Dean Martin's Celebrity Roasts

[ChristopherBanks]

There is an infomercial running constantly here at the moment trying to convince me to buy into this never-ending series of shows. There is an Orson show, apparently...they don't show any clips from it, though, they're more interested in suckering me in with the 90-MINUTE PACKED! WITH! LAUGHS! FRANK SINATRA! SPECIAL! at the SPECIAL! INTRODUCTORY! PRICE! OF! ONLY! $19.95! (excluding P&P)

Has anyone seen any of these shows, or more specifically the Welles one?

[Welles Fan]

I actually remember some of these when they were on. I never found them funny at their best, but the "series" degenerated so much that eventually, they were not even filmed with an audience. The roasters would perform for an imaginary audience while a laugh track supplied the laughter. I think Foster Brooks , the bearded "drunk" comedien is in every one. I may have seen the Welles episode, but don't remember it. I would be surprised if it consists of anything but "fat" jokes.

BTW-I never really liked Dino even in his prime or as a singer, because his relaxed style was just too relaxed for me. By the time of these roasts (I think his variety show had ended), he virtually defined "phoning it in". I think someone at work was gonna subscribe to these. I will check with her to see if she received the O.W. episode, and if so, will have a look at it and report back later.

[Fredric]

That clip if Billy Crystal impersonating Ali makes me want to puke. Really! It does.

[jaime marzol]

............

don't remember much about the roasts, but i do like dino, and that whole, sinatra, rat pack, gangster, kennedy scene.

i hated foster brooks and his drunk act. that's all he ever did. i remember him being very popular when i was a kid, he was on every tv show doing the same damn thing, the drunk, over and over, and everyone laughed and laughed. only now i realize that there was no laughter, it was a laugh track. what a marvelous way to get mileage from a bogus talent!

then when he finally died, it didn't end, they kept bringing back in reruns, over and over, same damn jokes and burps and hick-ups.

i didn't like sinatra at the welles afi deal. he thought it was a roast, and the fat jokes were popping everywhere.

frank had all the money in the world then. why didn't he throw welles a spare million to make a film. speilberg, lucas, copolla, they all could have tossed orson a spare million. well, maybe not copolla, he goes through fortunes like we go through socks.

[Jeff Wilson]

I like the Rat Pack during their glory days, before rock and roll destroyed their party; by the time of the Martin roasts, it had just gone on too long. I felt somewhat embarrassed for them. And I also find it hard to believe the Welles episode would be anything but fat jokes, but who knows?

[jaime marzol]

:::::::

their glory days, late 50's to mid 60's.

did you know that the awfull show dean martin was doing on tv made his family billionaires? i saw it on "E Entertainment." RCA owned the show, were making money with the show, but never had any cash to give Dino, so they paid him in stock. Dino had cash coming in, didn't need the dough and accepted the stocks. the dean show, like the sinatra show, their performances were phoned in. they didn't want to do the show, they wanted to do clubs, and babes. who can blame them.

jeff:
check out frank live at the sands, great record. the kitty kelly book, excellent, read it twice, made me a bigger fan. i have a few of the sinatra tv specials, not the shows, excellent stuff. i have video the making of an album, sinatra and quincy jones in the studio with a big band recording the album, LA IS MY LADY, also excellent (old frank). i liked the HBO rat pack thing. the E Entertainment thing, for a fan, was very enjoyable. his grand kids said that the guy on the screen, the ultra smooth, hip guy, that was grandad, easy going, soft spoken. always cool.

scorsese was going to do the life of dino but the deal fell through. he was basing it on a book that covered his early days on the stage , and associations with mobsters. any one know what book this is?

and the ultimate in frank, i saw The Ultimate Event in miami, 1987? liza, sammy, frank, and super star frank jr directing the orchestra. first liza came out, and she was dynamic, nothing short of that. she was hoarse when she talked, her voice was blown out, but when she sang she was belting it out full voice.

sammy was also quite dynamic, mobile, danced up and joked up a storm.

then frank came out and he didn't do shit, just walked the stage looking like a super star, an aura around him, completely wiped out any memory of liza and sammy. your eyes were on a legend, though he was about 8 inches tall from where i was sitting, on the projection screen, it's a legend.

after frank did his thing, all 3 came out and it was great.

[Jeff Wilson]

I really can't take Sinatra after the mid 60s, but before that I like his stuff. I have the Live at the Sands album, and it is great. I had the Rat Pack live disc that Sinatra's family put out, but it grew kinda old -- more screwing around than actual performing. I imagine it was much better live.

