Dean Martin, an icon of American popular music, "The King of Cool", passed away 14 years ago today. He was only 78 years old.
In September 1993, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Mr. Martin died of acute respiratory failure (emphysema) at his home on Christmas morning 1995, at the age of 78. The lights of the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed in his honor.

Video clip (singing with Ricky Nelson): "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me" , from the film RIO BRAVO (a 1959 Western), It starred John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson, with Angie Dickinson, and Walter Brennan.

His footprints were immortalized at Grauman's Chinese Theater in 1964. Martin has not one but three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: One at 6519 Hollywood Blvd. (for movies), one at 1817 Vine (for recordings) and one at 6651 Hollywood Boulevard (for television).

In February 2009, Martin was honored with a posthumous Grammy award for Lifetime Achievement.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dean and Frank Sinatra, along with friends Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis, Jr. formed the legendary Rat Pack, so called by the public after an earlier group of social friends, the Holmby Hills Rat Pack centered on Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, of which Sinatra had been a member.

The Martin-Sinatra-Davis-Lawford-Bishop group referred to themselves as "The Summit" or "The Clan" and never as "The Rat Pack", although this has remained their identity in the popular culture.

Full film/tv/music bio here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Martin