Just In: sasha martin Daughter of Dean Martin Is In Serious Trouble With…..
Just In: sasha martin Daughter of Dean Martin Is In Serious Trouble With.....
Get to know Dean Martin’s eight children: Craig, Claudia, Gail, Deana, Dean Paul, Ricci, Gina and Sasha
Dean Martin was a legendary talent — he rose to fame as part of a comedy duo with Jerry Lewis, left his mark on the world of television with The Dean Martin Show, recorded countless hits and starred in more than 50 movies throughout his decades-long career.
He was also a member of the famous Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and others, which gained him a reputation as an irresponsible party-goer. But that on-screen and onstage persona was nothing more than a gimmick, according to his children.
“He is not as out-to-lunch as his image makes him. The truth is that he is very complex. If he drank as much as everyone says he does, he would be dead,” his son Dean Paul told PEOPLE in 1978. Rather, in real life, his children have said Dean was a dedicated father — reportedly making it home for dinner every night at 6 p.m. when the kids were young.
Dean’s eight children came from three different marriages. He had a son, Craig, and daughters Claudia, Gail and Deana with his first wife, Betty McDonald. They divorced in 1949, and Dean married a model named Jeanne Biegger (later known as Jeanne Martin) the same year. The couple, who were married for 24 years, had three children together: sons Dean Paul and Ricci, and a daughter named Gina.
The crooner’s third and final marriage was to Catherine Hawn; he adopted her daughter Sasha after their wedding in 1973. The singer died on Christmas Day in 1995 from respiratory failure — but his legacy lives on through his iconic work and his large family.
Here’s everything to know about Dean Martin’s eight children, Craig, Claudia, Gail, Deana, Dean Paul, Ricci, Gina and Sasha.
Dean’s eldest daughter, Claudia, was born on March 16, 1944.
As a child, Claudia was also bitten by the entertainment bug. She made her big screen debut in the 1956 film Hollywood or Bust, and later appeared in For Those Who Think Young, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini and Ski Fever. Claudia also had roles on the television shows My Three Sons and The Donna Reed Show.
The actress married fellow performer Kiel Martin in 1969 and the couple had one child together, a daughter named Jesse. Following their divorce in 1971, Claudia was married three more times: to actor Vincent Lucchesi, Thomas Brown and lastly, Jim Roberts. She and Roberts moved to Reno, Nevada, where they opened a printing business together.
Claudia remained in Reno until her death in February 2001 from breast cancer — she was 56 years old.
Gail Martin Downey, 79
Dean and McDonald welcomed their third child, a daughter named Barbara Gail, on April 11, 1945. Gail — who goes by her middle name — has shared several recollections of what it was like being a part of such a large, famous family.
Growing up, Gail’s best friend was Liza Minnelli, she babysat for a young Jamie Lee Curtis and she knew Frank Sinatra as her “uncle.” Gail told Vanity Fair in 2009, “Somebody asked me a long time ago, ‘So what’s it like to be Dean Martin’s daughter?’ You want to say, finally, ‘Compared to what?’ I always was, you know?”
Dean’s second-born daughter also took her turn in the entertainment industry as a singer, opening for her father’s Las Vegas performances and touring around the country. But Gail abandoned her singing career early on to get married and raise a family. In 1968, at the age of 23, she married 42-year-old attorney Paul Polena in her parents’ backyard in Beverly Hills. The couple had two daughters, named Cappy and Liza, according to her brother Ricci’s book, That’s Amore.
Gail and Polena eventually divorced, and she remarried newspaper columnist Mike Downey in Las Vegas in July 1999, per the Los Angeles Times. The pair reside in Rancho Mirage, California.
