Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [33]
Everyone in the place knew that Sinatra was sitting dead center. I was starting to give my “Ladies and gentlemen” speech when he popped up and said, “They know I’m here!” That got a big laugh. He strolled to the mike, looking ultra-natty in a dark suit and tie, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, in case you’re just occasional visitors to the world of nightclubs, I want to tell you a little something about what you’ve seen up here tonight. Now, I’ve been around the block once or twice”—he smiled as he got his laugh—“but I have to tell you that in terms of sheer showmanship, I’ve never seen the likes of the performance these two guys have done for you.” This got a big round of applause, and after a minute, Frank smiled and said, “All right. All right, already.”
The clapping died down. “Anyway,” Frank said, “I just want to tell you that these guys are going straight off into the stratosphere. They will be the biggest stars in our business.”
As the Copa Girl photographer snapped a picture of the three of us, the applause began again. I was thrilled at Frank’s graceful speech—all the more since I had never met him at that point. Dean had talked to him once, briefly, after he’d filled in for Sinatra at the Riobamba. But the moment that Frank came up, I could see something strange happen, just for a second, to my normally unflappable partner: He got rattled. It was only for a second, and only the man who was closer to Dean Martin than anyone else would be capable of seeing it, but it happened. The moment was so big that for a split second Dean simply couldn’t get his mind around it.
Fifteen years later, and long after our breakup, I snuck into the Sands with a few pals to watch the Rat Pack perform.
Frank, Dean, Sammy, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford were headlining the midnight show. And I was at a table a discreet distance from the stage, along with Buddy Lester, Harold J. Stone, and my bandleader, Dick Stabile. I didn’t want Dean to know I was there... only because I knew how I’d have felt if the shoe had been on the other foot: nervous and uncertain. Why do that to one another?
Well, we had a ball. Frank, Dean, and the guys were absolutely fabulous. My pals and I snuck out, went back to our hotel (the Frontier), ordered room service, and sat around my suite discussing the show. Frank was looser than I had ever seen him. Peter was Peter (he would have been a Star Search loser). Joey was always terrific, and Sammy was in his own orbit standing next to Frank (his first hero; I didn’t mind that I was his second).
Three friends for half a century.
But the spine of the Rat Pack was my partner.
Dean gave what was happening a sense of mischief, and his glib, laid-back air undercut any idea that these great entertainers were being self-important. He never lost his suave manner, but he enjoyed himself like a kid on the town. He was the heart and soul of that act.
Frank looked to Dean for bits and extras that only a comic force like Dean could supply. Sammy played off Dean as well as I did—and that’s a compliment to both of us. One of the great things about the Rat Pack was that they all knew, instinctively, that Dean was the real power on that stage—a different kind of power from Sammy, who was always so strong on his own as well as with those guys.
I think that what Dean brought to that group was his half of Martin and Lewis—he just replaced Jerry with four other guys. And he made it work, big-time, for all of them. In the past, in his own act, Frank would rarely talk: He would just sing and, from time to time, announce the composer of the song. That was it.
Dean showed Frank how to play on stage. How to make a party. The secret to Martin and Lewis’s success was that we had fun together. People who hated their jobs, and even people who didn’t, loved seeing that.
Dean brought that same quality to the Rat Pack. He even brought along many of the bits and lines that he and I had done, and they worked again for the same reason they had worked for us: fun!
And here I sit in