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Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams (Paperback)

by Nick Tosches (Author) "It was like the guys from the other side used to say: La vecchiaia e carogna..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis (more...)
3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
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Price For All Three: $33.28

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Only a handful of showbiz biographers can lay claim to posessing the literary acumen of writers like Michael Holroyd and Peter Ackroyd. Nick Tosches is one of these writers, and his unauthorized biography of Dean Martin stands as a testament to his genius. Several inimitable sequences in which Tosches adopts his subject's perspective (most of which are regrettably unsuitable for quotation here) make the book a real standout.

Dino is a fascinating portrait of a man who had it all--money, fame, women--and didn't give a damn about any of it and suggests that, even as he wallowed in the excesses of Hollywood and the Rat Pack, Martin stayed critically aloof from that world, albeit often in a booze-and-pill-addled haze. He got into showbiz precisely because it required so little effort of him: "I can't stand an actor or actress who tells me acting is hard work," he once said. "It's easy work. Anyone who says it is hard never had to stand on his feet all day dealing blackjack." Nobody could impress Martin. While Frank Sinatra would do anything just to hang out with reputed Mafioso, the Mob would have to make special trips to ask Martin in person to play a show at one of their casinos.

Tosches' portrait, written only a few years before Martin's death in 1996, depicts its subject as nothing so much as a Zen master without the spiritual anchor; after sampling everything that life had to offer and finding it lacking, Martin spent the last years of his life waiting to die in virtual seclusion. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Tosches, best known for his biography of Jerry Lee Lewis ( Hellfire , LJ 1/15/82), worked in a similar vein to produce this biography of Dean Martin. Tosches's extensive research is obvious, and his book has been aided immeasurably by extensive interviews with Martin's longtime wife, Jeanne, and with his former partner, Jerry Lewis. Martin himself was not interviewed. It's all here: Martin's career in nightclubs, movies, and television as well as his friendships with various mafiosi. The book stays afloat despite the weightiness of too many Italian and Yiddish words, too many gratuitous expletives, and just plain too many words bearing too much metaphorical weight for the subject.
- John Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

  • Paperback: 640 pages
  • Publisher: Delta (April 13, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 038533429X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385334297
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #151,433 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
It was like the guys from the other side used to say: La vecchiaia e carogna. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Beverly Hills, Frank Sinatra, Hal Wallis, Bing Crosby, Abby Greshler, Sammy Watkins, New Jersey, Skinny D'Amato, The Caddy, Sammy Cahn, Warner Brothers, Sam Giancana, Sammy Davis, Dino Crocetti, Frank Costello, Lou Perry, Chez Paree, Johnny Rosselli, Herman Citron
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Customer Reviews

44 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (44 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Look at a Show-Biz Enigma, May 15, 2000
By Scott Rivers (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
In the world of show business, Dean Martin remains a fascinating enigma. Nick Tosches certainly knew this when writing "Dino," a perceptive and revealing 1992 biography that depicts the singer-actor as a man who gave a damn about very little - letting the riches fall where they may. It's all here: the Martin and Lewis partnership, the Rat Pack, the Mafia, the Kennedys, etc. However, "Dino" is more than a traditional show-biz biography. Tosches writes with the wisdom of a scholar and a poet. The author documents Martin's rise to stardom and inevitable breakup with Jerry Lewis, his remarkable solo success in the 1960s, and his emotional reclusiveness - which became more pronounced after his son was killed in a 1987 jet crash. Though published three years before Martin's death at age 78, Tosches concludes his book with the telling image of Dino in retirement as he watches old Westerns on television. Even in his final years, Martin did exactly what he wanted with no apologies or regrets.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Dean Martin, alone but not lonely., October 14, 2004
By Dennis Brislen (Omaha, Ne USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
He was by all accounts a kind, gracious and modest man. Possessed of a free flowing natural off-the-wall sense of humor. These were the characteristics that drew people to him and at the same time kept them away, disappointed when they couldn't "reach" him.

He learned at an early age the card sharks tricks. Play it close to the vest and don't telegraph anything. These early lessons served him well all his life, perhaps too well.

Let it be said that no one has been able to crack the enigma that was Dean Martin. Not his wife of 20 years Jeanne, not the two siblings who have written of their lives with him, those who worked with him and not Nick Tosches.

Tosches comes as close as anyone is likely too however. His try, though it has it's flaws is a noble effort. Tosches accurately portrays Martins rise throught the mob owned and influenced night life of the 40's and 50's. Some readers have misunderstood Tosches stream of consciousness writing style as unfairly portraying Dean as a somewhat foulmouthed uncaring persona. This is a mistake. What Tosches portrays is a man of the period. A time of postwar revelry, mob influence and a need to be street smart. Dean mastered it all. He was tough but not uncaring. The uncaring attitude was the armour he used to protect himself from the mob bosses and those who would manipulate him. He not only refused to kowtow to them, he won them over with his toughness and yes, his integrity. They complained as did his supposedly best buddy Frank Sinatra, that they couldn't control him, he did as he pleased.

