A few years ago he named his five favorite show-biz biographies for the Wall Street Journal. One book on the list:"Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams" by Nick Tosches (Doubleday, 1992).Read about the other four biographies on Schickel's list.
The writer doesn't just report the wised up lingo of low-biz, he uses it, sometimes to almost poetic effect, to tell the story of Dino Crocetti, a k a Dean Martin, rising from Steubenville, Ohio, lounge lizard to superstardom. The man had impeccable timing, as his decade-long run as Jerry Lewis's straight man proved, and he could be a very effective screen actor (as "Rio Bravo" showed). But the public nice guy's emotional detachment was radical and he came to a sad, silent, isolated ending. Mr. Tosches overwrites, but his rhythms are as seductive as the dialogue in a Martin Scorsese gangster epic. And he also has a gift for recounting the social history of anti-social people. In the end, he makes Martin's story a powerful parable about the high cost of living in America's fast, stupid lane.
--Marshal Zeringue