50 Fun Facts About Rat Pack

Who reportedly coined 'Rat Pack' at the sight of her husband and his friends after a Las Vegas binge?

Lauren Bacall's reported verdict was 'You look like a goddamn rat pack.' The name stuck: the friends turned themselves into a mock club with titled officers and made her its den mother.

Which actor took Frank Sinatra's role as Danny Ocean in the 2001 remake of Ocean's 11?

George Clooney led the 2001 remake, with Brad Pitt and Matt Damon in his crew. Its success turned a one-off Rat Pack caper into a series, with sequels in 2004 and 2007.

In the original Holmby Hills group, which office did Frank Sinatra hold?

Pack master was Sinatra's title in a mock club whose members handed out offices, with Judy Garland as first vice-president. Its stated purpose was drinking, laughing and staying up late.

Who led the original Rat Pack until his death in 1957, when Frank Sinatra took over?

Humphrey Bogart was the ringleader, hosting the circle at his Los Angeles home. After cancer killed him the original members drifted apart, until Sinatra rebuilt the group around his Las Vegas friends.

Which nickname for Frank Sinatra's 1960s circle fell from favor because of what it sounded like?

The Clan sounded too much like the Ku Klux Klan for Sammy Davis Jr., and Sinatra came to dislike it as well. He pushed 'the Summit' instead, but the press's 'Rat Pack' is what stuck.

Which Rat Pack member did Frank Sinatra cut off for good after a falling-out in 1962?

Peter Lawford took the blame when President Kennedy cancelled a 1962 stay at Sinatra's Palm Springs home, where a helipad had been built for the visit. Sinatra dropped him from the group's next films.

Which crooner took over the expelled member's intended role in Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)?

Bing Crosby had already stung Sinatra once: when President Kennedy cancelled a 1962 stay at Sinatra's Palm Springs home, he slept at Crosby's estate instead.

Which Republican president did Sammy Davis Jr. hug on stage at a campaign rally?

Richard Nixon got the hug in 1972, after Davis endorsed his re-election. Embracing Nixon cost Davis support among many Black Americans and liberals.

Which actress, 29 years his junior, did Frank Sinatra marry in 1966?

Mia Farrow was 21 to his 50. The marriage lasted two years: he had divorce papers served on her while she was filming Rosemary's Baby, the film that made her a star.

Which Sinatra song was rewritten as the theme for the 1960 Democratic presidential campaign?

High Hopes, Sinatra's Oscar-winning hit from the film A Hole in the Head, got new campaign words from its own lyricist, Sammy Cahn, including a line that spells out the candidate's surname.

In which Las Vegas hotel's Copa Room did the Rat Pack famously perform while filming Ocean's 11?

The Sands had made Sinatra a part-owner, and during the shoot the five took its stage each night once filming stopped. The hotel was imploded in 1996 to make way for the Venetian.

Which billionaire bought the Rat Pack's Las Vegas home base in 1967, the year Sinatra quit it in a fury?

Howard Hughes's hotel cut off Sinatra's casino credit that September. A casino executive punched the raging singer, who took his act down the Strip to Caesars Palace.

Which record label did Frank Sinatra found in 1960, soon signing Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.?

Reprise Records grew out of Sinatra's fight with Capitol over creative control and ownership of his master tapes. He tried to buy the jazz label Verve, then started his own and promised its artists that freedom.

On which sitcom did Sammy Davis Jr., playing himself, kiss the lead character on the cheek in 1972?

All in the Family built an episode around him: he leaves a briefcase in Archie Bunker's cab, calls at the house to collect it, and plants the kiss just as a photo is taken. Davis had asked to be on the show.

On which night does Danny Ocean's crew rob five casinos in Ocean's 11 (1960)?

New Year's Eve gives the crew its moment: at midnight a rigged power tower blows, the Strip goes dark, and they hold up the cashiers' cages before the lights come back.

How is the stolen money lost at the end of the 1960 Ocean's 11?

It is cremated in a coffin. To dodge a mobster demanding half, the gang hides the cash with a dead accomplice's body, and the funeral home burns both before they can get it back.

