How I Got This Way (12 page)

Chapter Eleven

DEAN MARTIN

Y
ou probably have no idea how much I depend on Dean Martin. There’s never been a morning for as long as I can remember—at least over the last fifteen or more years—when Dean hasn’t sung to me both before
and
after every single one of our
Live!
broadcasts. Of course, I’ve talked about him every chance I’ve had during our Host Chats, but what you probably don’t know is that I’ve kept his music playing almost constantly whenever working upstairs in my office above our studio. In fact, people have called my office a shrine to both Dean and Notre Dame, and I guess that’s pretty much the truth. Mixed with my Fighting Irish mementos, Dean is spread all over the place. People keep sending me these treasures that can’t help but delight me: great photos of him, stacks of his tapes and CDs, a half-dozen bobble-head statuettes, an automated singing doll, and even a life-size cutout of him laughing and looking terrific in a tux with his tie tugged loose. I happen to get a wonderful feeling hearing his smooth, playful voice. Like nobody else, he was the personification of relaxed, carefree ease; you couldn’t rattle old Dean. Nothing shook him. He just had that special aura. So whether at work or at home, I keep Dean and his music near me at all times.

But now let me tell you about the first time I was ever near Dean himself, up close and personal. Somewhere during my high school years, I’d read in the papers about a new radio singer who sounded very much like Bing Crosby. Well, that’s all I had to hear. I tuned in that night, and sure enough, it was absolutely true: This new voice had that same remarkably mellow and romantic Crosby sound. He’d been working at the many nightclubs in and around New York City back then, but hadn’t yet broken through. At least, not as a solo act. But then, all of a sudden, he found himself on the same bill one night with a comic named Jerry Lewis, and somehow they began kidding around together onstage. Next thing you knew, they became not just the team of Martin and Lewis but in fact the hottest act in all of show business. They were all you heard about—everywhere! The power of their popularity (especially once they started making movies together) has probably never been matched.

Anyway, in those days, after high school prom dances, it seemed that kids always wound up at one of the many nightclubs in the city. And as it happened, after my Cardinal Hayes High School prom in June of 1949, five friends and I took our dates to the famous Copacabana to see Martin and Lewis, who that same year were just hitting it big on radio together. It was already an exciting night—all of us dressed up and feeling kind of sophisticated—not to mention that this would be my first time going to a nightclub. I remember how Jerry Lewis came out shrieking and breaking dishes he grabbed from busboys. People were howling at his crazy antics, and then Dean entered singing, so cool and in control, the total opposite of Jerry’s chaos. He was tall, handsome, and, for the one who was supposedly the straight man of the team, he was just as funny as Jerry.
This guy is dynamite,
I thought.
He can do it all!
It was a revelation to me. Later in the show, he crooned a special love song full of deep feeling and aimed it directly at a beautiful blonde sitting ringside. Sometime that same summer, I read that he and that blonde, Jeanne Bieggers, had gotten married. You’d hear him talk about her for years to come—“my Jeannie,” he always called her.

All through Notre Dame I followed Dean:
The Colgate Comedy Hour,
his terrific Capitol Records albums, all those movies with Jerry. And in 1956 they came back to the Copa for what turned out to be their last live appearance together. It was truly sad—maybe the greatest comedy team ever was breaking up. I knew Dean was a fabulous talent, but I wondered how he would do without Jerry. Well, you all know what happened. Each of them became separate sensations, but Dean soared in new and special ways: first, as Sinatra’s right-hand man—the second in command of the legendary Rat Pack (which, of course, included Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and a guy named Joey Bishop); and then, especially when his NBC variety show took off in the mid-sixties, as a stand-alone performer, without having to divide the spotlight between himself and a partner or any of his Rat Pack pals, he was still simply amazing. Naturally, he also excelled with every kind of guest who appeared on his program. He could dance beautifully with the Step Brothers, sing unforgettable duets with the likes of Bing or Frank or anybody, and somehow always manage to be funnier than all the top-line comedians who joined him onstage. I loved that show, as did so many millions of viewers, making his program unofficially the NBC network’s very first Thursday-night “Must-See-TV” series. In fact, I was fortunate enough to attend a few tapings of the show back then and was always mesmerized by his easy, debonair presence. He had a magic all his own—the looks, the voice, the timing, and he was also a bit mysterious.

