Remembering Dean Martin's son: The tragic plane crash that took his life at 35

[TMC]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/re...901028a93&ei=9

Story by Erin Crabtree

Dean Martin’s son Dean Paul Martin’s life was cut tragically short when he died on March 21, 1987, at age 35.

Born Dino Paul Crocetti Jr., Dean Paul was the fifth of Dean’s eight children. The Rat Pack member and his second wife, Jeanne Biegger, welcomed Dean Paul in November 1951. In his youth, Dean Paul began to follow in his famous father’s footsteps.

At age 13, Dean Paul formed a pop group called Dino, Desi and Billy with Desi Arnaz Jr. and Billy Hinsche. The trio landed on the Billboard U.S. charts in 1965 with their songs “I’m a Fool” and “Not the Lovin’ Kind.”

Dean Paul also pursued an acting career. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his role in the 1979 film Players. He later starred on the NBC series Misfits of Science from 1985 to 1986.

Beyond music and acting, Dean Paul played tennis, competing in the qualifying rounds of Wimbledon from 1975 to 1978.

Outside of the spotlight, Dean Paul obtained his pilot’s license at the age of 16 and joined the California Air National Guard in 1980. He was serving as a captain in the 196th Tactical Fighter Squadron in California at the time of his death.

On March 21, 1987, Dean Paul was flying an F-4 jet on a training mission in California’s San Bernardino Mountains when the aircraft crashed, killing the 35-year-old and his weapons systems officer, Captain Ramon Ortiz. According to officials, the jet hit the side of the mountain at approximately 400 miles per hour. Reports from Air National Guard and the Air Force indicated that Dean Paul might have had vertigo due to the snowstorm he was flying in and failed to hear an Ontario Airport controller’s command to change directions in order to avoid the mountain.

Dean Paul and Ortiz’s bodies were discovered nearly a week after the crash. Dean Paul was interred at the Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Dean Paul—who was married to actress Olivia Hussey from 1971 to 1978 and Olympian Dorothy Hamill from 1982 to 1984—was survived by his and Hussey’s son, Alexander Martin.

In the aftermath of his death, Dean Paul’s famous father struggled without his son.

“It was so sad, devastating for all of us,” Dean’s daughter Deana Martin told Fox News in 2019 of her brother’s death. “It was tough for him.”

Indeed, Dean held tight to his grief in the years after Dean Paul died.

“Dean Martin’s final years were very, very sad after he lost his son,” author William Keck said in a 2024 Fox News interview. “It was like looking at a candle without a flame.”

Although Dean “was still the nice man that he seemed to be on television,” interacting with fans in public and promising to return to the stage in the future, Keck recalled, “I don’t think his broken heart ever healed.”

In addition to Dean Paul, Dean was the father of son Craig and daughters Claudia, Gail and Deana with first wife Betty McDonald, son Ricci and daughter Gina with Biegger and daughter Sasha with third wife Catherine Hawn.

Dean died of acute respiratory failure in December 1995 at age 78.