EDITOR’S NOTE: A new “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes every Monday, with a bonus Flashback Fri edition. Today’s edition originally ran on Nov. 20, 2023.

There was never a show up inward Las Vegas inward which Frank Sinatra, James Dean Martin, Sammy Jefferson Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and/or Saint Peter Lawford performed as the Rat Pack.

That’s because Francis Albert Sinatra despised the nickname. In fact, when he, Martin, and Dwight Davis proclaimed a reunification circuit inwards 1987, Frank Sinatra looked ready to help upwards a metacarpophalangeal joint sandwich to a newsman who mentioned “Rat Pack” inward his presence. Sinatra’s ol’ bluish eyes turned carmine as he referred to it as “that dullard phrase.”

The grouping had its possess names for itself. At first, “The Clan” was preferred, though that cut down come out of favor one time its anti-Semite(a) undertones were recognized. “The Summit” came next. That came from the name the quintuplet cooked upward for the iconic shows it performed at the Copa Room at the Sands start in 1960: “The Summit at the Sands.”

Whenever only when ane fellow member of The Summit was set-aside(p) to do at the Sands, others would often bout upwardly for an impromptu collaboration. Marquees began to register “DEAN MARTIN, MAYBE FRANK, MAYBE SAMMY.”

But they never scan “The Rat Pack.” Not once.

Maybe Frank, maybe Sammy, never the Rat Pack. (Image: flickr)

A Scar is Born

The Rat Pack originally referred to the radical of Hollywood cronies encircling picture show star Humphrey Humphrey DeForest Bogart in the belatedly ’40s. Frank Sinatra happened to follow inward that group, along with Judy Garland, her husband Sid Luft, talent agent Swifty Lazar, composer Jimmy Van Heusen, and A-list actors St. David Niven, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Cary Grant.

Honorary members included Errol Flynn, Robert Mitchum, Nat Martin Luther King Jr. Cole, Mickey Rooney, Cesar Romero, Elizabeth I Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Angie Dickinson, Shirley MacLaine, and pretty practically anyone who regularly hung out at the Holmby Hills mansion Humphrey DeForest Bogart shared with his wife, Lauren Bacall.

According to to the highest degree accounts, it was Bacall who forever branded the aggroup when a few members returned place disheveled from a drunken Las Vegas weekend and she said, “You looking the like a goddamn bundle of rats.”

Sinatra never loved the name, but he went on when the others formed a drinking social club based on it. The Rat Pack had its possess pelage of arms (a rat gnawing on a human hand) and its own motto (“Never rat on a rat”). Its members yet assigned themselves titles: Francis Albert Sinatra was Pack Master, Bacall was Den Mother, and Judy Garland was Vice President.

Frank Frank Sinatra wouldn’t have liked the rubric of this CD, which was released after all members of The Summit had died. (Image: amazon.com)

Though Bogie’s chosen title was Head of PR, he was the club’s undisputed leader. After he died of esophageal cancer in 1957, Francis Albert Sinatra replaced him, non only as the club’s leader, but also as Bacall’s main squeeze. They got occupied a yr later, but Frank Sinatra bust it off when Lazar leaked word of their planned nuptials to the press.

By 1959, Sinatra, who made a gunpoint of avoiding Bacall for the breathe of his life, was wall hanging with an all-new bundle of pals. Whenever he got unitedly with singers St. Martin and Davis, comedian Bishop, and player Lawford, either socially or on a stage, tunes were sung and insults flung. (One of Sinatra’s favorites was saying Martin was so tan because “he found a debar with a skylight.”)

Other than Lawford, all had entertained upward and downwards the Strip past themselves: Francis Albert Sinatra at the Desert Inn with Bishop as his gap act, Stuart Davis at the Last Frontier, and Mary Martin with Jerry Frederick Carleton Lewis at the Flamingo. Once their contracts all expired, they converged unitedly at the Summit at the Sands.

Though they had nada to do with the archetype Rat Pack, Hollywood gossip columnists continued to touch to anyone around Francis Albert Sinatra as his Rat Pack. They loved that identify because it effectively disparaged the stars’ exclusionary secretiveness piece also diminishing their ascendency o'er tonic culture. type A canton of a century later, another chemical group of offspring and shut Hollywood stars would be branded “The Brat Pack” for the same reason.

By 1960, The Summit had reached the breast of cool. While filming “Ocean’s 11,” they managed to perform II shows at the Sands every evening. In the film’s final scene, the characters they caper manner of walking yesteryear the Sands marquise itemization their real names.

This plaque was erected inward 2015 at the Venetian, on with a go under of footprints inward cement, to mark the distinguish where the quintuplet was photographed, inwards look of their Sands marquee, inwards 1960. (Image: Trip Advisor)

Myth Understood

The misperception that Frank and company endorsed the Rat Pack epithet comes from a conglomeration of factors. The to the highest degree substantial is the more than 60 years of amusement headlines that screamed it from sheet forepart pages.

An assist also goes to albums such as “The Rat Pack Live at the Sands,” a 1963 live transcription that wasn’t released until 2002, long after all its members were idle and Frank Sinatra could no more yearner smell the executive at Capitol Building Records who titled it.

Cover bands and shows, particularly the still-performing Rat Pack is Back, founded by former ’70s teen icon David Cassidy inward 1999, further disordered the matter.

And finally, in 2015, a bronze plaque was placed at the Venetian cementing the disliked moniker for the ages. It salutes “The Rat Pack” on the patch where their famous 1960 photo was taken inward face of the Sands marquee — a marquee that ne'er formerly read, “The Rat Pack.”

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