Excerpt from Who the Hell’s in It: Conversations with Hollywood’s Legendary Actors
Peter Bogdonavich interviewed Dean Martin in the mid-60s. I love Bogdonavich. His essay on Dean Martin is not to be missed, for Martin fans.
In his portable MGM dressing room – a small moveable bungalow on the sound stage – Dean sat very politely with me and was quite forthcoming. He had been told that I was writing a piece on the state of Hollywood for Harper’s Magazine (it ultimately went to Esquire), so I assume he thought of this interview as fairly weighty stuff, answering my questions with a kind of uncharacteristic earnestness and little kidding around. Which doesn’t mean he was pretentious or less than candid. Since he had just done Bells Are Ringing the year before, I asked if he would ever consider doing a musical on Broadway. He made a face. “‘Doin’ the same thing ev’ry night?” he asked rhetorically. “Jesus, how borin’.” He shook his head once. “I wouldn’t mind tryin’ it for about three nights,” he said, “but I’d sure as hell hate to be in a hit.”
