Sammy and Dino Episode 1: The Hustle / by Karina Longworth

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

This season, we look at the movies, music and lives of Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin. Singers, actors, TV stars and nightclub performers, Davis and Martin became rich and famous selling versions of mid-20th-century hipness as the biggest stars in the Rat Pack who weren’t Frank Sinatra. The standard-setter for masculine cool in the second half of the twentieth century -- as well as a nexus where Hollywood power, political power and mafia power came together -- the Rat Pack feels uniquely uncool today. As its mystique recedes, it’s the perfect time to begin to unpack its allure, and take a cold hard look at the art it produced.

But Sammy and Dino were both more than the Rat Pack, and examining their lives and careers in tandem reveals tons, about the evolution of racial attitudes from the beginning of the 20th century -- when Italians and Italian-Americans like Dean were widely considered to be non-white; about how Hollywood responded to, and influenced, changing ideas about masculinity and “the man” from World War II to Vietnam and beyond; and above all, about the differences and similarities between mainstream capitalism and underground criminal economies, which is laid bare by the intersection of the music industry and the mafia.

Today, we’ll talk about Sammy and Dino’s childhoods and early years as entertainers -- years which formed their talent, their stage personas, and taught them their first lessons in the racket that was, and is, the music business. Both grew up in marginalized communities where they learned an ethos of success based on hustle. We’ll track both Dean and Sammy to major coming-of-age moments in the middle of World War II. Coming up in industrial Ohio as both a card dealer and a nightclub singer, Dean learns how and why the house always wins. As a child, Sammy joins his father’s touring dance act, and eventually becomes the main attraction -- before the war forces him to encounter racism at a level he’d never experienced before.

Sammy Davis Jr., Hamtree Harrington, and Ethel Waters in Rufus Jones for President (1933)

Young Dino Crocetti and his brother, c. 1920’s/30’s

Music:

The music used in this episode, with the exception of the intro, was sourced from royalty-free music libraries and licensed music collections. The intro includes a clip from the film Casablanca.  

Excerpts from the following songs were used throughout the episode: 

"Low Horizon" by Kai Engel

"Calgary Sweeps" by Vermouth

"Cab Ride" by Pacho Faro

"Luka 75" by Vermouth

"Cran Ras" by Vermouth

"Cach" by Pacho Faro

"Glass Stopper" by Vermouth

"Faster Does It" by Kevin MacLeod

"Doghouse" by Warmbody

"Via Verre (Comping Run)" by The Sweet Hots

"Au Coin De La Rue" by Marco Raaphorst

"Late Comer (Bass Face) by Cafe Nostro

"02 Main Stem" by U.S. Army Blues

"Black Out" by Royalty-Free Music World

Sammy Davis Jr. in the Will Mastin Trio, c. 1950’s

Credits:

This episode was written, narrated, and produced by Karina Longworth.

Our editor this season is Evan Viola. 

Research and production assistant: Lindsey D. Schoenholtz.

Social media assistant: Brendan Whalen.

Logo design: Teddy Blanks.

Young Dean Martin headshot