Dean and Me: A Love Story by James Kaplan, Jerry Lewis Page B
Authors: James Kaplan, Jerry Lewis
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Fridays only, because she had Saturday-night poker parties with six Jewish ladies. I was known as the Pony Express kid, shipped from one place to another—always traveling, because my mom and dad were always on the road, to burlesque, vaudeville, concert dates, the Borscht Circuit; to Lakewood, New Jersey, in the winter months.
And so Dean and I understood each other. Deeply. He maintained that distance from everybody except me. Our closeness worked for us, bonding us in the way that audiences loved, and—over time—against us.
But where Frank was concerned, Dean could never totally let down his guard. And—in a not totally healthy way—Frank was drawn to that reserve. It made Dean more manly and fascinating in Frank’s eyes. When Frank saw the way Dean handled the Mob, he was amazed. Dean never gave them the time of day; he played dumb or drunk, or he was just off playing golf. He referred all business decisions to “the Jew,” anyway. Frank, on the other hand, was drawn to the wiseguys’ mystique because it made him feel tougher. But he was also a very smart man, smart enough to know that it was a crutch, one that Dean didn’t need.
With Frank and me, it was different. We shared a huge regard for each other’s talent, and a deep personal affection: Our personalities dovetailed. Very often he and I would be alone, on a plane trip to a benefit somewhere, or at Paramount, in my office or dressing room, while Dean was playing golf. Frank was always very open about his love affair with Martin and Lewis, and when we split as a team, he had to make a choice. It had to be one or the other. Dean and I were not talking, and Frank knew that Dean needed a friendship with substance.
For a while after July 24, 1956, people thought I would be just fine (even if I didn’t always know it myself). But they worried about Dean.
CHAPTER SIX
IN TERMS OF OWNERSHIP, BACKING, AND PATRONAGE, ORGANIZED crime played a central role in the nighttime world of cabaret entertainment in the 1940s and ’50s. Inevitably, Dean and I came to know, usually on quite friendly terms, every major figure in the Mob, from Bugsy Siegel in Vegas to the Fischetti brothers, Tony Accardo, and Sam Giancana of Chicago, to Frank Costello and Lucky Luciano in New York. And while it may not be politically correct to say so, I found the great majority of these guys to be men of their word, far less hypocritical about their business than most of the politicians of the day. (As a young comic still wet behind the ears, I racked up a huge gambling debt at Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo in Vegas—but paid it off, to the penny, over the next two years, forever earning the respect of the Organization. And the word came down:
Anytime we can do something for you, just let us know.
)
It was usually the lackeys who made trouble.
Take the time that Dean got into a slightly sticky situation with the wrong guy’s girlfriend. This was in Miami in 1950, and the guy was . . . Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Dean Martin in real life was much the way everyone perceived him: cool, relaxed, unfazed by most anything. The guy who could take a nap during a gang war. But beneath that unflappable exterior was a different man, a man I began to understand over our ten years together.
Dean had a number of chinks in his armor, as we all have. And one of them almost led to a disaster. He loved the ladies (as we all do and did and always will), but he didn’t care about the where or when. In fact, I constantly teased him that “Where or When” was the one lyric he had committed to memory.
We were playing a Miami nightclub that shall go nameless (I don’t know who might still be around and reading this!), when Dean spotted a lovely young lady sitting ringside with her grumpy-looking boyfriend, and proceeded to do what he always did when he spotted a pretty woman in the audience: He performed entirely to her. Sang and flirted, as if he were all alone with her.
When the show was
And so Dean and I understood each other. Deeply. He maintained that distance from everybody except me. Our closeness worked for us, bonding us in the way that audiences loved, and—over time—against us.
But where Frank was concerned, Dean could never totally let down his guard. And—in a not totally healthy way—Frank was drawn to that reserve. It made Dean more manly and fascinating in Frank’s eyes. When Frank saw the way Dean handled the Mob, he was amazed. Dean never gave them the time of day; he played dumb or drunk, or he was just off playing golf. He referred all business decisions to “the Jew,” anyway. Frank, on the other hand, was drawn to the wiseguys’ mystique because it made him feel tougher. But he was also a very smart man, smart enough to know that it was a crutch, one that Dean didn’t need.
With Frank and me, it was different. We shared a huge regard for each other’s talent, and a deep personal affection: Our personalities dovetailed. Very often he and I would be alone, on a plane trip to a benefit somewhere, or at Paramount, in my office or dressing room, while Dean was playing golf. Frank was always very open about his love affair with Martin and Lewis, and when we split as a team, he had to make a choice. It had to be one or the other. Dean and I were not talking, and Frank knew that Dean needed a friendship with substance.
For a while after July 24, 1956, people thought I would be just fine (even if I didn’t always know it myself). But they worried about Dean.
CHAPTER SIX
IN TERMS OF OWNERSHIP, BACKING, AND PATRONAGE, ORGANIZED crime played a central role in the nighttime world of cabaret entertainment in the 1940s and ’50s. Inevitably, Dean and I came to know, usually on quite friendly terms, every major figure in the Mob, from Bugsy Siegel in Vegas to the Fischetti brothers, Tony Accardo, and Sam Giancana of Chicago, to Frank Costello and Lucky Luciano in New York. And while it may not be politically correct to say so, I found the great majority of these guys to be men of their word, far less hypocritical about their business than most of the politicians of the day. (As a young comic still wet behind the ears, I racked up a huge gambling debt at Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo in Vegas—but paid it off, to the penny, over the next two years, forever earning the respect of the Organization. And the word came down:
Anytime we can do something for you, just let us know.
)
It was usually the lackeys who made trouble.
Take the time that Dean got into a slightly sticky situation with the wrong guy’s girlfriend. This was in Miami in 1950, and the guy was . . . Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Dean Martin in real life was much the way everyone perceived him: cool, relaxed, unfazed by most anything. The guy who could take a nap during a gang war. But beneath that unflappable exterior was a different man, a man I began to understand over our ten years together.
Dean had a number of chinks in his armor, as we all have. And one of them almost led to a disaster. He loved the ladies (as we all do and did and always will), but he didn’t care about the where or when. In fact, I constantly teased him that “Where or When” was the one lyric he had committed to memory.
We were playing a Miami nightclub that shall go nameless (I don’t know who might still be around and reading this!), when Dean spotted a lovely young lady sitting ringside with her grumpy-looking boyfriend, and proceeded to do what he always did when he spotted a pretty woman in the audience: He performed entirely to her. Sang and flirted, as if he were all alone with her.
When the show was
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