Which Dean Martin standard was written for him to sing in Ocean's 11 (1960)?

Ain't That a Kick in the Head flopped as a single in 1960 and missed the charts. Reissues and film soundtracks revived it decades later, and it was certified platinum in 2024.

The 1962 Rat Pack Western Sergeants 3 was a remake of which 1939 adventure film?

Gunga Din moved from British India to the American West, with Sammy Davis Jr. in the title character's place. The remake follows it closely with one change: this time the man who sounds the warning lives.

Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) moved the Robin Hood legend to the gangland of which Prohibition-era city?

Chicago's gang wars stand in for Sherwood Forest. Sinatra's bootlegger Robbo becomes a folk hero by accident, when money he won't keep is passed to an orphanage and the papers cheer.

Which Oscar-nominated song did Robin and the 7 Hoods introduce?

My Kind of Town lost the Oscar to 'Chim Chim Cher-ee' from Mary Poppins, yet it outlasted the film it was written for: Sinatra kept singing it on stage, and it turns up on his live albums of 1966 and 1974.

Which actress, Sinatra and Martin's co-star in Some Came Running (1958), did the Rat Pack treat as its 'mascot'?

Shirley MacLaine wrote that the men saw her as a mascot, a pal and 'maybe even one of the boys'. Her tipsy walk-on in Ocean's 11 was unbilled, done at her own request.

Who played Beatrice, Danny Ocean's wife, in Ocean's 11 (1960)?

Angie Dickinson had been a friend of Sinatra's since 1953. She later became a household name as Sergeant Pepper Anderson in Police Woman, a hit credited with a surge of women applying to join the police.

Dean Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio, with which surname?

Crocetti: Dino Crocetti had worked in steel mills, boxed and held a casino job before a Cleveland bandleader hired him as a singer. He took the name Dean Martin in 1940.

With which comedian did Dean Martin form his career-making double act in 1946?

Jerry Lewis and Martin lasted ten years as a team before splitting in 1956. Their public reunion came twenty years on, when Frank Sinatra walked Martin onto Lewis's telethon unannounced.

Which Beatles single did 'Everybody Loves Somebody' knock off No. 1 in August 1964?

A Hard Day's Night gave way on August 15, 1964, to a 47-year-old crooner singing a tune from 1947. It became the theme of Martin's NBC variety show, which ran for eight years.

From 1974 to 1984, Dean Martin presided over which NBC series?

A celebrity roast began as a feature of his variety show's final season and outlived it: the roasts ran on as NBC specials for another ten years.

How did Sammy Davis Jr. lose his left eye in 1954?

A car accident in the California desert nearly killed him at 28, on the drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Rather than end his career, the publicity around his return gave it a lift.

In what act did Sammy Davis Jr. perform as a child alongside his father?

The Will Mastin Trio took him on the road at three, after his parents split up, dancing beside his father and the man he called his uncle. Touring that young meant he never had any formal schooling.

What was Sammy Davis Jr.'s only No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100?

The Candy Man was a song Davis loathed: he called it 'horrible', cut his vocal in two takes and predicted it would sink his career. It gave him three weeks at No. 1 instead.

To which religion did Sammy Davis Jr. convert as an adult?

Judaism came to him through his friend Eddie Cantor and long talks while he was recovering in hospital, where he was struck by the parallels between Jewish and Black history.

Which secret agent did Dean Martin play in four 1960s spy spoofs, starting with The Silencers?

Matt Helm is a cold-blooded government assassin in Donald Hamilton's novels. Martin's films kept the name and little else, playing him for campy laughs in four spoofs between 1966 and 1968.

Who was the newcomer sidekick on Joey Bishop's ABC late-night talk show (1967–69)?

Regis Philbin got his first steady network exposure as Bishop's announcer and the target of his jokes. ABC built the show to take on Johnny Carson, and cancelled it at the end of 1969.

Frank Sinatra was born in which city in New Jersey?

Hoboken also named his first act: in 1935 he joined a local singing group that, as the Hoboken Four, won the radio talent show Major Bowes' Amateur Hour and went on tour.

