Sinatra expected that he would be part of Kennedy's circle after the election but was excluded, which in turn led to Peter Lawford's exclusion from the group after 1962. "The Rat Pack" was a term used by journalists and outsiders, although it remains the lasting name for the group.Īs a result of Lawford's relation to Kennedy and Sinatra's connections to the Mafia, and the role the group played in campaigning for Kennedy and the Democrats, the Rat Pack had not only influence in entertainment and social circles but some influence politically as well. The post-Bogart version of the group was reportedly never called that name by any of its members - they called it the Summit or the Clan. Angie Dickinson, Juliet Prowse, and Shirley MacLaine were often referred to as the "Rat Pack Mascots", a title which reportedly made these ladies feel like "one of the boys". Kennedy), and for a brief stint, Norman Fell.
The 1960s version of the group included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford (brother-in-law of John F. Garland later had stick pins made for the group in the shape of rats with rubies for eyes.Thus, the "Rat Pack" was born.Īccording to Stephen Bogart, the original members of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack were Sinatra (pack master), Garland (first vice-president), Bacall (den mother), Luft (cage master), Bogart (rat in charge of public relations), Swifty Lazar (recording secretary and treasurer), Nathaniel Benchley (historian), David Niven, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, Michael Romanoff and Jimmy Van Heusen.In his autobiography The Moon's a Balloon, actor David Niven confirms that the Rat Pack originally included him but not Sammy Davis or Dean Martin. Later, she was said to have written about "that rat pack in Holmby Hills" which Garland found incredibly funny. The group didn't want their private parties becoming the subject of the writer's next column, and so the columnist was never invited. "Rat Pack" may also be a shortened version of "Holmby Hills Rat Pack," a reference to the home of Judy Garland and husband Sid Luft, which served as a regular hangout.The name may also refer to the belief that an established pack of rats will belligerently reject an outsider who tries to join them.Judy Garland's daughter, Lorna Luft, tells the story that a certain gossip columnist (probably Hedda Hopper) wanted to be invited to the group's parties. According to one version, the group's original "Den Mother," Lauren Bacall, after seeing her husband and his friends return from a night in Las Vegas, said words to the effect of "You look like a goddamn rat pack. Several explanations have been offered for the famous name over the years. The name "Rat Pack" was first used to refer to a group of friends in Hollywood informally organized around Humphrey Bogart and including the young Frank Sinatra.
WHEN DID THE RAT PACK START MOVIE
Its most famous line-up featured Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, who appeared together in films and on stage in the early-1960s.Despite its reputation as a masculine group, the Rat Pack did have female participants, including movie icon s Shirley MacLaine, Lauren Bacall, and Judy Garland. With Sinatra’s death in 1998, Bishop was the last surviving member of that group, which performed together as a legendary Las Vegas nightclub act and in such films as “Some Came Running,” “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Sergeant’s 3.”įellow comic Don Rickles remembered his glum-faced contemporary’s distinct “attitude” and said he was “a great innovator when it came to comedy.The Rat Pack is the nickname given to a group of popular entertainers most active between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. and Peter Lawford, who came to epitomize the freewheeling cool of the late 1950s and early ‘60s.
The self-styled “mouse” of the Rat Pack, Bishop was part of an iconic group of entertainers, including Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. REUTERS/Courtesy Questar Home Video/The Joey Bishop Show DVD/Handoutīishop, born Joseph Abraham Gottlieb on February 3, 1918, in the Bronx, died on Wednesday night at his home in Newport Beach, south of Los Angeles, following an illness of several months, publicist Warren Cowan said. Bishop died at age 89 at his home in Newport Beach, California on October 17, 2007, according to his publicist Warren Cowan.
WHEN DID THE RAT PACK START SERIES
Actor and comedian Joey Bishop poses in this undated publicity photograph from his 1960's television comedy series "The Joey Bishop Show".