The Rat Pack - Selection of Spreads

the rat pack

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The rat pack Edited by Tony Nourmand Written by Shawn Levy Art Direction and Design by Graham Marsh Produced by Bruce Marchant and robert jolliffe

CONTENTS Foreword 20 Introduction 23 The Beginning 26 Frank Sinatra 32 Dean Martin 100 Sammy Davis Jr. 120 Joey Bishop 140 Peter Lawford 144 The Summit 148 Ocean’s Eleven 222 A Hole in the Head 274 Sergeant’s 3 280 Robin and the 7 Hoods 294 Television 298 John F. Kennedy 356 Off-Duty 388 The Photographers 436 Index 446 Photo Credits 446 Acknowledgments 446

Page 4: Top of the world, Ma! Frank at the Sands, 1960.

Page 6: Havin’ a gas. Backstage at a Carnegie Hall benefit for Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, just a week after John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.

Page 8: Making merry at work in the studio.

Page 10: Frank and Dean flank Shirley MacLaine, the one woman they admitted into their inner world, 1959.

Page 13: Student of his art. Frank (with Dean, blurred) prepares to tape a TV special, 1962.

Page 14: All together now. The Clan (as they preferred to be called) in summit at The Sands, 1960.

Page 16: Smokin’.

Opposite: Who’s the boss? Frank’s sidekicks play Palm Springs, 1963.

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INTRODUCTION They were famous – notorious, even – for the things they got up to at night, so

although less commonly-known, a nexus of governmental and criminal power that

it’s deeply ironic that the most iconic picture of the Rat Pack should depict them

would reach from the soundstages of Hollywood and the counting rooms of Las

outdoors and in the daylight.

Vegas’s casinos through the crime dens of Chicago to the White House itself.

Perhaps that’s why they still seem so like gods. True, no one of similar stature

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop face

stood anywhere near them, but, in fact, there was no one of similar stature anywhere

the camera arrayed from left to right in order of their place in the hierarchy.

at all.

They all wear dark suits except for Dean, who sports a grayish number. Sammy’s tie and collar are undone; Peter is wearing white socks; Joey has a wadded

Can you speak of owning a place and a time?

handkerchief in his right hand.

They did; they still do.

The sun is angled to the southwest, down the nearly barren strip of highway that cuts through unincorporated Clark County in the direction, more or less, of

Another irony: that photo of the five of them, the image that has appeared on posters

civilization – well, Los Angeles, anyhow.

and coasters and postcards and book jackets and tee shirts and mouse pads for

Below their custom-made shoes, a piebald patch of lawn signifies winter in

decades, was shot by a man who, until now, has gone unnamed. Sinatra and the

Southern Nevada: light-blasted by day, gelid at night, parched save for the occasional

Rat Pack had favourite photographers, and they were photographed by some of the

Biblical torrent that renders the road impassable.

greatest shooters who ever worked in Hollywood or for the nation’s most prestigious

Behind them, a marquee bears their names and, in smaller letters, those of the

magazines and newspapers. But that shot – the shot – was taken by none of them.

performers who would entertain gamblers in the casino lounge that night: Jonah

It turns out that it was the work of Floyd McCarty, a still photographer who worked for Warner Bros. for decades and took some of the most memorable movie-

Jones, Norman Brooks, Red Norvo.

related images of the era: James Dean in his red windbreaker from Rebel Without

And beyond that, nothing: a clutch of trees, some streetlamps, a few cars on the

a Cause (1955) making an obscure gesture with his hand; Henry Fonda staring into

road, a few pedestrians (walking to and from where?).

Fifty years later, it would be one of the most built-up, electrified, trafficked,

the lens for a mug shot in The Wrong Man (1956); Carol Baker in a short skirt and

overblown and valuable sites on Earth. But in February, 1960, when the Rat Pack

a crib in Baby Doll (1956); Max von Sydow delivering the Sermon on the Mount in

stood patiently in front of it for publicity shots for their movie-in-progress Ocean’s

The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

Eleven, the deluxe, moderne, fashionable Sands Hotel and Casino, one of the very

McCarty was unsung but paid for the slight: his work belonged to the studio,

few buildings of any sort in the area, boasted perhaps two hundred rooms – an

which didn’t put his name on it and gave him a steady paycheck instead. But

enormous number back then, but barely as many as you can find nowadays on any

many of the other photographers who created indelible images of the Rat Pack

single floor of the gigantic hotels that smear the Vegas skyline.

were freelancers or, in the parlance of the biz, ‘specials’: hired guns working for Life magazine or photo agencies or, in many cases, privately for one of the boys

Ironic, then, that this image of five gentlemen of poise, taste, and camaraderie

themselves.

basking in the sun and the afterglow of who knew what sort of carryings-on, helped build Las Vegas. The Rat Pack, their Summit series of shows, and their movie

Some of the greatest pictures ever taken of the Rat Pack were shot by ‘specials’:

brought to the remote little gambling town a degree of polish, attention and fame

Bernie Abramson’s image of Frank singing alongside Nat King Cole at the Villa Capri;

it had never had before.

