Great Drinking Songs (7)

And another Unsuitable Role Model, too - we haven't had one for a while! Ah, Dino.... He could sing, he could act, he could dance, he could do comedy, he could pull the girls...... and he could do it all while drunk. Well, in truth, I rather think he was just very good at acting drunk on stage, which is something rarely pulled off well. I don't doubt that he was a pretty dedicated drinker offstage, but I like to think that he had it well under control. His public persona always seemed admirably unruffled and serene, and nicely self-mocking, too. And he dressed so damn sharp!

I grew up on all those crazy comedies he made with Jerry Lewis back in the '50s, and then a little later developed a great weakness for the Matt Helm series of spy spoofs in the late '60s (I hasten to point out that this is when they appeared on British TV in the '70s and the '80s!): he was cooler than Bond, funnier than Flint, and he had more and better eye-candy than either of them. Happy memories!

Anyway, here's the great man in later life (1983, I believe) performing his 'theme song', Little Ole Wine Drinker Me. I believe that was one of the many classic middle-of-the-road singles in my parents' record collection, with which I spent many, many happy hours as a small child - I wonder how that may have influenced my subsequent development?? [Alas, that video got pulled from YouTube; but here's Dino's original recording, accompanied by a montage of stills from his many drinking moments in the movies.]