Kennedy, who showed up - as did Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland - at a few performances. The other guys made six figures.”Īnd it wasn’t even like they were truly pals: “Joey was being used, and Sinatra hated Lawford’s f–king guts.” But he loved proximity to Massachusetts Sen. These were middle-aged men, working hard,” said Lertzman. Dean drank apple juice on stage, and every show was identical. Frank Sinatra (far left) curated the Rat Pack and put Las Vegas on the map.
#MEMBERS OF THE RAT PACK TV#
Picking up on a term coined by Lauren Bacall to describe husband Humphrey Bogart and his Hollywood retinue (including Sinatra), the press called the guys the “Rat Pack.” Sinatra despised the name.īrimming with seemingly improvised gags about liquor and womanizing, The Summit was actually tightly scripted by TV writer Don Sherman (whose daughter Amy Sherman-Palladino would go on to create “Gilmore Girls” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Sinatra swung a deal where they would shoot “Ocean’s 11” in the casino by day and do two shows a night for February, an event called “The Summit.” It was an instant hit, said Lertzman: “The Sands had 2,800 rooms and 35,000 requests for reservations in February.”
#MEMBERS OF THE RAT PACK MOVIE#
Lawford also came with a gift: a script for a heist movie called “Ocean’s 11” that had been slipped to him by George Clayton Johnson, a Malibu gas-station attendant and aspiring writer. So Lawford - characterized by Lertzman as “a little gossip who told Ava Gardner about Frank f–king around” - was improbably in as well. Peter Lawford was married to Patricia Kennedy, and Sinatra was drawn to the Kennedy family’s power.” Then he needed a journeyman comic who would not suck air out of the room: In came Joey Bishop. had just lost an eye in a car accident and Frank wanted to back him. He had done the movie ‘Some Came Running’ with Dean Martin and thought it would be good to work with him again.
“Frank loved the idea and started assembling a group. “Al wanted a mega-act to put Vegas on the map,” Lertzman said. Meanwhile, Sands casino publicist Al Freeman was looking to take Vegas beyond its status as a cow town with some diversions. Sinatra was bopping through town in ’59, mulling a big payday while his elite status still held.
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