For which 1953 film did Sinatra win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor?

From Here to Eternity rescued a career that had lost its record and film contracts. He had lobbied hard to play the doomed soldier Maggio, and the Oscar put him back on top.

Which Lake Tahoe casino resort did Frank Sinatra buy into in 1960?

Cal Neva Lodge got a new showroom under Sinatra, the Celebrity Room, and drew his fellow Rat Pack members along with stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Juliet Prowse.

Which member of the Sinatra family was kidnapped for ransom in December 1963?

Frank Sinatra Jr., a singer of 19, was seized at a casino where he was performing. His father paid the $240,000 ransom, the young man was freed unharmed, and the FBI soon caught the kidnappers and recovered most of the money.

In the 1998 HBO film The Rat Pack, who played Frank Sinatra?

Ray Liotta had the lead, but the honors went to the men beside him: the actors playing Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were both nominated for the same Golden Globe, and one of them won.

Which actor won a Golden Globe for playing Sammy Davis Jr. in HBO's The Rat Pack?

Don Cheadle won the award for his Davis. The real Davis campaigned for Kennedy, then was asked to stay away from the 1961 inaugural gala because of his marriage to a white actress.

In which 1959 Western did Dean Martin play Dude, the drunken deputy to John Wayne's sheriff?

Rio Bravo cast the easygoing crooner against type, as a former deputy who has drunk himself into the gutter and must sober up to help the sheriff hold his jail.

Who replaced Dean Martin when he quit the 1988 reunion tour with Sinatra and Davis after a few shows?

Liza Minnelli stepped in after Martin pulled out pleading ill health. The tour was renamed The Ultimate Event and carried on without him.

What tragedy befell Dean Martin in March 1987, a year before the reunion tour?

His son's fatal jet crash, on a military training flight, came on the California mountain where Sinatra's mother had died in a plane crash ten years earlier. Martin left the 1988 tour after a few shows and retired.

Sammy Davis Jr. earned a Tony nomination playing a boxer in which 1964 Broadway musical?

Golden Boy began as a Clifford Odets play about an Italian American fighter. The musical was built around Davis, with the hero rewritten as a Black boxer, and it brought him his Tony nomination.

Which film was the last time Sinatra, Martin and Davis shared the screen in a cinema release?

Cannonball Run II has Sinatra play himself: when gangsters seize one of the racers, the other drivers go to him for help, and he ends up joining the race.

What did Joey Bishop say in 1998 about the Rat Pack's reputation for drunken shows?

It was only a gag, he said: 'I never saw Frank, Dean, Sammy or Peter drunk during performances.' Martin's friends said the same of his tipsy act, and his glass was said to hold apple juice.

Which 1969 Sinatra anthem, with English words by Paul Anka, became his signature song?

My Way began as a French hit, 'Comme d'habitude', which Anka refitted for him. His daughter Tina said he came to loathe it as self-serving, but the song stuck and he could not shake it off.

In Ocean's 11 (1960), which military unit did Danny Ocean's crew serve in during World War II?

The 82nd Airborne is where Danny Ocean was a sergeant. He rounds up his old paratroopers because the robbery needs split-second timing, and he runs it like a military operation.

In Ocean's 11, Sammy Davis Jr.'s character sneaks the loot out in what?

A garbage truck: his Josh Howard works as a sanitation man, so the crews dump their takings in the casinos' bins and he simply collects them on his round.

What does Danny Ocean's beaten crew file past in the closing shot of Ocean's 11 (1960)?

A casino marquee: the sign bills Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Lawford and Bishop, an in-joke about the stage show the five were giving each night of the shoot.

Who played Dean Martin in HBO's 1998 film The Rat Pack?

Joe Mantegna's Dean Martin brought him Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. At the Globes he lost to a castmate from the same film, nominated in the same category.

Sergeants 3 (1962) was shot in red-rock canyon country around the town of Kanab, in which state?

Utah's Kanab had hosted so many Westerns that it was nicknamed Little Hollywood. Sergeants 3 also shot at nearby Paria, a ghost town whose canyon backdrop had drawn film crews since the 1940s.