Bob Willoughby’s eventide shot of Frank, Dean, Sammy and Peter crouched before

A year or two prior, the little band of hotels – motels, really – that sprouted

the Sands marquee; Sid Avery’s tableau of the cast of Ocean’s Eleven standing

alongside the Los Angeles Highway, as it was then known, seemed likely to dissolve

around a pool table; Ted Allan’s portrait of Frank standing cross-armed and resolute;

into sand. The strip was overbuilt, debt-ridden, unlucky.

John Dominis’ candids of Frank trying to break Dean up on the set of Marriage on the Rocks (1965).

But Frank and his pallies saved it – made it bigger than ever in fact. And even as it has grown unrecognizably, it has held in its heart of hearts something of the seed

Some of these photographers parachuted into the Rat Pack’s world for a day or

they planted then: a zippy little molecule built of showbiz fame, moral license, the

two, filling an assignment. Some worked frequently enough with them that they

dark savour of criminality, the gilded arrogance of political ambition, the confidence

would eventually fill books with the best of their shots of Frank and the boys. And

to live life in one’s own fashion unapologetically and openly, the audacity to conquer

some were virtually house photographers, taking pictures not only of public events

the world and make the world feel grateful that you’d bother.

and moments of history but of private parties and intimate, ordinary scenes.

In 1960, the assembled talent of the Rat Pack represented the top of the Hit

In that more demure age, before X-rated movies and satellite TV and the internet,

Parade, the movie box office charts, the TV ratings, and the nightclub circuit, and,

these images – the ones that circulated, anyhow – were essential to the maintenance

Opposite: One of the century’s most indelible images, and, until now, uncredited. Let the record show that it was taken by Warner Bros. unit photographer Floyd McCarty, February, 1960.

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Frank sinatra The tough guy who played like a devil and sang like an angel.

He was born scrawny, and the doctor’s forceps mashed his ear and his cheek.

His torrid affair with Gardner cost him his marriage – and a portion of his following

He was spoiled and lonely and stood watching from his front steps as the rougher

at a time when he couldn’t afford it. Columbia Records, for whom he’d had so many

boys played. He was embarrassed by his preening, bossy mother, yet he took after

hits, suddenly didn’t know what to do with him and let his contract run out. Ditto

her more than he did his affable, loaf-about dad. He never fit in.

his movie studio and TV and radio networks. The nightclub scene still had a spot

But he possessed steel and drive and charm and a talent unlike anyone’s ever,

for him, but he lost that, too, when his voice started, queerly, to fail. And Ava, who

and he was fortunate in his opportunities and in his timing, and eventually the

married him, continued to follow her lust where it led her, making a cuckold of him

skinny little kid with the strange last name became a giant bestriding the earth on

in the face of the world.

He was finished...and then he rose from his self-immolation in a form more potent

the strength of his nerve and instincts and taste and connections and, above all, his

and dazzling than he, or anyone, had ever taken before. He learned to sing differently,

magisterial voice and manner.

For more than fifty of his eighty-two years, Frank Sinatra stood atop the Mount

and he sang a new kind of song – the same great American tunes he’d always

Olympus of American popular entertainment, as singer, actor, entrepreneur,

adored (Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, Kern, Rogers and Hammerstein or Hart) but with

personality, and icon of masculinity and cool. And it was entirely unlikely that such

saucy up-tempo beats or moody, suicidal textures (there were rumours circulating

a thing should happen.

around those last ones, that his grief over Ava had driven him to pills or a razor...).

He had been born, without any special promise, to working-class Italian immigrant

He quit appearing in musical fluff and became a convincing dramatic actor: winning

stock in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1915, and by the time he gathered around him the

an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity (1953), then playing with convincing

claque known as the Rat Pack he was a millionaire many times over who conquered

power in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Young at Heart (1954), Suddenly

the musical, film and concert worlds, ran businesses including casinos and movie and

(1954), The Joker is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958).

record companies, bedded the most desirable women alive (and scores, hundreds,

Most of all, he came to embody a knowing, confident, modern, nonconformist,

of others), and consorted openly with the President of the United States and the

elegant male sexuality. All the liaisons he’d kept hidden during his marriages

boss of the Chicago Mafia, practically at the same time.

could now be flaunted publicly. All the boozing and gambling and pugnacity and outrageousness that drove people away from him just after the war seemed somehow

It was a great American saga. No one had ever had such power, let alone a singer

magnetic and right in the age of tailfins, rock-and-roll, Sputnik and the Bomb.

of popular songs. Frank Sinatra was utterly one-of-a-kind.

