A Heckler Told Dean Martin to Go Back to Ohio — Dean’s Response Silenced the Entire Room D

Las Vegas, Nevada. October 4th, 1963, 9:51 p.m. The Copa Room was 37 minutes into the show. The show had been exactly what the coper room at the Sans Hotel in 1963 was supposed to be, the specific combination of music and conversation, and the particular warmth of Dean Martin in a room, which was not a warmth that was manufactured for the room, but a warmth that the room found in him, the way rooms find the temperature of the person most settled in them, and settle around it. 430 people had settled around it. The show was good, not extraordinary. The specific good of someone who was consistently extraordinary having an ordinary excellent evening. The way extraordinary becomes the baseline and the ordinary excellence sits below it without being less. Dean Martin performing at his cop room standard which was the standard

that most performers spent their careers hoping to reach once. He was 37 minutes in. He was between songs. The specific conversational pause between the eighth and ninth song, where the talk happened, where the ease lived, where Dean Martin being Dean Martin was most visible in the contrast between the formal theatrical apparatus of the coper room and the specific informal quality of a man who inhabited formal theatrical apparatus the way some people inhabited living rooms. He was talking about the song that was coming. He was holding the glass from somewhere in the middle section, row 14 approximately. The specific geography of a room where table arrangement made precise location difficult, but where the voice originated with enough clarity to identify the general territory. A man’s voice said, “Go back to Ohio.” The coper room went quiet. Not the dramatic

theatrical quiet of a room that has been commanded to silence, the specific organic quiet of 430 people simultaneously receiving the same piece of information and processing it in the same breath. Dean Martin had heard it. He stopped talking. He looked toward row 14. He did not look away from row 14.

He said, “Ohio made everything you’re looking at.” He picked up the glass. He nodded to the orchestra. He sang the ninth song. Subscribe to this channel right now and hit the like button because what happened in the next 45 seconds and why those seven words from Dean Martin produced the specific sustained applause that followed them and what those seven words actually meant and what a young man from Stubenville, Ohio, who happened to be in the coper room that night did after the show is one of the true stories about where someone actually comes from when they say they come from somewhere. Stay now back to the coper room. Dean Martin has just said seven words. The room is still processing them and the sustained applause is about to begin. The voice from row 14 had said, “Go back to Ohio.”

This was a specific kind of insult, not the generic Heckler insult someone who disliked the performer or the performance. The go back to Ohio was targeted. It was an attempt to use Dean Martin’s origins as a disqualification to invoke the specific geography of where he came from as evidence that where he was didn’t belong to him, that the coper room and the reputation and the 30 years of performing were an imposition rather than an earned presence. Go back to Ohio.

You don’t belong here. You are underneath the tuxedo and the silver hair and the ease still the kid from Stubenville and Stubenville is where you belong. And here this room, this career, this level of achievement is not for people from Stubenville. This was the insult. Dean Martin had been hearing a version of this insult in one form or another since approximately 1946, which was the year he began to perform at a level where the performing attracted the specific attention of people who evaluated performers and found reasons or invented reasons for the performers to be less than what they were. The Italian-American from a small Ohio steel town who had a nice voice but lacked the credentials, the formal training, the classical background, the cosmopolitan pedigree was a version of the insult that had preceded go back to

Ohio by 17 years. He had heard all the versions. What made the coper room version notable was not that it was different from the others. It was that the answer he gave it was the truest answer he had ever given. Ohio made everything you’re looking at. Seven words, the specific facts. Guy Crocetti’s barber shop on South Sixth Street in Stubenville.

The guitar in the corner. The Italian songs played between customers. The voice that heard those songs across hundreds of afternoons across a childhood. the specific formation of someone who grew up in an Italian-American household in an Ohio steel town in the 1930s and who absorbed through the specific osmosis of proximity and repetition the musical intelligence that the barberhop made available.

The voice did not come from a conservatory. The ease did not come from finishing school. The warmth, the specific human warmth that made the coper room settle around him like a room finding its temperature, did not come from coaching or cultivation or the careful construction of a performing persona. It came from Ohio.

Ohio made everything you’re looking at, not as a point of pride, not as the performing of local boy makes good sentiment, as the accurate accounting of a fact. The man in row 14 had tried to use Ohio as a diminishment. Dean Martin turned it into a credential in seven words and then he sang.

The applause that followed the seven words was not the immediate applause of a joke that had landed. It was the specific sustained applause of 430 people who had needed approximately 3 seconds to process what they had heard and who then responded with the warmth of people who have witnessed something true said with complete precision.

