Father of seven spent nights at home in front of TV

Rat Pack dad was a homebody but children had to compete for his time

Entertainment : Actor & singer Dean Martin with Chorus Girls Used june 1994 Pic. Photo File Pic. File Photo

Even Dean Martin uttered true words in jest: “I’ve got seven kids,” he quipped. “The three words you hear most around my house are ‘hello,’ ‘goodbye,’ and ‘I’m pregnant’.” As his career spiralled, Martin’s personal life careered: his first marriage to Betty in 1941 produced four children before ending in divorce in March 1949. His second marriage, to Jeanne in 1949, produced three children and ended in divorce in 1972.

Martin’s youngest daughter from his first marriage, Deana, arrives in Sydney today on her first Australian tour. Her show, Memories Are Made Of This, includes her father’s favourite songs and recollections of growing up in a Rat Pack house.

The Martin children — Stephen Craig (1942), Claudia (1944), Barbara Gail (1945), Deana (1948), Dean Paul (1951), Ricci (1953) and Gina (1956) — grew up calling Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr “uncle”. Regular house guests included Rosemary Clooney and Gregory Peck.

Deana and Ricci have written books and worked shows around growing up with the comedian, crooner, actor and television host considered the “King of Cool” by Elvis Presley.

Born Dino Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, in 1917 to Italian father Gaetano and Italian-American mother Angela, Martin dropped out of high school to work odd jobs. He performed a song-and-comedy act in Ohio nightclubs from 17 as Dino Martini and married Elizabeth “Betty” McDonald, 18, in Cleveland in 1941.

He moved to New York in 1943 to follow Sinatra’s act at the Riobamba in Manhattan, where he persuaded comedian Lou Costello to become his manager, resulting in a nose job in 1944.

With his own radio show, that year Martin also met Jerry Lewis. Although their first double act in 1946 flopped, they refined a slapstick comedy act that eventually won a succession of lucrative movie contracts. But despite generous contracts for Chicago and Baltimore shows, with three children Martin declared bankruptcy in 1946. He was performing in Los Angeles when Deana was born in New York in August 1948.

Martin’s name was then linked with actors Ann Sheridan and Lana Turner, while Miami beauty queen Jeanne Biegger was a regular audience guest. Martin did not return to New York for two months. By March 1949 he was divorced and in September married Biegger; Lewis and wife Patti joined them on a two-day honeymoon.

Martin’s children remained with Betty, then a close friend of Patti Lewis and singer Judy Garland. Deana and her sister became friends with Liza Minnelli, staging a play for her mother when Deana played a tree. Afterwards, Deana recalled Garland telling her, “You were the best tree I ever saw.”

Deana praised her mother as “fabulous ... She had us, when we were quite little kids, in tap dance lessons, acrobatics, ballet”. Betty also threw big parties where her children mingled with singers and Hollywood stars.

But as Martin cultivated a boozy public persona, cradling a glass of amber liquid later revealed by son Dean Paul as apple juice, a magazine article on Betty’s party lifestyle apparently convinced Martin she was an alcoholic.

Deana’s memoir Memories Are Made Of This, published in 2004, says the story was overly cruel and sensationalised. But Martin cut off alimony. In 1957 he sued for custody on grounds that the children, were neglected. When his daughters arrived to live with Martin, Jeanne was concerned about how he would cope with “a household of 15 people”, which included three children under seven, his mother-in-law, four servants and the cook’s daughter.

“He has taken to it beautifully, thanks to his ability to relax no matter how much racket there is around the place,” Jeanne wrote.

Deana and Ricci describe Martin as a homebody who came home from golf for dinner with his children at 6pm, then “cozied up in front of the TV” or played boardgames. Each year he did two seven-week Las Vegas runs and perhaps a six-week film shoot. The household crumbled after Martin met Miss USA 1969, Gail Renshaw, 22. He was 52. Martin and Jeanna divorced in 1972, when he married blonde Catherine Hawn, 26, in April 1973. He adopted her daughter Sasha before they divorced in 1976. Deana describes Martin as a very good man, but not a very good father.