By Jerry Pearce

“Later on, we’re gonna buy a Dick Haymes album and see what’s wrong with your career!”

The great comedian Don Rickles belted out this line at Frank Sinatra while the Chairman was the host of the 1969 Academy Awards to a barrage of laughs from both Sinatra and the audience. It’s a wonder if, through all the laughs, anyone gave a thought to the faded star that was mentioned. He was living throughout the United Kingdom at the time, far from the Hollywood that had made him a household name, trying to escape from mounting debts while attempting to give his family a comfortable way of life. His name was Richard Benjamin Haymes, better known as Dick, and it would probably surprise many that he was, at one time, as large a celebrity as Sinatra.