It lasted for 11 seconds. This is a long time for applause in the middle of a performance. The man in row 14 did not applaud. He did not say anything else. The ninth song was Return to Me, the Italian ballad that had been in Dean’s repertoire since 1958. The one that carried the specific quality of someone singing about a place and a person they have left but have not left entirely.

The song that was partly about Ohio in the same way that everything Dean Martin did was partly about Ohio. He sang it. The coper room received it. The rest of the show was the show. Phil Barker noted the incident in his notebook during the instrumental break of the ninth song. He wrote, “Row 14 approx. Go back to Ohio.

DM Ohio made everything you’re looking at 11 sec sustained.” Then he closed the notebook. After the show, in the coper room corridor, a young man was waiting. He was 24 years old. He had dark hair and a slight build, and was wearing a plain dark suit over a white dress shirt, the suit of a young man who had put on his best clothes for the coper room, and whose best clothes were the best he had.

He was from Stubenville, Ohio. His name was Robert Sikonei. He was in Las Vegas because his employer had sent him to a trade conference at the Desert Inn, a 3-day conference for steel industry suppliers, a category into which the company he worked for in Stubenville fit by the specific accident of industrial geography.

He had looked up what was playing at the Copa Room because the Coper Room was the place to go in Las Vegas if you were going to go anywhere. and he had gotten a ticket because Dean Martin was playing and he had grown up in Stubenville in Stubenville, two streets over from South Sixth Street where the Croetti family had lived.

He had not known Dean Martin. He had been four years old when Dino Paul Croeti left Stubenville to pursue the performing life, and fouryear-olds did not have the social geography of the neighborhood fully mapped. But he had grown up in the specific world that Stubenville was, the specific Italian-American community of an Ohio steel town, and he knew what South 6th Street was, and he knew what a Creseti was in the context of that neighborhood, and he understood with the specific understanding of someone who shared a geography, what Ohio made everything you’re looking at meant. He had been in the coper room when it was said. He had been one of the 430 people who processed it in the specific held breath and then produced the 11 seconds of sustained applause. He was in the corridor because he needed to say something. Phil Barker found him first. Phil said, “Can I help

you?” Robert said, “I grew up in Stubenville.” Phil looked at him. He said, “Wait here.” He went to the dressing room. He came back 2 minutes later. He said, “Come in.” Dean Martin was at the dressing table in the postshow version of himself, the tuxedo jacket on the hook, the white dress shirt open at the collar, the black bow tie loosened, the glass of something amber on the table, the silver gray hair slightly less precise than the stage version. Robert came in.

He stood just inside the door. He said, “I grew up on Fourth Street in Stubenville.” Dean said, “When?” Robert said, “I’m 24, so the 50s.” Dean said, “4th Street.” Robert said, “Yes, sir.” Dean said, “My father’s shop was on South 6th.” Robert said, “I know. I used to walk past it. There was a pause.

” Dean said, “Sit down.” Robert sat in the chair. He said, “What you said tonight about Ohio?” He said, “I wanted you to know.” He stopped. Dean said, “What?” Robert said, “I wanted you to know that I heard it the right way. I heard what it was.” Dean looked at him. Robert said, “People from Stubbinville don’t.

” He stopped again. He was choosing the words with the specific care of someone for whom the words mattered enough to choose carefully. People from Stubbinville don’t always know what to do with where they’re from. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just it’s Stubbenville. It’s not a place that prepared you to tell people where you’re from without a little bit of He stopped.

He said, “Without a little bit of preparing yourself for what they’re going to think.” He said, “When you said Ohio made everything you’re looking at,” he was quiet for a moment. You said it like it was just true. Not like you were defending it, not like you were proud of it in a performing way.

Just true, he said. And I heard it the way someone from Stubbenville hears it, which is different from how someone else hears it. Dean said, “How is it different?” Robert said, “Because we know what Ohio made. We know what the barberh shop made and what the families made and what the neighborhoods made and what came out of places like South Sixth Street.

We know it because we were there. He said, “When you said it, I heard someone say, I know where I came from, and it made me what I am, and the room where I’m standing was built on it.” He said, “I heard that the whole thing.” Dean was quiet. Robert said, “I just wanted to tell you.” He started to stand.

