Dean Martin Didn’t Want a Weekly TV Show — So He Made Demands He Thought NBC Would Never Accept
In 1965, Dean Martin was already one of the coolest men in American entertainment.
He had survived the breakup of his famous partnership with Jerry Lewis.
He had become a successful movie star.
His Las Vegas appearances were selling out.
And in 1964, something remarkable had happened in his recording career.
“Everybody Loves Somebody” reached No. 1 in America, knocking The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” from the top of the chart.
So when NBC approached Martin about hosting his own weekly television variety show, the offer seemed perfectly logical.
There was just one problem.
Dean Martin did not want to do it.
A weekly television program usually demanded days of rehearsals, script meetings, costume fittings and endless preparation.
That was exactly the kind of schedule Martin wanted to avoid.
According to his daughter Deana Martin, Dean decided to make NBC an offer he believed the network would reject.
He asked for an enormous amount of money.
He said he would not spend the week rehearsing.
And he wanted to come into the studio essentially only on Sunday to tape the program.
Martin apparently thought that would end the discussion.
Instead, NBC agreed.
Dean came home with an unexpected announcement:
Now he actually had to do the show.
That unusual deal helped create one of the strangest production systems in American television.
During the week, the show's staff rehearsed without its star.
Others would stand in for Martin while guest performers, dancers, musicians and camera crews prepared the episode.
Then Dean arrived for the taping.
He relied heavily on cue cards instead of memorizing long scripts and approached the material with the relaxed attitude of a nightclub performer rather than the precision normally expected from a television host.
Instead of destroying the show, that lack of rehearsal became part of its charm.
Martin could genuinely appear surprised by jokes.
Mistakes did not necessarily ruin a scene.
He laughed at things that went wrong.
The audience felt as though they were watching a sophisticated Hollywood party rather than a carefully rehearsed television production.
That atmosphere perfectly matched the public image Dean Martin had built.
He appeared to stroll onto the stage with a drink in his hand, tell a few jokes, sing effortlessly and spend an hour surrounded by famous friends.
The relaxed personality was partly a carefully developed show-business character.
Behind it was an experienced performer who had already spent decades learning exactly how little effort he needed to appear to be making.
When The Dean Martin Show premiered on NBC on September 16, 1965, viewers heard a song already closely associated with him:
“Everybody Loves Somebody.”
It became the program's theme.
The choice was perfect.
Just a year earlier, the song had given Martin one of the greatest recording successes of his career.
Now its opening presence announced his arrival in millions of American living rooms every week.
The program brought together singers, actors, comedians and some of Hollywood's biggest personalities.
Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Peggy Lee and many others would appear during its run.
And while several members of the Rat Pack tried television, Martin found something unusually durable.
His show remained on NBC for nine seasons, eventually producing 264 episodes.
The success is even more remarkable considering how the entire thing began.
Dean Martin had tried to make the job so convenient for himself that NBC would surely say no.
NBC said yes.
Then the very conditions that were supposed to prevent the show from happening helped give it its identity.
No frantic Dean Martin rehearsing all week.
No desperate attempt to make every moment perfect.
Just Dean walking onto the stage looking as though he had barely prepared at all.
That became the joke.
And eventually, it became the formula.
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On September 16, 1965, a television show Dean Martin originally did not want became one of the defining chapters of his career.
Sometimes the best career move is the job you tried not to get.
