Dean Martin^†

A street brawler from Steubenville, Ohio who ran bootleg whiskey as a teenager and fought bare-knuckle as Kid Crochet, he had no obvious path to nightclub stardom. Pairing with Jerry Lewis in 1946 at an Atlantic City club changed that. Within five years they were the highest-paid act in show business. The breakup in 1956 was supposed to finish him. His 1964 single 'Everybody Loves Somebody' knocked the Beatles off number one, which was a better reply than anything he could've said.

The drink in his hand every show was Mott's Apple Juice poured into a scotch bottle. The lovable-drunk bit was borrowed from comedian Joe E. Lewis, something to do with his hands while the audience kept expecting him to be something. In real life he was home for dinner every night, the most domestic member of the Rat Pack. After his son Dean Paul died in a 1987 Air National Guard jet crash, that changed. He walked off Sinatra's reunion tour, and Paul Anka recalled him saying he was 'just waiting to die.'

Growing up as Dino Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, he didn't speak English until he was five. His family spoke Italian at home. The city was nicknamed 'Little Chicago' for its Prohibition-era bootlegging, gambling, and organized crime. He dropped out of school in tenth grade and dealt cards in backroom gambling parlors. None of that made it into the image. The suave continental entertainer was an immigrant's son who got knocked out on the first punch of his first fight.

At his December 28 funeral in Westwood, Rosemary Clooney sang 'Everybody Loves Somebody.' Jerry Lewis, reconciled with Martin after a 20-year rift, attended. Hotel-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, including the Sands and Flamingo, dimmed their lights for 10 minutes in tribute. Sinatra, too overwrought to attend, sent his wife Barbara and issued a statement: 'Dean was my brother, not through blood, but through choice.'