Dean said, “How’s the town?” Robert said, “It’s the town.” Dean said, “Republic Steel still running.” Robert said, “Still running.” Dean said, “My father cut hair until he couldn’t anymore.” Robert said, “I know.” They were quiet for a moment. Dean said, “You went to Wells High School?” Robert said, “Yes, sir.” Dean said, “I didn’t finish.

I left when I was 16.” Robert said, “I know that, too.” Dean said, “You know a lot about someone from Stubenville.” Robert said, “Everyone from Stubenville knows you from Stubenville.” He said it the way you say a thing that is both obvious and not obvious. that the people who shared the geography knew the geography in its specific form.

And the specific form included Dean Martin, the way it included Republic Steel and the Ohio River and the specific quality of a town organized around a working life. Dean said, “What did the man in the audience say? I heard it, but I want to know what you heard.” Robert said, he said, “Go back to Ohio.” Dean said.

And Robert said, “And you said what you said.” Dean said, “And what did that do to the room?” Robert thought about this. He said, “It took the insult and turned it inside out. He tried to use Ohio as the thing that disqualified you. You used it as the thing that qualified you, and the room understood that you were right.

” He said, “But I understood it differently.” He said, “I understood that you weren’t defending Ohio. You were describing a fact. Ohio made you. That’s not a defense. That’s just what happened. You said it the way you’d say the sky is blue.” He said, “And the sky is blue.” Dean Martin looked at Robert Sakone.

He said, “Fourth Street.” Robert said, “Fourth Street.” Dean said, “You come back through Vegas. You come to the show.” Robert said, “Yes, sir.” He stood up. He said, “Thank you.” Dean said, “For what?” Robert said, “For saying it.” He left. Phil Barker, who had been in the corridor for the conversation, came back into the dressing room.

Dean said, “Fourth Street in Stubenville.” Phil said, “Yes.” Dean said, “Two streets over.” Phil said yes. Dean was quiet for a moment. He said, “The man in row 14.” Phil said, “What about him?” Dean said he thought Ohio was the problem. Phil said, “Apparently.” Dean said, “Ohio is the whole thing.” Phil said, “Yes.

” Dean said, “It’s the voice. It’s the ear. It’s the guitar in the barberh shop. It’s the songs my father played.” He said, “It’s everything he was trying to take away.” Phil was quiet. Dean said the kid from Fourth Street heard it. Phil said he did. Dean said that’s enough. He said it in the flat certain way. That’s enough.

The kid from Fourth Street heard it. And that was enough. Ohio made everything you’re looking at. Seven words. True in 1963. True in 1943 when The Voice was being formed. True in 1933 when the barberh shop was the barberh shop and the guitar was in the corner and the songs were the songs and the specific formation of a person was happening in the specific way of people who absorb what their environment gives them before they know they are absorbing it. True now.

Still true. Phil added a second line to his notebook entry. It said RC 4th St. Steubenville heard it right. He closed the notebook. That was the whole of it. That was still the whole of it. The man in row 14 had tried to send Dean Martin back to Ohio. Dean Martin had sent him back to Ohio first in seven words.

And a young man from Fourth Street had heard every syllable. And that was enough. That was always enough. That is still the whole of it. Robert Sakonei returned to Stubenville on October 7th, 1963. He told the story at a dinner table that evening. He told it to his mother and his father and his younger sister who was 17.

He told it the way you tell a story that happened to you that you are not entirely sure you have the right words for. He said he said Ohio made everything you’re looking at just like that flat. And then he sang. His father, a man who had worked at Republic Steel for 22 years, was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “That’s right.

” Not as enthusiasm, as confirmation, the flat certain acknowledgement of something that had been said correctly. His father had grown up three blocks from South Sixth Street. He had known Guy Crocetti’s barberh shop, the way people knew the establishments of their neighborhood, as part of the geography, as one of the fixed points around which daily life organized itself.

He said, “That’s right.” In the specific flat tone of someone who has known the fact for 30 years, and is hearing it stated correctly for the first time. Robert’s mother said, “The whole room went quiet.” Robert said for about 3 seconds and then 11 seconds of applause. His mother said 11 seconds is a long time.

Robert said I counted. His mother said why did you count? Robert said because I knew it was something I was going to need to remember accurately. She looked at him. She said were you right to count? Robert said yes. He said 11 seconds in the copper room is different from 11 seconds anywhere else.

In the copper room at full capacity, 11 seconds of sustained applause is significant. His father said he earned it. Robert said he did. His father was quiet for a moment. He said, “You went backstage.” Robert said, “Phil Barker let me in.” His father said, “What did you say to him?” Robert said, “I told him I heard it the right way.

