martin Show, my observation echoes that sentiment. Joe has "the moves, the looks, Dino's style," and "Dean's family loves him." Let's have a Vino for Joe and Dino!"

Fade In

The Dean Martin Show FADE IN: The famous NBC peacock appears. A full orchestra begins the unmistakable opening bars of.. "EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY SOMETIME." Les Brown's orchestra swings. The audience erupts. Dean casually slides down the famous fireman's pole carrying a cigarette and a drink, He moves to his stool, smiles...Dino Looks around...Takes a sip... The audience laughs before he even says a word. Thunderous applause." Thank you...thank you very much...Sit down before somebody gets hurt. What a crowd tonight! .......And so it went, one joke after another. " You know..."one of my best friends axesked me (looks at the cue card guy) there's a S in there pal, he asked me about Jeannie and me, I told him I may be married but I'm not a finatic about it. We've got a great show tonight, I hope I'm here to watch it...." "Let's have a Vino for Dino!"

"Raindrops"

The Dean Martin Show. Taking a trip from Kenny Lane's piano, past the famous celebrity door on his way to "Da Gouch!" Dino would tackle any song, as long as the cue card guy was standing 3 to 4 feet in front of him. We all stood in awe as he crooned, Those memories live on! "Let's have a Vino for Dino."

Broken Italian

The Dean Martin Show. Most of us grew up with parents from the “Old Country.” Italian was spoken in our homes nearly 80% of the time, so as kids we learned colorful expressions and the everyday language. Between my mother’s Sicilian heritage and my father’s Barese dialect, we could understand and speak just about everything. Like Dean, as we got older we lost some of it and forgot many of the words and phrases. Still, those roots never leave you. Dino muttered old phrases during bloopers, it was fun listening to his "mangled Italian. It's good to be Italian. "Let's have a Vino for Dino!"

"Vieni Su"

The Dean Martin Show. "Vieni su, vieni su, vieni, Come along through the years with me, Can't you see how I adore you, And how long I waited for you? Vieni su, vieni su, Won't you say you love me too?" One of my favorites. "Let's have a Vino for Dino!"

Tom Dreesen RIP

Tom Dreesen has passed. Back when the DC-8s ruled the skies, I boarded a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles and found myself seated next to Tom Dreesen. What started as a chance meeting turned into one of those unforgettable conversations that only happen once in a lifetime. We talked about Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, life on the road, and a few private stories that never made it into the headlines. I told Tom about my little comedy club in Belmont Shore, "The Comic Strip," he said he'd stop by someday. Most people make promises, Tom didn't. He showed up. Over the years, I had the pleasure of seeing him many times, including those classic nights when he opened for Sinatra. Watching him command a room with effortless timing and genuine warmth was something special. Talented, loyal, approachable, and always gracious. In an industry filled with larger-than-life personalities, Tom Dreesen stood out because he never forgot how to be real. Those were remarkable days, and the memories remain priceless.

Dino's Poem

The Cannoli Song.

The Dean Martin Show. "I CANNOLI give you love that lasts forever, And the promise to be near each time you call, And the only heart I own for you and you alone, That's all, that's all" "Let's have a Vino and Cannoli for Dino!"

Two Kings of Cool !

The Dean Martin Show — The Two Kings. Dino Paul Crocetti, the “King of Cool,” and Elvis Aaron Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll.” One night in 1968, just before the KNBC 11 p.m. news with Tom Brokaw and Ross Porter, I spotted a man in a black leather outfit at the old NBC apple machine, trying to figure out where the dime went. It was Elvis Presley — in the flesh. We talked a moment, and Elvis said he’d like to meet Tom Brokaw. I walked him over and introduced them. Then Elvis headed across the hall to Studio 4 for his NBC comeback special.I smiled and said, “Funny coincidence — that’s where we tape The Dean Martin Show on Sundays.” Elvis just grinned… and walked off to make television history. "Let’s have a Vino for Dino… and Elvis."

The Dean Martin Show - Dean and Frank together!

https://fb.watch/FlMZGtg9ew/

Mom, Dino, and Karma!

The Dean Martin Show. When I was a kid at good old St. Anthony High School in Long Beach, my world fit inside a record player. My favorite singer? Dean Martin. One afternoon my mom walked through the front door with a surprise under her arm — Dean Martin’s “Pretty Baby.” That album was gold. I played that 33 RPM record until ​i​t crackled and ​s​cratched and nearly gave up on me. I emulated Dean's voice and look. Got good at it. I knew every lyric, every pause, every wink you could hear in his voice. Dino was a singer. with smooth confidence. He was cool without trying. And who could have imagined… ten years later… I’d be standing just a few feet away from “The King of Cool” himself on The Dean Martin Show at NBC Burbank. Good Karma has a funny way of closing the circle. I owe that moment — that unbelievable moment — to my mom. She didn’t just buy me a record. She made a dream come true. "Let's have a Vino for Dino." DeanMartinBlog.BlogSpot.com

The Dean Martin Show. D​i​no was a true musical legend of the 20th century.​ He truly believed that "Everybody loves somebody sometime!"