It did cost him. He was unable to communicate well his true feelings and held it all inside. He suffered ulcers, headaches and when his son Dean Paul died piloting a National Guard jet in 1986, it all came home to roost. He was devasted beyond comprehension.

He had been on a comeback of sorts during the early 80's. Kicking his dependence on prescription drugs, making peace with Jeanne and successful performances in London and Paris with more frequent TV appearances had him on an upswing by 1985. It came to a peremptory halt with his sons passing.

He went through the motions for 5 more years but it was only because those concerned about him, Mort Viner his manager and confidant, Sinatra and family members pushed him. He finally said enough in 1991 and retired gracefully. His health deteriorating, he lived quietly alone with visits from Jeanne and the family and weeknight forays to his favorite 2 or 3 reataurants. He appeared content. Jeanne said he was, "...always content in a void, he's content right now...".

Of all the "Rat Pack" stars, the TV stars of the 60's and 70's, he remains the most interesting, in demand and emulated. He alone seems to reach new adults who were toddlers when he left the stage. His records still sell and his TV variety performances are selling well on CD. He is doing in memorium what he always did in life; wearing well and and doing it his own way.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Dino, we hardly knew ye, November 29, 2002
By A Customer
This is an excellent biography and chronicle of popular culture from the 40's to the present time. He also hits on why exactly the improbable combination of Martin and Lewis was so wildly popular in the early 50's. What prevents me from giving it a 5 is that there's way too much about the mob (which seemed to interest Tosches more than most of his readers) and that he was so intent on presenting Dean Martin as world-weary and indifferent, his subject sometimes lapses into a character of Tosches' creation rather than a real man. Traits that would contradict Tosches' idea are conveniently glossed over. How could someone who didn't give a damn about success maintain an audience for 4 decades? Look at how many times Madonna and Cher have had to reinvent themselves. Dean was a natural entertainer, but he certainly had ambition and strategy.

Much is made throughout of Dean's aloofness and Tosches only offers glimpses of his good heart, generousity and loyalty since it would interfere with his own conception. Only someone of extreme good nature could have tolerated the ultra-difficult Jerry Lewis as a partner for ten years and I believe he did more for Jerry's career than Jerry did for his. Again, when Dean quits a picture for the sake of his friendship with Marilyn Monroe, Tosches only mentions it and moves on.

One issue Tosches handles beautifully is how the hero of one decade can be anathema in the next. In middle age, Dean became a parody of himself, consorting with women younger than his daughters and hosting friars' club roasts for celebrities who by that time belonged in wax museums.

Dean stopped performing in old age and his reclusiveness seemed like an act of grace compared to the alternative. I call it gracious because I happened to see Frank Sinatra perform in the 1989 "Ultimate Event' (which Dean wisely bailed out of) and can only profess great disappointment; Frank Sinatra was no longer Frank Sinatra. He was everybody's father or uncle, a frail, bald old man.

Unfortunately, it takes death to resurrect these people, restore them to their former glory and show us what we took for granted. Dean was king of the crooners, bar none, with a gorgeous voice and an effortless style. Rest in peace, Dean. You earned it.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams
It was written pretty well, when the author wasn't too proud of his use of words, or Italian. Fortunately, for the most part his stuck to the business of writing a biography.
Published 4 months ago by Johnny A. Adams

5.0 out of 5 stars "I always plays to de common folk"
_Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams_ lives up to its subtitle. Nick Tosches unearths nearly every single shady dealing, squalid affair or dangerous mook that Dean... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mark Giordano

4.0 out of 5 stars An honest look
As someone who is originally from the Steubenville, OH area, I can tell you that there are a lot of old guys back home who don't like Mr. Tosches very much. Read more
Published 10 months ago by mzakal

5.0 out of 5 stars Dino, just didnt care
Growing up with his music I could not believe the life this man led. He saw it all and nothing seemed to bother him. Read more
Published 11 months ago by tom jeffers

2.0 out of 5 stars Too much filler
Great book if you want to know the history of Steubenville, Ohio. Seriously, this book is tough going in terms of keeping your interest. Read more
Published 15 months ago by WaterWinterWonderland

4.0 out of 5 stars Sad but fascinating
What a sad story. I had always thought Dean Martin had more talent than he used - he chose crummy material while others, like Sinatra, chose the best songs to sing. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Elizabeth D. Hammond

4.0 out of 5 stars Gold from Dreck
To spin gold from such low material--the life of a minor pop figure who was huge and rich as a king in his tasteless time--shows Tosches' genius as a writer. Read more
Published on May 16, 2007 by Kevin Orth

2.0 out of 5 stars Echoes of Flippo....
Why spend so much time and energy piling up every erratic fact that others have done the legwork for..... Read more
Published on April 27, 2007 by Chastity Lowell

5.0 out of 5 stars heart of darkness
Tosches is a hit or miss proposition, I believe, because the places he goes, the corners, the shadows, are too big, too crushing for even a great mind like his. Read more
Published on August 30, 2006 by Boxodreams

3.0 out of 5 stars How It Really Was!
Read this book to learn the truth, written by someone who had no ax to grind; the facts and not false memories to make a career and money off a dead person. Read more
Published on August 26, 2006 by Betty Burks

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