The Scorsese picture was to be based on Nick Tosches bio of Dean, called Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, or something along those lines. I read Tosches book on Sonny Liston and it didn't do much for me, but I hear the Dean book is excellent. Hopefully Scorsese will get to make it, although his new one, Gangs of New York, looks awful from the previews. Its release has apparently been delayed yet again, until late this year.

Should I mention that I've been listening to the Clash while discussing the Rat Pack?



Edited By Jeff Wilson on Mar. 21 2002 at 10:23

[Welles Fan]

While not a Dino fan, I've always been a huge Sinatra fan. I went to two concerts in Houston-one in 76 or so (his un-retirement tour-"Old Blue-eyes is Back"), and another in 81 or 82 or so. He was still able to do up-tempo stuff well (Lady is a Tramp, All of Me,etc), had real problems with songs like "Autumn in New York". Both concerts were a thrill. You could sense that though Frank had retired, had money coming out his ass, he still needed to sing and connect with an audience, and he always credited the songwriters and arrangers.

Like some have said, you might not have invited him over for dinner, but he was a hell of an entertainer. I like Frank the best in the "Capitol years", after his boyish tenor became more of a baritone. Those were the years when albums of songs became more popular than singles (Songs for Swinging Lovers, In the Wee Small Hours, Only the Lonely, etc)-great stuff.

BTW-speaking of a Dino bio-I saw that made for TV movie about The Rat Pack (somebody at work sort of forced his DVD of it on me cuz he knows I'm a Sinatra fan), and I actually rather liked it. Joe Mantegna played Dino as sort of floating above the Rat Pack/Kennedy/Mob BS as though he was just doing it for Frank and wasn't particularly committed to it. The guy who played Peter Lawford (can't remember his name-he was the Bruce in Braveheart) did a good job of showing Lawford's quiet desperation in his lapdog attempts to please his master Frank ("all I wanna do is make movies and cheat on my wife! Is that too much to ask?")

BTW-as I type this, I am listening to Anonymous 4's Lammas Ladymass.

[jaime marzol]

...........

ah, lots of people are frank fans from the capitol year. i am into the reprise years. by the time of reprise his voice was booze and cig damaged, he had lost some of the top and gained some at the bottom.

and as i'm typing this i'm listening to a parrot screaming because he wants to be in the office with me.

[jaime marzol]

..........
shecky greene: "to frank sinatra, who saved my life. i was on the ground, 4 guys were kicking me in the head, and frank said, 'that's enough.'

it seems shecky isulted sinatra so sinatra sent a few torpedoes to see shecky.

i was surprised to see the FBI file on sinatra, and see that in the 70's, he had joint ventures with neil delacroce, one of the most ruthless bosses of the gambino crime family. frank liked the whole gangster thing. he was a gangster groopie.

[Welles Fan]

I do like some of that booze and cig effect in the Reprise years. When I heard Frank live he sang "Angel Eyes" from his superb Only the Lonely Capitol album (the one Linda Ronstadt later remade as "What's New?"), and the raspy sound with drink in hand and camel dangling from lip made it far more powerful than his Capitol version.

[jaime marzol]

.............

i think he aquired the nick, "the voice', after the cigs, and the Jack Daniels Black worked their magic in his throat.

absolutely, after that damage, and after he was kicked around by proffessional ups and downs, and by women who left him, he became the legend. then made another fortune singing about it.

[mteal]

Welles Fan,
That's a pretty funny image of a bunch of has-beens pretending to whoop it up for a laughtrack. Those roasts are an embarrassment. You can see most of the people at the table straining to make themselves to laugh at the stale jokes. Probably the best workout most of them had had in years.

Jaime,
I like that Shecky Green joke. It would be interesting to have more info on Welles' friendship with Sinatra and whether he had any relationship with organized crime. It's doubtful, but then, Welles told Peter Bogdanovich that he knew gangsters during his Mercury years. And in the screenplay for CRADLE WILL ROCK, he seems to hint that his Federal Theatre Projects may have been partially funded with mob cash.

[jaime marzol]

i have always been curious about sinatra and welles' friendship. and how far could that friendship go really? welles was leader of his troup, and sinatra was leader of his. sinatra especially seemd to require a gang of stooges around him. a guy who's face he could throw a hamburger at and the guy not get pissed.