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Who - or what - is the Rat Pack?

The Rat Pack is the nickname given to a group of popular entertainers most active between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s.

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 of people, the Rat Pack did have female participants, such as movie icons Shirley MacLaine, Lauren Bacall, and Judy Garland

The fifties Rat Pack

The name was first used to refer to a group of friends in Hollywood first informally organized around Humphrey Bogart, a group that included the young Frank Sinatra.

The "Rat Pack" was supposedly assigned to the original Bogart group by "Den Mother" Lauren Bacall, after seeing them return from a night in Las Vegas, she being the youngest of them all and seeing them to be tired and worn out said words to the effect of "You look like a goddamn rat pack", referring to the tired and haggard appearance of the other members of the group.

According to another explanation, the term, "Rat Pack" was not Bacall's idea at all. It had started with Humphrey Bogart, Bacall's husband and frequent film co-star and a pal of Sinatra's, who named a group of his drinking buddies the Holmby Hills Rat Pack, after the location of one of Judy Garland and her husband Sid Luft's houses (a frequent hangout).

Yet another explanation has it that the name referred to the way that an established pack of rats will belligerently reject an outsider who tries to join them.

According to Stephen Bogart, 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 James Van Heusen.

According to this explanation, confirmed in David Niven's autobiography The Moon's a Balloon, the Rat Pack originally contained David Niven and did not contain either Davis or Martin, and moreover did involve real (white) rats.

The sixties Rat Pack

The 1960s version of the group included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford, brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy, then a Massachusetts senator who was destined for the White House.

Angie Dickinson, Juliet Prowse, and Shirley MacLaine were often referred to as the "Rat Pack Mascots", a title which made these ladies feel like "one of the boys".

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. "The Rat Pack" was a term used by journalists and outsiders, although it remains the lasting name for the group.

As 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 group had not only influence in entertainment and social circles but some influence politically as well.

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.

Lawford's role in Robin and the Seven Hoods was given to Bing Crosby and spiced up with several songs. (It wasn't the first time Sinatra had treated a Rat Packer that way; Davis's role in Never So Few was given to Steve McQueen when Sinatra and Davis had a temporary falling-out.)

The group often performed in Las Vegas, Nevada and were instrumental in the rise of Las Vegas as a popular entertainment destination. They played an important role in the desegregation of Las Vegas hotels and casinos in the early 1960s.

Sinatra and the others would refuse to play in or patronize those establishments that would not give full service to African American entertainers including Davis. Once Rat Pack appearances became popular and the subject of media attention, the Las Vegas properties were forced to abandon segregation-based policies.

Sinatra and friends had no idea this band of five would make entertainment history. The group was remarkable for its upbeat entertainment style and smooth musical and comedy routines, many of which were ad-libbed.

Davis said when Sinatra called the initial gathering of the group, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, French President Charles de Gaulle, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev were planning a Paris Summit Conference. Not to be outdone, Sinatra observed, "We'll have our own little Summit meeting." The Vegas Summit did not draw diplomats, but it did draw high rollers, VIPs, celebrities, and entertainment buffs, who responded by the thousands.

Often, when one of the members was scheduled to give a performance, the rest of the Pack would show up for an impromptu show, causing much excitement amongst audiences, and return visits.

They sold out almost all of their appearances, and people would come pouring into Las Vegas, sometimes sleeping in cars and hotel lobbies when they could not find rooms, just to be part of the Pack's entertainment experience.

The marquees of the hotels at which they were performing as individuals might read "DEAN MARTIN - MAYBE FRANK - MAYBE SAMMY."

Although the Pack members remained close (with the exception of Peter Lawford), the Rat Pack began to fade in popularity with the rise of the 1960s counterculture, which sent their form of sophisticated "Establishment" entertainment into decline.

Although its individual members remained hugely popular with the public, the Rat Pack as such had ceased to exist by the end of the 1960s.

Rat Pack Revival

In 1987 Sinatra, Davis and Martin embarked on a World Tour, entitled 'Together Again'. At press conferences Sinatra rejected the use of the term 'Rat Pack'. The tour was fraught with difficulties as Martin's son had died in a plane crash earlier that year, and he left the tour the following year, being replaced by Liza Minnelli.

The Rat Pack was a 1998 TV movie about the group. The movie featured Ray Liotta as Frank Sinatra, Joe Mantegna as Dean Martin, Don Cheadle as Sammy Davis, Jr. and Angus Macfadyen as Peter Lawford. In a smaller role was William Petersen as President John F. Kennedy.

The production of the film was part of a "Rat Pack Revival." Currently, movies, recordings and filmed performances are again very popular. This reinvigorated popularity led to a memorable remake of Ocean's Eleven starring Matt Damon, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts, Bernie Mac, and Carl Reiner, and a sequel, Ocean's Twelve, with the same cast. Ocean's Thirteen is currently being filmed.

As of 2006, Joey Bishop is the only male member of the Rat Pack who is still alive.

With thanks to Wikipedia® encyclopedia. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.