Catherine Hawn: The Full Story of Dean Martin’s Ex-Wife

Catherine Hawn holds a small but lasting place in Hollywood history. For three years in the 1970s she was the wife of Dean Martin, one of the most famous entertainers of the twentieth century, a singer, actor and comedian known as the King of Cool. Before and after that marriage, she lived almost entirely outside public view.

That privacy makes her story different from most celebrity stories. The documented record is short, and the internet has filled the gaps with repeated claims that no solid source supports. This article gives the full story that can actually be told: what is documented, what is reported, and what remains honestly unknown.

Quick Facts

What Is Actually Documented

Start with the facts that rest on real sources. Dean Martin’s entry in reference works records that he married Catherine Hawn on April 25, 1973, less than a month after his second marriage ended, and that they divorced on November 10, 1976. The Washington Post, in its obituary of Martin published on December 26, 1995, named her as Catherine Mae Hawn, his third wife, and described her as a former model who was 25 when they married. A vintage press photograph from 1973 is also captioned with the words model Catherine Mae Hawn, which supports that description.

At the same time, Wikipedia and most modern summaries describe her job differently, as the receptionist at the chic Gene Shacove hair salon in Beverly Hills. The two descriptions may both hold part of the truth, since salon work and modeling often overlapped in that world, but no source reconciles them. The honest approach is the one taken here: both descriptions are reported, and neither should be stated as the single settled fact.

Beyond those points, documentation nearly stops. Catherine Hawn gave no known major interviews, published no memoir and built no public career. Everything else in this article is labeled according to its strength, because with a private person from the pre internet era, labels are the difference between history and rumor.

Before Dean Martin

Very little is verified about Catherine Hawn’s early life. Small biography websites commonly give her birth date as November 30, 1947, and sometimes name Steubenville, Ohio, as her birthplace. Steubenville was Dean Martin’s own hometown, which is one reason the claim looks suspicious: it appears to borrow a fact from his life. Careful fact checking coverage of Hawn flags both the exact birth date and the birthplace as unconfirmed, because they appear only on unsourced biography sites and nowhere in contemporaneous reporting.

What can be said safely is that she was in her mid twenties in 1973, that she was working in Beverly Hills in a setting full of wealthy and famous clients, and that she was not part of the entertainment industry as a performer. Unlike Martin’s second wife, Jeanne Biegger, who had been an Orange Bowl queen and a public figure during their long marriage, Catherine came from an ordinary working background. That contrast was noted at the time and remains the most interesting part of her entry into his life: a young salon worker marrying, almost overnight, one of the most recognizable men in America.

She also had a young daughter from before the marriage. Biographical sources report that Dean Martin adopted her daughter during the marriage. Later coverage commonly names the daughter as Sasha, a name that also appears in a screen credit listing, but the adoption detail itself rests on secondary reporting rather than a primary document. This article therefore presents it as reported, which is how careful sources handle it too.

A Wedding Less Than a Month After a Divorce

The timing of the wedding drew attention in 1973 and still does. Dean Martin’s second marriage, to Jeanne Biegger, lasted 24 years, from 1949 to 1973, and produced three children. Martin had filed for divorce in 1972, and the marriage was dissolved in early 1973. On April 25, 1973, less than a month later, he married Catherine Hawn. He was 55. She was reported as 26 in most summaries, and as 25 in the Washington Post obituary. Either way, the age gap was about three decades, and newspapers of the day treated the quick wedding as major celebrity news.

One named celebrity outlet, Closer Weekly, has reported that Frank Sinatra attended the wedding. Sinatra was Martin’s closest famous friend, a fellow member of the Rat Pack, so his presence would be no surprise. Beyond that report, the colorful extra details repeated online, including claims about the cost of the wedding, doves released at the ceremony and flowers flown in from France, have not been traced to any contemporaneous source and should be read as decoration, not history.

At the time of the wedding, Martin was still a huge star. His television variety program, The Dean Martin Show, ran until 1974, and he was a headline performer in Las Vegas, where he opened the MGM Grand in December 1973. Catherine stepped directly into that level of fame, appearing at his side in press photographs from the period, while holding no public role of her own.