He began as a boy singer on amateur nights, then a singing waiter who had to pay

By 1959, when he was within sight of a half-century, he was on top of the world,

for his own equipment and air time to get his voice out on the radio. The bandleader

very nearly literally, and selected from among his showbiz friends a small, tight

Harry James heard him and hired him, and suddenly the kid with no friends had a

circle of like-minded and like-styled fellows with whom he would form a supergroup

big band full of instant brothers. Presently, a bigger band, Tommy Dorsey’s, came

of talent. Together they could sing and dance and joke and get serious and make

calling, and fronting this chart-topping outfit brought Sinatra to national attention.

movies and stage wild shows and use their contacts in the world of power to

And the audience that was drawn to him was brand new: girls – bobby-soxers they

introduce political authority to its illegitimate cousin in crime. They would knit

were called, for a fashion affectation round the ankles – who saw in the lanky singer

entertainment, government and mobsterism almost as an afterthought in their

with the blue eyes and wavy hair and bow ties an emblem for the boys off fighting

movie-making, music-making, and, chief of all, money-making endeavours. And they

in Europe and the Pacific. They turned him into such a star that he bought himself

would have the clout and the moxie to do it all not in dark smoky rooms but out in

out of his contract to Dorsey so as to make himself available to his explosive and

the sun of Las Vegas with the press and its cameras sitting ringside.

Only Frank Sinatra was big enough to orchestrate it all. He was the nation’s best

devoted public on records and radio and in movies.

As it happened, though, in real life they couldn’t have him: He was married to

and most popular singer, one of its top box office movie attractions, a tycoon of the

his own neighbourhood sweetie, Nancy, who bore him two daughters and a son and

entertainment industry, a symbol of male virility and allure, and the sort of fellow

abided, knowingly or not, her man’s heroic womanizing. On the road as a singer, in

who could talk politics with John and Bobby Kennedy and darker affairs with Sam

Hollywood making films, Frank slept his way through the ranks of famous and not so

Giancana and Frank Costello.

famous ladies, master of his appetites and his heart – until, that is, he completely

The joke used to say, “It’s Frank’s world, we’re just living in it.”

lost it to Ava Gardner, whose sexual thirst equalled, if it didn’t exceed, his own.

The reality is that the joke was true.

Opposite: Mr. Everything. Age 47.

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Above and opposite: More fun with the Polaroid. The Lawfords, Marilyn, Frank and Mai Britt marvel at the instant photos.

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Overleaf: Playing with house money. Frank was a craps and blackjack man, but here he works the baccarat/chemin-de-fer table at the Sands.

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Previous pages, above and oppsite: Come fly with me. Heading toward the Cal-Neva on his private plane.

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Sammy Davis Jr. He could do it all, but not on his own.

He was the Little Engine That Could of showbiz, the Jackie Robinson of showbiz,

He was on the verge of great things when, again, fate slapped him. Driving home

the Sputnik of showbiz – choose your metaphor. A tiny bit of a man stuffed to

to Los Angeles from Las Vegas one night, he was hit by an oncoming car and had

brimming-over with talent, drive and verve, Sammy Davis Jr. was going to break into

his eye impaled on the steering wheel. His celebrity friends rallied to his side, and,

the consciousness of the world and make sure it remembered him if it killed him,

a few months later, he made a comeback in front of a star-studded Hollywood crowd

which, quite often, it seemed very nearly capable of doing.

who wore eye patches in solidarity with him; Frank, naturally, orchestrated it all.

He was small and uneducated and raised in the dressing rooms of low-rent theatres

But some things even Frank couldn’t help him with. Sammy loved the ladies,

and the segregated sections of buses and trains and dingy towns, and subjected for

and the feeling was mutual, and among those he loved was Kim Novak, the blonde

most of his life to the most degrading and debasing racism.

bombshell being shaped for stardom by Columbia Pictures. Sammy and Kim were

But for all the curses he was born with – and those that came to him later, like

an item – their dalliance splashed onto the lurid pages of Confidential magazine –

his choice of religion or of women to love, or the awful car accident which cost him

and Harry Cohn, the Mob-connected boss of her movie studio, didn’t like it. Cohn’s

an eye and nearly his life – he had more gifts and more energy with which to express

tough friends leaned on Sammy, and he was so spooked by their pressure that he

them than any man whom any audience had ever seen.

entered into a quickie marriage to a black showgirl just to make his willingness to comply with their wishes a public matter.

