Dean Martin’s Loyalty Kept Him From JFK’s Inauguration
Dean Martin spent nearly his entire life immersed in the entertainment world, beginning his career before he even turned 18. Over the decades, he became a defining figure of mid-20th-century show business, cementing his legacy as a member of the legendary Rat Pack alongside Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.
Beyond his remarkable talent as a singer, actor, and entertainer, Martin was known for his unwavering loyalty to friends. New details have emerged shedding light on a long-held question: why he skipped President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration.
According to recently revealed accounts, Martin declined the presidential invitation not out of disinterest in politics, but to stand by a close friend. He chose to support Sammy Davis Jr., demonstrating the kind of personal loyalty and camaraderie that defined much of his life both on and off stage.
Dean Martin: From Steubenville to Stardom
When people think of Dean Martin, most immediately picture The Rat Pack. Alongside Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., Martin commanded the Las Vegas stage for years, delivering performance after performance with effortless charm. He was a master comedian and a consummate entertainer, yet fame never made him arrogant.
Early Life
Born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917, in Steubenville, Ohio, Martin was the youngest of two sons. His father, an Italian immigrant barber, spoke only Italian at home, and young Dino followed suit. He did not learn English until he started school, where classmates teased him for his accent.
Reflecting on his early shyness, Martin told reporters in 1967: “When Jerry Lewis and I were big, we used to go to parties, and everybody thought I was bigheaded and stuck up, and I wasn’t. It was because I didn’t know how to speak good English, so I used to keep my mouth shut. Well, see, I’m shy. Always been. See, if I walk into a party, I sort of go in a corner, ’cause I don’t know what to say to people.”
Martin attended Grant Elementary School in Steubenville and developed an early interest in playing drums. However, the structured education system was not for him. He dropped out of Steubenville High School, already having started his singing career. To earn a living, he sang in local spaghetti restaurants, competed as an amateur welterweight fighter, and even worked as a croupier in a nightclub.
A Name and a Career Take Shape
Martin began performing with the Ernie McKay Band in Ohio, eventually catching the attention of bandleader Sammy Watkins, who hired him as a vocalist. In 1938, during a touring stint with the band, he adopted the stage name Dino Martini. Two years later, in 1940, he simplified it to Dean Martin.
Remarkably, Martin achieved all this without formal training in singing, acting, or dancing—and he couldn’t even read music. Yet he became one of the most iconic entertainers of the 20th century. True to his modest nature, he once said, “I’m no singer. I can carry a tune, and I have an easy style. But we crooners get by because we’re fairly painless.”
His first record deal came in 1943 with MCA Records, leading to performances at New York City’s Riobamba Room. Just two years later, a pivotal encounter would alter the course of his career forever.
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Dean Martin Meets Jerry Lewis: The Birth of an Iconic Partnership
Dean Martin’s life took a pivotal turn the day he met Jerry Lewis on the street—a meeting that quickly blossomed into one of show business’ most legendary friendships.
“I turn, and I see this handsome guy in a camel’s hair coat. You can die from how handsome he was, sporting his new nose,” Lewis recalled in a 2005 interview with Today. “And we became very friendly. He looked like he needed a friend, and I certainly did. And that was really the start.”
United by a shared love of comedy, Martin and Lewis soon formed a nightclub act. Dean Martin’s smooth, sophisticated crooning complemented Jerry Lewis’ slapstick humor, often performed as a bumbling busboy. Thus, the duo “Martin and Lewis” was born. Their first gigs were at the 500 Club in Atlantic City, where their chemistry on stage was immediate.
“We had pastrami sandwiches brought in after our show. I took the bag and ripped it in half, and with a makeup eyebrow pencil, I wrote a list of bits that I remembered that my dad did in burlesque,” Lewis recounted. “We had two hours before we did the second show. We went on, and he didn’t miss a beat.”
Their act soon moved to New York City’s Copacabana Club, where they became an instant sensation. Within a short time, Martin and Lewis had risen to national fame, cementing themselves as two of America’s most beloved entertainers.
