TLDR: Dean Martin had eight children across three marriages and at least six known grandchildren, most of whom deliberately built lives away from Hollywood. The one exception found fame anyway. In 2022, viewers of the reality competition Claim to Fame spent weeks guessing which contestant was secretly related to a legend, and the answer turned out to be Dean Martin’s own granddaughter, hiding in plain sight under her own name.
Most children of famous entertainers either lean hard into the family name or run as far from it as possible.
Dean Martin’s grandchildren mostly chose the second option, which is exactly why so few people know their names.
From the First Marriage
Dean Martin’s first marriage, to Betty McDonald, produced four children: Craig, Claudia, Gail, and Deana. Of that generation, Claudia is the one who gave Martin his first grandchild.
She had a daughter, Jesse, born around 1970, with her first husband Kiel Martin. Jesse has kept an almost entirely private life, and beyond her birth year and parentage, little else about her has ever been made public.
Deana Martin, the most publicly active of the four children and still touring in her seventies, is widely reported to have a son named Mickey Guerin, though the connection is drawn from scattered social media references rather than a formal public statement from Deana herself.
From the Second Marriage
Martin’s twenty-year marriage to Jeanne Biegger produced three children, and this branch of the family produced the rest of his known grandchildren.
Dean Paul Martin, who died in a military jet crash in 1987, married actress Olivia Hussey in 1971.
Together they had one son, Alexander Gunther Martin, born the following year. Alexander pursued acting in small film roles through the early 2010s, with his most recent credited work dating to 2013.
He is now married to Megan W. Martin, and the couple has one child, making Alexander’s son Dean Martin’s only known great-grandchild through this branch of the family.
Ricci Martin, who died in 2016, had three daughters with his wife Annie Rasmussen: Pepper, Montana, and Rio.
Montana has kept her life almost entirely offline for over a decade.
Rio has maintained no confirmed public presence at all.
Pepper did something none of her cousins did. She became famous on her own, without anyone initially realizing why.
Gina Martin, Ricci’s sister, married Beach Boys singer Carl Wilson in 1987 and remained with him until his death in 1998. The couple had no children together.
Pepper Martin and the Reality Show That Almost Missed Her
In the summer of 2022, ABC’s Claim to Fame, hosted by Kevin and Frankie Jonas, gathered twelve contestants into a house, each one secretly related to a celebrity, and challenged the group to figure out everyone’s connection before their own was discovered.
One contestant went by Pepper. Viewers spent weeks guessing whether she was tied to Maya Rudolph, Bette Midler, or Ashley Judd.
The real answer had been sitting in print for two decades.
In his 2002 memoir That’s Amore, Ricci Martin had already written about his daughter by name, describing a 1993 Christmas gathering shortly after “Annie and I were living near Park City, Utah, and had just had our first daughter, Pepper Jazz.”
Once fans connected the book to the contestant, along with an old Utah news article about her Airbnb property that directly identified her as “Pepper Martin” and named Dean Martin as her grandfather, the mystery collapsed.
Pepper Jazz Martin, born in December 1992, was confirmed as Dean Martin’s granddaughter through his son Ricci.
Outside her brief reality television run, Pepper runs a riverfront Airbnb cabin in Kamas, Utah, a property her grandfather had once visited during his lifetime.
From the Third Marriage
Martin’s brief third marriage to Catherine Hawn did not produce biological children, but he adopted her daughter Sasha, who went on to a modest acting career of her own while keeping her family life almost entirely out of public view, much like her cousins from the earlier marriages.
For the full story of Dean Martin’s children and the son whose death changed everything for him, see our piece on Dean Martin’s children.
Dean Martin’s Grandchildren: Frequently Asked Questions
How many grandchildren did Dean Martin have?
Dean Martin had at least six known grandchildren across his eight children: Jesse (through Claudia), Mickey Guerin (reportedly through Deana), Alexander Gunther Martin (through Dean Paul), and Pepper, Montana, and Rio (through Ricci). He also had at least one confirmed great-grandchild through Alexander’s own son.
Was Pepper from Claim to Fame really Dean Martin’s granddaughter?
Yes. Pepper Jazz Martin, a contestant on the 2022 ABC reality series Claim to Fame, was confirmed to be Dean Martin’s granddaughter through his son Ricci Martin. Her father had already written about her by name in his 2002 memoir, That’s Amore, years before the show aired.
Are any of Dean Martin’s grandchildren famous?
Most of Dean Martin’s grandchildren have deliberately stayed out of public life. The one exception is Pepper Martin, Ricci Martin’s daughter, who appeared as a contestant on the 2022 reality competition Claim to Fame and runs a riverfront Airbnb property in Kamas, Utah.