Three Years of Marriage and a Quiet Divorce

The marriage lasted three and a half years. Public reporting from the period is thin, and neither Martin nor Hawn explained the relationship in detail to the press. They had no biological children together. On November 10, 1976, the divorce was finalized. Reference works record the legal fact without a stated public reason, and the commonly given ground is irreconcilable differences.

Later writers have offered explanations: the large age gap, Martin’s lasting closeness to his second wife Jeanne, with whom he eventually reconciled in later years without remarrying, and his growing wish for a quieter life as he got older. Those explanations are informed speculation by biographers, not statements by Catherine Hawn or Dean Martin, and they should be read that way. The year 1976 also brought Martin’s famous on stage reunion with his old partner Jerry Lewis at a charity telethon, arranged by Sinatra, one of the most remembered moments of his career. His brief third marriage ended in that same period, almost as quietly as it had begun.

After the divorce, Martin had a short relationship with model Patricia Sheehan, and in time he drew close again to Jeanne Biegger. He never married a fourth time. When he died on December 25, 1995, at the age of 78, Catherine Hawn was named in his obituaries simply as his third wife, which is how the historical record has treated her ever since.

What Happened After 1976

This is the section where honest writing matters most, because the true answer is that the public record does not say. No verified account of Catherine Hawn’s life after the 1976 divorce has been located in reputable sources: not her later work, not her home, not a second marriage, and not her current status. Fact checking coverage that examined her case directly concluded that there is no verified public record of her life since the divorce.

Two common online claims fail that test. The first is that she attended Dean Martin’s funeral in 1995. The claim is widely repeated, but no named source or contemporaneous report has been produced for it, so it remains unconfirmed. The second is a net worth figure, usually around 2 million dollars, repeated across celebrity biography websites. No source discloses any basis for the number, no financial record supports it, and it should not be treated as fact. A private citizen’s finances, in any case, are not public information.

What can be said is simpler and more human. Catherine Hawn spent three years at the very center of American celebrity, married to a man whose friends included Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., and then she left that world completely and stayed out of it. She has no social media presence, gives no interviews and appears in no modern coverage in her own words.

Facts Versus Rumors: A Short Guide

Because searches for Catherine Hawn return so much repeated material, it helps to end with a clear sorting. Documented by solid sources: her full name as Catherine Mae Hawn, her marriage to Dean Martin on April 25, 1973, the divorce on November 10, 1976, the absence of biological children, and her work setting in Beverly Hills. Reported by secondary sources: her job title at the Gene Shacove salon, the adoption of her daughter, the daughter’s name Sasha, and Sinatra’s attendance at the wedding.

Unconfirmed, despite being repeated everywhere: the exact birth date of November 30, 1947, a Steubenville birthplace, wedding cost and ceremony details, attendance at Martin’s 1995 funeral, and any net worth figure. One more point is simple and certain: she is not related to actress Goldie Hawn. They share a surname and nothing else that any source has ever shown.

FAQs

Who was Catherine Hawn?

Catherine Mae Hawn was the third wife of entertainer Dean Martin. They married on April 25, 1973, and divorced on November 10, 1976. Before the marriage she worked in Beverly Hills, described both as a salon receptionist and as a former model.

Did Catherine Hawn have children with Dean Martin?

No. They had no biological children together. Biographical sources report that Martin adopted her daughter from before the marriage, and later coverage commonly names the daughter as Sasha.

Why did Catherine Hawn and Dean Martin divorce?

No public statement from either of them explains it. The divorce was finalized in 1976, and reasons offered by later writers, such as the age gap, are speculation rather than documented fact.

Where is Catherine Hawn now?

Unknown. There is no verified public record of her life after the 1976 divorce, including her location or finances. Net worth figures published online are unsourced estimates, not documented facts.

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Final Thoughts

Catherine Hawn’s full story is, in the end, a short public story inside a long private life. She was a young Beverly Hills working woman who married Dean Martin at the height of his fame in April 1973, shared three years of that extraordinary world, and then, after their divorce in November 1976, chose complete privacy and kept it for the rest of the public record.

Her case is also a lesson in reading celebrity history. The documented facts about her fit in a single table, while the rumors fill whole websites. The fair way to remember her is the honest way: Dean Martin’s third wife, a private person by choice, whose life beyond those three famous years belongs to her and not to the internet.

Featured photo: Dean Martin – photo by MGM, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons