Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Western, schmestern


Fri., October 18, 2002 - Went to main lobby & saw a movie - a Western with Dean Martin.  Residents with VCR are showing a movie on Fri. night.
Sat., October 19, 2002 - Dale came for me about 5:30 & took me to his place.  Kyleah was home, Lynn was in Omaha & Dane was at a banquet.  Dale went for Chinese food for our supper.  After supper we played Rummikub.  Lynn's mother came & visited a while.  When Dale went for Dane he took me home.  A real good evening.
Sun., October 20, 2002 - Nancy came in a.m with my groceries.  I showered & then we went to Boston Market for our noon meal.  We stopped at the Family Dollar Store!!! We didn't play Rummikub today -- too tired.

There is more than one western with Dean Martin in it, so I don't know what movie Grandma saw.  There's plenty of information to be found about the man himself, but I will stop at just this, from wikipedia:

"Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917, in Steubenville, Ohio, the son of Italian father Gaetano Alfonso Crocetti (1894–1967) and Italian-American mother Angela Crocetti (née Barra; 1899–1966). His parents were married in 1914. His father, who was a barber, was originally from Montesilvano, Abruzzo, and his mother's origins are also believed to be from Abruzzo, although they are not clearly known. Martin had an older brother named William Alfonso Crocetti (1916–1968). His first language was Italian and he did not speak English until he started school at the age of five. He attended Grant Elementary School in Steubenville, where he was bullied for his broken English. As a teenager, he played the drums as a hobby. He dropped out of Steubenville High School in the tenth grade because he thought he was smarter than his teachers. He bootlegged liquor, worked in a steel mill, served as a croupier at a speakeasy and a blackjack dealer, and was a welterweight boxer.

At 15, he was a boxer who billed himself as "Kid Crochet". His prizefighting earned him a broken nose (later straightened), a scarred lip, many broken knuckles (a result of not being able to afford tape used to wrap boxers' hands), and a bruised body. Of his 12 bouts, he said that he "won all but 11". For a time, he shared a New York City apartment with Sonny King, who was also starting in show business and had little money. The two reportedly charged people to watch them bare-knuckle box each other in their apartment, fighting until one was knocked out. Martin knocked out King in the first round of an amateur boxing match. Martin gave up boxing to work as a roulette stickman and croupier in an illegal casino behind a tobacco shop, where he had started as a stock boy. At the same time, he sang with local bands, calling himself "Dino Martini" (after the Metropolitan Opera tenor Nino Martini). He got his break working for the Ernie McKay Orchestra. He sang in a crooning style influenced by Harry Mills of the Mills Brothers, among others. In the early 1940s, he started singing for bandleader Sammy Watkins, who suggested he change his name to Dean Martin.

In October 1941, Martin married Elizabeth "Betty" Anne McDonald in Cleveland, Ohio, and the couple had an apartment in Cleveland Heights for a while. They eventually had four children before the marriage ended in 1949. Martin worked for various bands throughout the early 1940s, mostly on looks and personality until he developed his own singing style. He flopped at the Riobamba nightclub in New York, when he followed Frank Sinatra in 1943."

I didn't know Grandma was so fond of Family Dollar.  Glad she was excited to go.

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