Dean Martin - Frank Frank Sinatra. "Your Fabulous Face!"

The Dean Martin Show. Was it wrong for one man to love another man? There was no secret that Dean and Frank were considered "blood brothers" from the different mothers!" The fun started on closed set's when Frank and Dean got together. There was never a dull moment when these two were in studio!!! "Let's have a Vino for Dino and Frank!"

Dean and Golf!

The Dean Martin Show. Sundays were supposed to be a day of rest. Not for Dino. Blocking for The Dean Martin Show started early—around 9 a.m.—and by then Studio 4 at NBC Burbank already looked like a three-ring circus. Cameras gliding, lights climbing, sets shifting like chess pieces. Greg Garrison was Dean for the moment, standing in, calling marks, that only truly came alive when the real thing arrived. And then—right on cue—he did. In walked the "King of Cool." No rush. No fuss. Just that unmistakable Dean Martin stroll smoking a cigarette. We all assumed he’d come straight from the fairway—a quiet round with close pals. Frank or his agent Jim Mahoney. Dean sashayed in wearing golf clothes, relaxed, smiling, loose as a goose, ready to settle in for an eight-hour taping session like it was nothing more like playing than the back nine. No rehearsal jitters. No visible grind. Just Dean being Dean. And suddenly, what had been a technical exercise became a show. Golf in the morning. TV magic by night. For Dino, Sunday wasn’t a day off—it was just another perfect round. "Let's have a Vino for Dino!"

Dino will never be forgotten!

The Dean Martin Show — A true legend is never forgotten. The variety series aired on NBC for nine seasons, from September 16, 1965, to April 5, 1974, producing 264 episodes.​ If you were a friend of Dean or Greg Garrison you were part of this famous chapter in Dino's life. All of us that worked on The Dean Martin Show will never forget this once in a lifetime experience. "Let's Have a Vino For Dino!"

Dino Open/Close

First Day on the Job!

The Dean Martin Show. My very first day as an NBC Page in Burbank—​they didn’t exactly ease me in. My first weekday encounter with a real star was Elke Sommer. Elke was guesting on The Dean Martin Show. I escorted her to Studio 4’s dressing rooms, and suddenly I was swimming in it—crew members hustling, background singers warming up, lights swinging into place… that glorious, organized chaos that only live television can deliver. On the walk over, I gave Elke a quick tour of the NBC maze. First stop: Floyd’s famous shoeshine stand tucked behind The Tonight Show. Frank and Dean's were regulars. Then past the rehearsal halls, echoing with music and laughter.And there I was—day one on the job—walking side by side with one of the most beautiful women in the world. Maria Gambrelli in A Shot in the Dark (1964), Not a bad way to punch in at NBC. "Let's have a Vino for Dino."

NBC Burbank in color, 1961

Memories never fade.

The Dean Martin Show. Memories never fade. I stopped by to visit my longtime pal and neighbor, Jim Mahoney, Thursday, who turns 98 this Year—a milestone worthy of applause. Jim wasn’t just Frank and Dean’s publicist; he was the guy, the "fixer" —representing everyone from Sinatra and Martin to Carson, Hope, and dozens of legends who defined an era. As we sat together, with his son and two daughters, the conversation drifted back to those golden days. Jim shared a favorite story I’d never heard before. One afternoon, Frank had an extra ticket to the Yankees–Dodgers World Series and asked Jim to join him and Dino. Jim had never been to a World Series game in his life. He said he was absolutely thrilled—three great seats, great baseball, and even better company. This photo captures the moment perfectly: Jimmy on Frank’s right, seated beside the “King of Cool,” Dean Martin, all smiles, soaking in a day that only Hollywood—and baseball—could deliver. Some memories don’t age. They just get better. "Let's have a Vino for Dino, Frank and Jim!"

