When filmmaker Tom Donahue began working on Dean Martin: King of Cool (sold by Autlook), he wasn’t sure what he would find. He had been invited to make the documentary by Martin’s daughter, Deana Martin, who executive produced the project. (They had met in 2015, when Deana performed in Donahue’s documentary, Davi’s Way, about singer, filmmaker and former Bond villain, Robert Davi).
Would Martin turn out to have a dark side? Would the film turn into another of those sobering accounts of family dysfunction and toxic masculinity? Would the Italian-American crooner, movie star and Rat Pack member be revealed as a cruel and manipulative narcissist? Would he be exposed as another example of toxic masculinity in a post #MeToo world.
No, no, no and no were the answers to these questions. Donahue read Deana’s book about her father, ‘Memories Are Made Of This.’ He interviewed dozens of Martin’s friends, admirers, relatives and colleagues, among them such varied figures as Angie Dickinson, Norman Lear, Jon Hamm, Carol Burnett, Frankie Avalon and RZA. Not a single one had anything negative to say. Martin did go through divorces and endured a well-publicised split from his comedy partner Jerry Lewis but nobody seemed to bear grudges against him.
“What I found out is what a great, incredible, lovable, joyful guy this man is,” the director says. “I had never worked on a documentary where someone was that universally loved.”
This affection for Martin presented its own challenges. How do you make a critical portrait of someone everybody seems to have loved. Donahue’s solution was to use the Rosebud conceit from Citizen Kane and to frame the film as an investigation into his subject’s personality, as if there was some childhood secret that might unlock the mystery of what made Martin tick.
The director’s conclusion is that Martin never sought fame – and that was why he coped with it so well.
“There’s so much about people who become famous that has to do with need and insecurity; a level of insecurity that [means] they need to feel connected with other people. The only way they are going to feel self-worth is to achieve fame. I don’t think that was the case with Dean Martin. I think he was already secure with himself. He would have been very happy to have been a mid-level crooner, with enough to make a living and raise a family.”
Martin may have played the louche lounge lizard in front of the cameras but he was, as his kids testify, a devoted family man.
Martin’s fame didn’t define him either. His laidback, playboy demeanour meant that he wasn’t always given credit for his skills as a performer. He gave the impression that everything came naturally. Martin was also happy to allow his collaborators to have the credit.
“Dean doesn’t mind taking a back seat. He took a back seat to Jerry Lewis; he took a back seat to John Wayne, a backseat to Monty Clift and Marlon Brando. He was really good at collaboration which is what made him great at improv,” the director says.
Donahue acknowledges he didn’t grow up as a die-hard Dean Martin fan. “I grew up in New York as a Catholic and Christmas was always a big deal in our house. Never a Christmas went by when we didn’t listen to Dean Martin’s Christmas music,” the director says of his own early exposure to the King of Cool.
As he grew older, Donahue would watch Martin in the Matt Helm movies (James Bond spoofs). He liked him – who didn’t? – but admits he wasn’t a fervent fan.
”Dean Martin didn’t hold any more of a place in my heart than, say, Frank Sinatra. These were generations much older than me,” Donahue recalls. “I honestly knew Frank Sinatra far better than I knew Dean Martin.”
Now that has all changed. He speaks about Martin with the same mix of affection and admiration as all the interviewees in his documentary. The director’s hope is that his film will introduce the “king of cool” to a younger generation. The documentary has already screened at Doc NYC and shown on TCM but, in around six months, it is due to premiere on one of the streaming services (it’s too early for Donahue to confirm which one.)
“Millions more people will see the film and also a lot of younger people will, I think, be interested in Dean Martin,” he suggests. They’ll be intrigued as to why figures like RZA (from rap group Wu-Tang Clan), Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and Josh Homme from rock band Queens Of The Stone Age are such devotees.
The documentary will surface in the UK on Sky TV in due course. Donahue himself has several new documentary projects on the boil, among them The Murder Of God’s Banker, about the killing of Italian banker, Roberto Calvi, and This Is Gold, about legendary Hollywood poster designer, Bill Gold.