You never did see much of Dean around Hollywood. If he wasn’t working, he was always on a golf course—or else at home with his large family or appearing in Las Vegas. One night, he made a brief surprise visit to
The Joey Bishop Show,
while on a break from shooting the blockbuster movie
Airport;
he was still in costume—wearing his full pilot’s uniform. He walked out, got big laughs from the audience, and was gone again before you knew it. Then, about a decade later, when I was the entertainment news editor for the local ABC station in Los Angeles, I went to do a piece from the set of
The Cannonball Run
picture, starring Burt Reynolds, in which Dean and Sammy Davis, Jr., had cameo roles. I saw my friend and Dean’s longtime agent, Mort Viner, standing outside of his star’s trailer. He said, “Why don’t you go inside and talk with Dean? He’s all alone in there.” Before that moment, I’d never had the chance to talk with him, just one-on-one. So I climbed the steps, opened the door, and there he was sitting in a booth. He gave me a nice hello and I sat down opposite him. We got along fine; he could put you at ease just like that. So at ease, in fact, that I found myself telling him about my prom night at the Copa and how I’d followed his career from the very beginning. And then, to demonstrate what a longtime fan I was, I launched into a story about one of his earliest records, made for the Apollo label with the Sammy Watkins Band. The song was called “One Foot in Heaven,” and I told him how it saved my life during a summer break from college. At the time, I was working the midnight shift at a Long Island plastics factory making venetian blinds. I hated the job, hated the midnight shift, hated going to that factory. But every night, to get myself revved up before heading out to the job, I would play “One Foot in Heaven” over and over again on my old turntable. You see, he had that ability to spark my mood even then!

But as I heard myself talking, I began to wonder why in the world I was telling him that story. I was probably boring him to death. There was so much more to talk about. So many things I wanted to ask him. Then I thought,
My God, it’s now 1980! That record came out nearly thirty-five years ago, and it was never a hit anyway. Why was I bothering him with this trivia?
But I was already deep into the story and now desperately looking for a way out of it. And suddenly Dean said, “Regis, why don’t you sing it for me.” Now there was no escape. So I sat there opposite Dean Martin, the two of us all alone in his trailer, and sang “One Foot in Heaven” to him: “One foot in heaven when you hold me sweet, / One foot in heaven right on Angel Street. . . .” He listened carefully, and when it was over, he said quietly, “You know, that’s a nice song, Regis, but I never did it.” Then a production assistant rapped on the door, and Dean had to return to the movie set. I left the trailer feeling absolutely ridiculous. Here was one of the great heroes of my life—the guy every other guy wanted to be like, and I was no exception—and yet I’d just wasted so much time going on and on about a minor song he didn’t even remember singing! I felt like such a jerk.

So the years went by, and slowly, over time, you heard less and less of Dean. He’d already been retreating from public view before his handsome son, the actor-turned-pilot Dean Paul Martin, died in that freakish Air National Guard jet crash in early 1987. After that, Dean all but disappeared. Frank and Sammy tried to lure him out of his shell a year later by plotting a Rat Pack reunion tour. It didn’t work; Dean left the tour after only a few performances. Stories of his ill health circulated, but he’d just decided to live a very quiet life, always sticking to his unassuming ways. And yet he still made it a point to get out for dinner every night. His chauffeured Rolls-Royce delivered him always to the same restaurant, La Famiglia, on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, at the stroke of six thirty. He sat alone most of the time. He wanted it like that. But at least he was out among other people, and was kind and gracious to anyone who came over to say hello. That was one very good sign that he hadn’t given up.

Sometime during that period, my good friend Bill Zehme, the well-known writer from Chicago, revealed to me that we shared the same feelings about Dean. We both wanted to see him for ourselves, one more time. Zehme said he’d even gone to La Famiglia on a few occasions and Dean was in fact always there, like clockwork. He’d always dine alone, Zehme confirmed, but never seemed lonely. Soon enough we made a plan to meet in Los Angeles and then go see him together. I had come to town to play myself (of course) on an episode of Garry Shandling’s HBO talk-show send-up
The Larry Sanders Show,
and Zehme arranged a trip out there during my stay. We set up a date to have our eagerly awaited dinner at La Famiglia—which turned out to fall on one of the strangest evenings I’d ever experienced in Los Angeles.

