Only a handful of showbiz biographers can lay claim to posessing the literary
acumen of writers like Michael Holroyd and Peter Ackroyd. Nick Tosches is one of
these writers, and his unauthorized biography of Dean Martin stands as a
testament to his genius. Several inimitable sequences in which Tosches adopts
his subject's perspective (most of which are regrettably unsuitable for
quotation here) make the book a real standout. Dino is a fascinating portrait of
a man who had it all--money, fame, women--and didn't give a damn about any of it
and suggests that, even as he wallowed in the excesses of Hollywood and the Rat
Pack, Martin