” His father said, “What did he say?” Robert said, “He asked how the town was.” His father was quiet. He said, “What did you tell him?” Robert said, “I told him Republic Steel was still running.” His father nodded. He said, “It is.” They finished dinner. Later that evening, Robert’s father sat in the living room.

He was not a man who spoke a great deal, the specific working man’s economy, with language of someone who had done physical work his whole adult life, and for whom words were for necessary things. He sat in the living room, and he said to no one in particular, to the room. Ohio made everything you’re looking at.

He said it quietly. He said it the way Dean Martin had said it, flat, without drama, simply as the true thing stated in its simplest available form. He did not say anything else. He did not need to. Robert Sakone’s father worked at Republic Steel for four more years after that dinner. He retired in 1967. He died in 1974.

Robert Sakonei still lives in Stubenville. He has told the story of the coper room many times across 60 years to his children, to his grandchildren, to anyone who asked about Dean Martin and Stobenville and what it was like to have been in the same room when seven words silenced 430 people. He always tells it the same way.

He always ends it the same way. He said he took the insult and turned it inside out. The man in row 14 tried to send Dean Martin back to Ohio. Dean Martin sent him back first in seven words. He pauses. He says, “And then he sang.” He says, “And it was a very good show.” He says that every time.

And then he says one more thing. He says, “My father said it that night when we got home at the dinner table. He said it out loud to the room. Ohio made everything you’re looking at.” He is quiet. He says, “My father was not a demonstrative man. He did not say things out loud that he could keep to himself.

” He says, “He said that one out loud.” He says, “Because it was true.” He says, “Because it had always been true.” He says, “And it was good to hear it said.” That is the whole of it. The man in row 14, seven words, 11 seconds, and a man on fourth street in Stubenville saying it again at his dinner table because it was true, and it had always been true.

Ohio made everything you’re looking at. Still, there is one more account of the evening of October 4th, 1963 at the Copa Room of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. a music journalist named Howard Stern, not the radio personality, a different Howard Stern, a journalist who covered the Las Vegas entertainment scene for a trade publication across the 1960s, was in the Copa room that night.

He was covering Dean Martin’s residency for a profile. He wrote about the incident in his profile, which ran the following month. He wrote, “Midway through the second set, a man in the middle section offered the opinion that Mr. Martin should return to his home state. The coper room went quiet with the specific quiet of a room that has just registered an unexpected interruption. Mr.

Martin stopped. He looked at the section from which the voice had come. He said seven words. He then nodded to the orchestra and continued the show. The seven words produced 11 seconds of sustained applause from the remaining 429 people in the room. He said, “I have covered entertainment in Las Vegas for 7 years.

I have seen many hecklers and many performers responses to hecklers. I have seen anger, embarrassment, humor, dismissal, and various combinations of the above.” He said, “What I saw on October 4th, 1963 was something I had not seen before. A performer receive an insult, understand its precise intent, and respond with the accurate accounting of the opposite of what the insult intended in seven words without raising his voice, without performing the response, without any visible emotional investment in the outcome. He said, he said Ohio made everything you’re looking at. And then he sang. He said the room understood that it had just witnessed the correct response to the insult. Not the clever response, not the funny response, not the devastating response, the correct one, the one that was simply true and that the truth made sufficient.

He said, “Mr. Martin has been performing for 30 years. He has performed in rooms that did not want him and rooms that did. He has built a career from a specific combination of voice and ease that is, if you trace it to its origin, the product of a specific geography. An Italian-American family in a small Ohio steel town in the 1930s, a barberh shop with a guitar, songs in Italian played between customers.

He said, “When the man in row 14 tried to use Ohio as a disqualification, Mr. Martin corrected him with the accuracy of someone who has spent 30 years understanding exactly what Ohio gave him and exactly what that gift produced. He said Ohio made everything you’re looking at. He said, “If you were in the coper room on October 4th, 1963, you understood why 11 seconds of applause followed those seven words.

” He said, “If you were not, I have done my best to explain it.” He said, “I am not sure words entirely capture it.” He said, “The words Mr. Martin chose certainly did.” The profile ran in the entertainment trade publication in November of 1963. Phil Barker read it. He showed it to Dean.

Dean read the paragraph about Ohio made everything you’re looking at. He handed it back. He said, “That’s about right.” He said it the way he said true things. Flat, certain, complete. That’s about right. Ohio made everything you’re looking at. That’s still about right. That is still the whole of it.