BILL CROCETTI: IN DINO'S SHADOW

Dean Martin was loved the world over. He was a private man to say the least, and he did not let the public into his personal life much. Many people did not even know he had an older brother. His brother William Crocetti, led a much different life than Dino did.

Born to Gaetano, Alfonso Crocetti and Angela Crocetti, the older Crocetti brother was born on June 21, 1916 in hard working town Steubenville, Ohio. His younger and more famous brother Dino Paul was born nearly a year later on June 7, 1917.William Crocetti, Bill to his friends and colleagues, was an engineer at North American Rockewell. He worked on the engines for the Saturn rockets, the very ones that powered men to the moon. During the War he was in the Air Force as well.

According to Bill's daughter Adri: "My father and his colleagues were Cold Warriors, to a man. They understood the need to be first, and they did everything they could to ensure the primacy of the United States. When I was ten, my dad told me we are going to have men on the moon by the time you are twenty. I didn't believe him, but seven years later in 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon."

Despite Bill's success in the space industry, his had some family tragedy when his mother died on Christmas Day 1966 at the age of 69. His father would die as well the following year on August 29, 1967 at the age of 72.

On October 20, 1968 Bill died in St. John's Hospital of a brain tumor. He was only 52 and he left behind a widow and four children. Dean would not mention his brother much in the public but he helped out the family and Bill's widow. Josephine would die at the young age of 52 on March 13, 1976...