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The Rise and Fall of Martin and Lewis
In 1949, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis expanded their reach with the premiere of The Martin and Lewis Show on CBS, a radio program that would run successfully for four years.
Throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, the duo also dominated the silver screen, starring in films such as The Caddy, The Stooge, and My Friend Irma, among others. In total, they produced 16 movies together before their partnership came to an abrupt end in 1956, following the release of Hollywood or Bust.
The split was far from amicable. According to People, their separation coincided with the tenth anniversary of their first show. Autobiographer Neil Daniels described the breakup as “like a sudden divorce, and I think it really, really shocked people. Because they thought Martin and Lewis would go on forever.”
It would be two decades before the pair reunited, in 1976, thanks to their mutual friend Frank Sinatra. The reunion, as People reported, was a “forced and uncomfortable onstage” moment—one that underscored just how complicated and bittersweet the end of their legendary collaboration had been.
Dean Martin – Solo Stardom and the Rise of The Rat Pack
After his successful run with Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin carved out an impressive solo career that cemented his place in entertainment history.
Martin recorded a string of hits for Capitol Records, including Memories Are Made of This, Oh Marie, and the timeless That’s Amore. Alongside his musical achievements, he continued to pursue film, sharing the screen with Marlon Brando in the 1958 war drama The Young Lions.
By the late 1950s, Martin had also begun forging connections that would define a cultural era. He gradually joined forces on the Las Vegas stage with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford—a legendary circle that would come to be known as “The Rat Pack.”
The group became synonymous with both glamour and mischief, seamlessly moving between live performances and film roles. Their chemistry lit up the screen in iconic films, most notably the 1960 heist classic Ocean’s Eleven.
Martin’s music career continued to flourish. In 1964, he famously beat The Beatles to the No. 1 spot with Everybody Loves Somebody, a song that would also serve as the theme for The Dean Martin Show, which aired on CBS for eight successful years.
Dean Martin Refused to Attend JFK Inauguration in Support of Sammy Davis Jr.
Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. shared a friendship that went beyond the spotlight—one Martin considered akin to family. That loyalty was on full display on January 20, 1961, during the inauguration of John F. Kennedy as the 35th president of the United States.
While Kennedy’s inauguration was a historic event, not all members of the Rat Pack received invitations. The previous year, Sammy Davis Jr. had married Swedish actress May Britt, sparking backlash due to their interracial marriage. According to Davis and his friends in the 1989 memoir Why Me, the Kennedy campaign requested that Davis and his wife refrain from attending, fearing outrage from Southern states.
When Dean Martin learned that his close friend would be excluded, he acted decisively. He declined to attend the inauguration in solidarity with Davis, demonstrating a sense of honor and loyalty that went beyond politics or publicity.
The story is highlighted in the new TCM documentary Dean Martin: King of Cool, directed by Tom Donahue and supported by Martin’s daughter, Deana Martin. Donahue told Fox News: “Sammy Davis Jr. helped to get JFK elected, and then JFK and his campaign decided to pay Sammy back by not allowing him to go to the inauguration because he was part of an interracial marriage. It was Dean Martin who stood up for his friend and said, ‘I’m not going to be part of the inauguration if Sammy isn’t going.’ That really impressed me. He had a sense of honor. The more I got to know Dean Martin, the man, the more I grew to truly love and admire him.”
Deana Martin added that her father was “astounded” by the exclusion. “He was my uncle Sammy, he came to our house. He was family. My dad was going to take a stand because it was the right thing to do. It didn’t matter what JFK or anyone else was going to think of him. This is Sammy Davis Jr., and that was his friend. And for family to not be invited for those reasons made my father very upset. He just said, ‘It’s not right. I’m not going.’ And that was it. He wouldn’t think about it anymore.”
Dean Martin passed away on December 25, 1995, from acute respiratory failure at the age of 78. He was laid to rest at Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
His decision to stand by Sammy Davis Jr. remains a testament to the depth of his friendship and character—a story that continues to inspire fans and admirers alike
