Turner Classic Movies has premiered the Dean Martin documentary King of Cool, and it’s coming back to TCM on November 26. King of Cool is filled with insight into an icon who was extremely successful at being unknowable.
Dean Martin used his charm to mask his detachment. Universally beloved, his internal life was still never understood by his closest friends and colleagues – and even by his family.
Director Tom Donohoe and producer Ilan Arboleda, who had teamed for the essential filmmaking doc Casting By, faced this challenge – how does one create a biodoc on an enigma? Donohoe and Arboleda turned to the device from Citizen Kane – what was the “Rosebud” that drove and explained Dean Martin? (There’s one very fitting answer to that question in King of Cool.)
Superbly sourced, we get to hear from Martin’s closest associates, plus friends and co-workers like Bob Newhart, Angie Dickinson, Norman Lear, Carol Burnett, Barbara Rush, Florence Henderson, Lainie Kazan, Tommy Tune, Frankie Avalon and Dick Cavett,. The clearest – and most poignant – testimonies come from Martin’s daughter Deana Martin and Jerry Lewis’ son Scotty Lewis.
Despite Martin’s unknowability, King of Cool reveals a lot, including what Dino was really drinking on stage in his nightclub act, his close friendship with Montgomery Clift, and his rebuke of the JFK inauguration. There’s a wonderful firsthand account of his hosting big Hollywood parties and sneaking out to watch TV. We also get reading from Mark Rudman’s 2002 poem about Martin, The Secretary of Alcohol and hear how no less than Elvis Presley described Martin as “King of Cool”.
On a personal note, Dean Martin is on my own very short list of the most perpetually cool humans to ever walk the planet, along with Ben Gazzara, Joan Jett, Jean Gabin, Dr. John and Barack Obama.
TCM will replay King of Cool on November 26. Set your DVR.