For one thing, the city seemed to be totally deserted. On our way over to the restaurant from my hotel, we barely spotted another car on the street. I had never seen it so quiet. And the reason was this: Everybody was at home glued to their TV sets, watching O. J. Simpson attempting to escape arrest in that famous white Bronco driven by his friend Al Cowlings—with at least twelve police cars chasing them down the freeway. As helicopter cameras followed the action from above, it was a television news spectacular, pure drama every second. Immediately, Zehme and I were worried that, of all the nights we could’ve picked to go see Dean, O.J. now had all of Los Angeles sitting on the edge of their couches staring at this chase . . . and maybe Dean was one of them. I couldn’t believe our rotten luck.

Nevertheless, we parked and walked across the street to the restaurant, hoping against hope that Dean hadn’t broken his nightly ritual. “Well, if he’s there,” Zehme said, “he’ll be sitting in his booth just to the left of the front door as we go in.” I stole a quick glance to the left as we entered and saw someone sitting there,
alone,
across from the bar, where the TV was of course tuned to O.J. on the loose. We couldn’t stop to stare, but it
had
to be him; it was his booth, after all! Surprisingly, the place was far from empty—and the music that was playing softly in the background? Naturally, it was all Dean’s. We chose a table across the room, but in direct view of—yes, it was him—Our Man. Well into his seventies, he still had that great thick shock of hair, which was only specked with gray. He wore a big pair of black eyeglasses that slid down his nose a little. But what a presence he continued to have, the kind you can feel when you’re near it. Completely content and relaxed, he sat there watching the Simpson story unfold on the TV, a cigarette in one hand, a tumbler of whiskey in the other, and a dish of pasta in front of him.

During a commercial cutaway, I finally screwed up enough courage to go over to him. I reminded him of who I was and he was very receptive. “Regis!” he said softly. I mentioned my work with Joey Bishop in the late sixties, and he said, “Yes, I remember—you and Joey.” He also said that he’d seen Kathie Lee and me every now and then on our morning show. I told him I still loved him, always thought he was the best—“Dean, you know, you’re still the greatest”—and shook his hand. He had that timeless, proud look about him. He knew exactly who he was and what he’d done in this business. He gave me a nod, a smile, and said good-bye. It was quick. That was how he wanted it. A few minutes later, I looked back at his booth and he was gone.

But that short exchange meant everything to me. I was happy to have at least gone up to tell him one more time how much his work and his life had touched mine. Because, unfortunately, we do miss those chances all too often with the people we’ve so appreciated before they’re suddenly taken from us. Dean died Christmas morning of 1995, about a year and a half after we saw him at La Famiglia. Fate being what it is, he died the same day, and at the same time, that his mother had twenty-nine years before.

In the years that followed his death, Dean’s popularity seemed to skyrocket even more—his music sold millions of units with all kinds of repackaged CDs hitting the market. His voice was all over movie soundtracks and television commercials, helping to sell products from cars to coffee to overnight delivery services. But one day, almost nine years after Dean left us, I got a call from Greg Garrison, the legendary producer of all of Dean’s terrific NBC shows, who knew well of my admiration for his guy. He asked, “How would you like to host an infomercial for a collection of DVDs featuring the best moments from all of Dean’s old NBC variety shows over the years?” Previously, Greg had done well with a similar set of DVDs of
The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast
series (which had become so popular in the early seventies). But this was a whole package of all those unforgettable musical numbers and all the amazing guest stars, doing what we would never see them do again in our lifetime. Up till then, I had turned down all infomercial offers that came my way, but this was special. This was Dean.

I jumped at the chance and I loved every minute of doing it—all on a Los Angeles soundstage that had been dressed to resemble the original set of Dean’s show, with actual pieces that Greg had kept in storage for so many decades. Throughout the taping I couldn’t get enough of Garrison’s stories about this man, whom he also cherished, and about how he’d guided Dean through every movement of every show, especially because Dean was never one to rehearse anything he did on camera. In the end, that infomercial we made was, in my opinion, one of the best ever produced anywhere—never mind that I’d had the privilege of hosting it. Garrison had chosen and edited the most thrilling and hilarious moments from those classic shows; it was an assemblage so entertaining that the thirty-minute pitch became like a show unto itself. Everyone said that if you accidentally tuned in, you couldn’t tune out—and they were right. Suddenly, it was just so refreshing to see that kind of television again, the greatest variety show ever—and one that only Dean Martin could have presided over.