December 26, 1995

Sinatra loses 'his brother'

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Dean Martin's "Rat Pack" days were long over, but not even his death could shatter the friendship of decades.
  "Too many times I've been asked to say something about friends who are gone - this is one of the hardest," Frank Sinatra said Monday. "Dean was my brother - not through blood, but through choice.
  "He has been like the air I breathe - always there, always close by."
  Jerry Lewis, who settled a longtime feud with his former partner in 1989, was "completely shattered and grief-stricken" when he learned in Seattle of Martin's death, said his manager, Joe Stabile.
  Lewis later flew to Denver where he was scheduled to appear in the musical "Damn Yankees." He still looked upset when he got off the plane and left the airport without speaking to reporters. He scheduled a news conference today and then canceled it, but was expected to perform tonight.
  "Unless we hear otherwise, he will appear on stage tonight," theater spokesman Randy Weeks said.
  Longtime friend Alan King said he would raise a glass in tribute to the highball-swilling Martin, who built a career around being tipsy: "I'm going to have a drink right now for him."
  Martin, who once had a personalized automobile license plate reading, DRUNKY, often performed his nightclub act clutching a cocktail.
  "Dean and I were friends 52 years. He was crazy. He was so funny, so spirited. He was such great fun to be with when he was young," King said.
  Martin was never the same after his son Dino died in a 1987 plane crash, King said.
  "He went downhill you know after his son went out. Everyone who knows him agrees with that. That took whatever spirit he had out of him," King said.
  Comedian Milton Berle, whose friendship with Martin went back more than 50 years, said he last saw him earlier this month at a restaurant.
  "I don't think he had the desire to go on," Berle said. "He was sitting there by himself, and he looked very bad, very sick. I feel that he didn't care anymore.
  "I said, `Hello baby,' and kissed him on the cheek. He said, `So long pal.' I didn't know what he meant. I think he had a death wish.
  "I loved him. He was really a hell of a guy."
  Phyllis McGuire, one of the singing McGuire Sisters, said Martin wasn't given enough credit for the talents he possessed.
  "Dean Martin had more talent than he was ever credited with, because he had such an effortless style," she said. "He was never grouped as part of a breed of actors, but always occupied his own niche."
  "What a terrible loss," Paul Anka said. "This was probably one of the most natural funny men I and many of my counterparts have ever witnessed."
  Anka said the death of Martin's son was "a huge turning point."
  "After that event in his life, things really changed. He said to me: `I'm just waiting to die. Just waiting to die.' "