As a child and as a teen, he dazzled the Chitlin’ Circuit, as the institutions of popular Black American entertainment were known, as the youngest and most

That sham fooled no one, and it didn’t last long, but nobody except for the popular

gifted member of the Will Mastin Trio, a flash-dance outfit composed of Sammy, his

black press seemed to mind or hold it against him. He made movies and he made

father, Sammy Sr., and Mastin, a gentleman in a business that nurtured few.

records and he dazzled, night after night, on stages all over the country and in Europe. He was a quintessential entertainer, one of those for whom such sobriquets

Among the showfolk who admired the Mastin Trio’s act – and was catholic and

as ‘Mr. Entertainment’ or ‘The Hardest Working Man in Showbiz’ were coined.

democratic and brave enough to foster it – was Frank Sinatra, who made a point of befriending Sammy, who was ten years his junior, and of booking the trio on bills

His talent and the awe it commanded seemed to make him answerable to no one

with him, at top wages, whenever he could. Before he could enjoy some of the fruit

– no one, that is, but Frank, whom he adored and even emulated. And so when Frank

of Frank’s patronage, though, Sammy had to serve time in the Army, where he was

tapped him on the shoulder and summoned him to the combination of work and play

abused horribly by racist bullies whose beatings and jeerings only bolstered his

that became the Rat Pack, Sammy readily complied.

But he had one more thing to do, and that was to fall in love, once again and truly,

desire to push himself further in his life and his art.

After the War, Sammy led the Will Mastin Trio to unprecedented and unlikely

and to marry. Again he chose a beautiful blonde, the Swedish actress Mai Britt.

success. They were embraced by the old guard of showbiz, many of whom compared

Unlike Novak, who aspired to a big career of her own, Britt was a home-minded girl

Sammy, with his beseeching energy and limitless talent, to the young Al Jolson –

who wanted a husband and a family, not fame. And Sammy, or at least part of him,

the greatest compliment that any of them could muster. Like Jolson, Sammy had a

wanted those same things and with her.

This time, no studio boss or Mob goons would stand in the way: Mai would

Broadway hit built around him; he was a rocket to the moon.

But he was always respectful of the authority of his father and Mastin, whom he

rather not work than put a price on her heart. But this time Frank served the

considered an uncle, and would only allow himself to be pried out of the trio slowly,

role of bad guy: the Rat Pack were active supporters of the presidential campaign

and not too far, and only intermittently. He was, it was whispered to him, letting his

of John F. Kennedy, and in the pre-Civil Rights era, no national candidate could

heart hold him back. But he was all heart; he had no choice in the matter.

afford to alienate Southern voters by associating his name with miscegeny. Sammy would have to hide his love – to postpone marrying Mai – until after the November,

Slowly, though, he separated himself and emerged as a recording artist – Big Sam

1960 election.

and Mastin didn’t sing, so no conflict there – and as a solo performer in nightclubs.

And, chillingly, such was Sammy’s love of fame, of the spotlight, of the love of

He appeared in New York and Hollywood and Las Vegas, where black performers

being loved, that he agreed.

weren’t allowed to sleep or gamble or dine in the best casinos. And, slowly, and

He was, in sum, a pure creature of showbiz, and his heart would take second

with no little help from Frank, he nudged some of those barriers aside, a one-man

place, forever, to his talent.

Civil Rights campaign marching not on the Jim Crow South but on the Vegas Strip.

Previous pages: Two-martini breakfast, 1961.

Opposite: Mr. Entertainment. Sammy at The Sands Hotel, 1956.

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Previous pages: Icons of an altogether different sort. Sammy and Martin Luther King Jr. backstage at a 1965 fundraiser in New York.

Opposite: You hit ‘em and I’ll sing to ‘em – Sammy sports with Muhammad Ali.

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‘Outside, from far away, it didn’t look like ego or license or indulgence. It looked like a big, beautiful party in the desert, with laughs and music and cars and clothes and incredible women, and no one ever ran out of money, and no one ever got tired, and no one had to answer to anyone, and no one ever grew old, and you would just die unless you could be there.’ Rat Pack Confidential, 1998

Opposite: Gleaming in the gloaming. A sundown shot on the Strip between making scenes in the movie and making merry on the stage.

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Above and opposite: Clowning around on the set while getting ready for yet more publicity shots.

