IN FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31632, 19 March 1968, Page 2

IN FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS

(Reprinted from "Newsweek")

“I’m singing at the Persian Room,” admits pretty 22-year-oid Gail Martin, “because I’m Dean Martin’s daughter. But it’s not all gravy.

“A lot of people don’t really give me a chance. I can see it on their faces: ‘She’s not as good as her father.’ And I want to stop and say. ‘Look, I’ve only been at this two years. Give me a few days’.”

There was a lot of Dean evident in Gail last week as she opened her first threeweek engagement at the Persian Room of New York’s Plaza Hotel. She had that informal manner and easy delivery, an infectious gaiety that was anything but manufactured, and that turned the stage into a place to sing songs, rather ; than perform them. Like Dean, Gail is a mischievous blithe spirit, moving buoyantly and smiling cheerfully through every song, from her vamping satire of “Rose of Washington Square” to Leslie Bricusse’s tender “J Think I Like You.” She sang them in a voice that was not only tuneful and true but infused with the warmth of a trouper and the joy of singing. Gail, the third of Dean Martin’s seven children, graduated from Beverly Hills High School, spent a year studying theatre arts at England’s Dartington Hall, and then came home to sing in clubs—from “joints” to the Sands in Las Vegas last summer She has

also appeared on Dean’s television show. When she arrived for rehearsals, he said. “Hey, I know you, you’ra from home.”

“Dad doesn’t volunteer advice about my career,” says Gail. “I once asked him if I should take singing lessons and he said, ‘lf you learn to be a perfect singer, you’ll end up in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with your hands folded.’

“The only time he offered advice was just after I’d gotten my first professional engagement and I was rehearsing in my room at the top of my voice because I thought then that singing loud was singing good. “ ‘What are you shouting for?’ he said. ‘You got the job.’ I got the point.” Show business is something that happens outside the house, according to Gail, something that’s kidded inside.

“Dad gets up early and goes to work and comes home as if he had a 9-to-5 job. He hates going out at night, but when he does, he and mother are invariably home early. ‘Oh, we had another great time,’ mother announces as they come in. ‘Here he is, the great Dean Martin, home before 10 as usual.’

“He takes a nap, in the living room most afternoons with the television on because he’s used to the noise of all the kids. Once I turned it off and he rolled over and said. ‘Turn it on, can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?”’ Last week, Gail herself was the pleasing proof of Martin professionalism.