In the early days of fast-food drive-thrus, Dean Martin

In the early days of fast-food drive-thrus, Rat Pack legend Dean Martin once destroyed an expensive vintage car trying to get a burger for his girlfriend’s son. Phil Crosby Jr., Bing Crosby’s grandson, told Fox News Digital about how his mother once dated and was even engaged to Martin — who always called him "the kid" — following her "tumultuous" marriage to the "White Christmas" singer’s son, Phil Crosby Sr. "I was almost Dean Martin's stepson," he said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital. "So, if that had happened, I would have grown up with a silver spoon in my mouth, but that didn't happen." Crosby said he was very young at the time his mom, Peggy Crosby, now 85, began seeing the "That’s Amore" singer after meeting him at a club where she worked, following her short-lived marriage to Crosby. "And I think my mother, she wasn't really ready [to be married again]," Crosby said of their eventual breakup. "She was still a young, beautiful woman. She's still a beautiful woman." He said that Martin, who was 23 years older than his mother, "was very on in years" at the time they dated. And although he was very young when he knew Martin, he does remember him. His best memory of the crooner was when he peeked into his mother’s bedroom one time looking for her, and Martin was in there and asked him to grab him a pack of cigarettes. "My only real recollection of him is a little too stereotypical," Crosby said. "He used to call me ‘the kid.’ And this is a true story. I was ‘The kid. ’‘Where's the kid at?’ Even years later when my mom bumped into him, I was ‘The kid.’"

Crosby said the singer asked him, "‘Hey, kid, you know, go downstairs and bring me up some cigarettes,' as an adult of those days should be able to ask a child and the child's supposed to do it. "Well, I am from like the first of a bit of the spoiled generation where we lost that respect for our elders," he continued. "And I told him, I said, ‘You can't tell me what to do. You're not my father.’ So that's my recollection of my Dean Martin story, which I wish it was a little bit better." But he said his story of Martin destroying his own classic car while trying to get "The kid" fed has been passed down to him. "I don't really have this recollection myself, but it's a story I've been told, and I call it the Stutz and the drive-thru, because Dean had a Stutz [Blackhawk], or I've been told a Stutz Bearcat," Crosby said. "When I do research now, I see pictures of him with a Stutz [Blackhawk]. These were very large, vintage automobiles." Crosby explained that Stutz cars were "these very classic, very, very valuable collectors, vintage automobiles, but they are wide." "I was a bit of a spoiled kid. I did not like to eat a lot of different types of food, but I loved McDonald's," Crosby explained. "So, we were driving back in his Stutz, my mom and Dean and I, and I'm in the back seat, probably complaining, didn't eat dinner and probably complaining about being hungry." He continued, "So, Dean decides, ‘All right, McDonald's has a drive-thru that's open,' and drive-thrus were probably pretty new" at the time, saying this took place around 1976 in Santa Monica, California.

"But it was too narrow," Crosby explained. "So, Dean takes this thing, and he just drives it right into this [drive-thru] and it just crunches the sides, scrapes the side of this — I mean, we're talking one of the most valuable, you know, collectors' vehicles." He said his mom just laughed "because by the time we got up to the window, the people there just had this horrified look, like aliens had just arrived. They just heard this terrible crunching sound, and here's Dean Martin sitting in there."

Crosby said he wished he could have remembered Martin better because "from what I know about him, especially from what his reaction to having expensive damage done to his car so he could feed the little spoiled brat, he blew it off." Crosby said the damage was "nothing to him" because he wasn’t a "materialistic man." "He wasn't a temperamental guy. He really was a sweet man and what I've heard from, even some of the Rat Pack stuff, that, compared to the other guys anyway, he was pretty faithful and a pretty, you know, pretty good guy." When he was a teenager, Crosby said he got to meet Martin once more before he died. "That was pretty cool," he said. "He was a class act."

Crosby also reflected on what Christmas meant to his grandfather. "Bing was a great American, and I think it meant a lot to him, you know, for his Catholic faith, that [Christmas] be honored and enjoyed," he said of his grandpa, who died when he was a baby. "He came from a big family," Crosby continued. "So, I think, I mean, Christmas just became such an important American tradition … and I know they did it up pretty good in the Crosby House, tall trees, lots of presents." He added, "Obviously, Christmas is dominated, still, with the voice of Bing Crosby."

Crosby said, although he never met his grandfather, he still enjoyed many festive Crosby Christmases as a child. "I grew up with a few of my cousins and a couple of my uncles … and I'd see them on some holidays," he said. "We had great big holidays with lots of Crosbys. So, I definitely had Crosby Thanksgivings and Crosby Christmases with Bing's other sons and their wives and children. And I was very, very thankful and happy for that." Crosby is also releasing two singles for the holidays: a cover of a rarely-heard Bing Crosby song called "A Time to be Jolly," and an original titled "Guess Who's Coming Tonight." "It's a Christmas song nobody else recorded," Crosby said of "A Time to be Jolly." "But it's fun song. It's a little silly … I'd never heard it before … You won't find it done by Dean Martin or anybody else. So I hope people enjoy it."