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‘It was sauce and vinegar and eau de cologne and sour mash whiskey and gin and smoke and perfume and silk and neon and skinny lapels and tail fins and rockets to the sky. It was swinging and sighing and being a sharpie; it was cutting a figure and digging a scene.’ Rat Pack Confidential, 1998

Opposite: We own the night. Frank on the Strip.

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Above and opposite: Frank appeared in the first of what turned out to be hundreds of TV shows that Dean hosted, 1965.

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Above and opposite: The man beside the man. Frank and John Kennedy (with Patricia Kennedy Lawford in violet dress) at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

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Above and opposite: Kings go forth. Frank and Nat King Cole entertain at the Villa Capri, while Sammy sticks to merrymaking.

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Above: James Dean and Ursula Andress are served cake by Patsy D’Amore, the owner of the Villa Capri.

Opposite: James Dean and Sammy.

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Above and opposite: That touch of mink. Frank at the 1959 SHARE Inc. benefit in Las Vegas.

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Dennis Stock

David Sutton

Born in New York City in 1928, Dennis Stock served in the U.S. Navy during the last

A New York native, David Sutton was a photographer from his early teens, when

years of World War II. Returning home, he studied photography with Bernice Abbott

he studied under such tutors as the famed Margaret Bourke-White. During World

while still a teen, apprenticed under Gjon Mili, and came to renown in 1951 when

War II he was a combat photographer, and after the war he worked a brief stint

he was among the winners of a contest sponsored by Life magazine for his pictures

with Life. Thereafter he opened his own studio in Los Angeles, where he gained a

of Europeans displaced by the War arriving in Manhattan. (Among the other winners

reputation for his work with such stars as Paul Newman, John Wayne, and Frank

were Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank and Ruth Orkin.)

Sinatra. His shots of these and other celebrities were consistently published in top

That year, he was one of the first Americans to become an associate of the

magazines around the world.

Magnum Photos cooperative, and in 1954 he was made a partner, becoming a

He died in 1998.

specialist in photographing actors and jazz musicians.

His most famous collaboration of those first years was with James Dean; on assignment for Life, Stock photographed Dean for several weeks, creating the famous image of the actor walking through Times Square in the rain and another of him sitting in a coffin in an undertaker’s shop in his Indiana hometown.

By the early 1960s, Stock had published a book and had a show of his work at the Chicago Art Institute. His interests shifted to nature photography, and he moved to France to pursue that subject, but he continued to shoot photo essays of such culturally provocative themes as motorcycle gangs and early rock festivals.

In the late ‘60s, he founded the film company Visual Objectives, shooting several documentaries. He remained a member of Magnum until his death in 2010.

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Gene Trindl

Bob Willoughby

Gene Trindl’s significant claim to fame was that he shot more than two hundred

Bob Willoughby was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1927 and studied at the

covers for TV Guide over the course of his six hundred plus assignments for the

University of Southern California and then at the Kahn Art Institute, where the

massively popular magazine.

graphic artist Saul Bass was among his teachers.

He was born in 1924, served in the U.S. Air Force in World War II, and received a

His career began as an assistant to photographers Wallace Seawell and Paul

degree from Woodbury College. His TV Guide work was augmented by assignments

Hesse, and then moved on to photograph jazz musicians as a freelancer. It was on a

for Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and Colliers, and by many educational films

freelance basis that he was hired in 1954 to shoot Judy Garland during the making

and years of teaching.

of A Star Is Born, one of the first instances of a ‘special’ photographer being

Trindl’s roster of subjects included such notables as Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson,

brought in to augment the work of studio employees.

Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Henry Fonda, Fred Astaire, Jane Fonda, Tom Selleck,

Willoughby parlayed that job into a contract with the studio, and went on to

Natalie Wood, and Robert Wagner.

contribute photographs to Harper’s Bazaar, Life, Look, The New York Times,

He died in 2004 at the age of eighty.

and Vogue. In the coming decades he had more than a hundred and twenty-five motion picture assignments, including The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Ocean’s Eleven (1960), My Fair Lady (1964), The Graduate (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and Rosemary’s Baby (1968). He photographed Frank Sinatra frequently, but the star with whom he was most commonly associated in his career was Audrey Hepburn.

In 1964, Willoughby devised a system of brackets to attach a radio-operated 35mm camera to a motion picture camera. This enabled him to shoot where other still photographers could not and to achieve stills identical to the motion picture footage.

He eventually made his home in Europe, buying a castle in Ireland (he published his own translations of classic Gaelic verse) and then moving to France.

He died in 2009 at the age of eighty-two.

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