Martin, Dean

Martin, Dean (1917-1995), American actor, born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio. Martin began his working life as a petrol-pump attendant before winning an amateur acting competition and forming a cabaret duo with Jerry Lewis. The two men began performing at the 500 Club in Atlantic City in 1946, before moving to Hollywood and a long-term contract with Paramount. The partnership produced over a dozen films prior to 1957, when Martin went his own way to pursue a career as a crooner in the style of his close friend and fellow “Rat Packer” Frank Sinatra.

As an actor, the stylish, devil-may-care Martin image triumphed immediately after his separation from Lewis in Edward Dmytryk's The Young Lions (1958), with Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando, and in the role of a drunkard in Rio Bravo (1959), directed by Howard Hawks. The next few years were filled with amusing diversions (Who Was That Lady? 1960; That Touch of Mink, 1962) in which Martin was in danger of becoming stereotyped, but the menace was averted by the brilliant self-mockery of Billy Wilder's comedy Kiss Me Stupid (1964). Martin went on in this fruitful vein in his Matt Helm series (The Silencers and Murderer's Row, 1966; The Ambushers, 1967; and The Wrecking Crew, 1968), while continuing to make routine Westerns (Five Card Stud, 1968).

With the close of the 1960s, Martin's main interest shifted to television, which supplied him with the perfect vehicle for his talents as an improviser and humorist.