Now, Rat Pack’s Down to One
The last living Rat Packer was holding court before reporters Friday at his bay-front home in Newport Beach, delivering his trademark one-liners amid touching memories about old friend Frank Sinatra.
Always the performer, Joey Bishop sat in his upstairs trophy room, surrounded by photographs of Dino, Sammy and the rest of the hip clique of ‘50s and ‘60s stars who have come to represent dry martinis and good times. A TV reporter setting up a shot asked the aging comic to sit on the couch, then inquired if he was comfortable. Bishop paused a beat, then cracked, “I make a good living.”
But there was tenderness, too, for an icon who remained loyal and true to his friend of 46 years. Bishop, 80 and trim, still remembers the first time he heard Frank Sinatra sing.
“I was working in Pittsburgh and it was, ‘I’ll Never Smile, Again.’ Do you know thatsong?. . . It was beautiful. A big song for him.” It remains his favorite Sinatra tune.
“Am I happy he’s dead? No,” Bishop said. “Am I happy he’s not suffering anymore? Yes. . . . You know the man is ill if he’s not performing anymore.”
Bishop, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Sinatra were the superstar gang who acted together in films and performed in Las Vegas at the famed Sands Hotel. All five starred in the 1961 film “Ocean’s Eleven,” perhaps the definitive Rat Pack movie. Onstage, the close-knit band sang and wisecracked with each other in a cool, boozy patter. Over the years, actors Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine and others drifted in and out of the pack, too. Sinatra was unquestionably the hub.
On Friday, Bishop spoke warmly of Sinatra, describing him as a man who was often unfairly portrayed in the media.
He offered some little-known stories he wouldn’t speak of prior to Sinatra’s death, saying that “we were sworn to secrecy” about Sinatra’s good deeds: Frank paid for the funeral of actor Bela Lugosi, bought a hungry man dinner after the fellow pawed potatoes off his restaurant plate, covered a $30,000 debt Lee Cobb owed a casino so the actor could return to Las Vegas, and wooed a suicidal fan from a hotel balcony with flowers and candy and then gave the girl’s parents tickets to his nightclub show and a signed glossy.
Bishop learned of his friend’s death in a peculiar way. He’d fallen asleep with the television on Thursday night. He thought he was dreaming that Sinatra had died and that he went to Sinatra’s house and asked his old friend, “Hey, you all right?” Bishop then awoke, the TV still on, to learn that his legendary crony was indeed gone.
And it was Sinatra’s death late Thursday that drew attention Friday to the waterfront abode Bishop shares with his wife, Sylvia.
By noon, stereophonic Joey beamed from TV screens in the front room and kitchen, featuring Bishop waxing sentimental about Sinatra in interviews taped earlier in the day. The telephone rang incessantly and Bishop tried to be nice while operating the TV remote, talking to a reporter and eyeing the press pack huddling on his front deck.
At one point, it appeared to be storybook hour as Bishop sat on his couch surrounded by writers and photographers. He was reading this passage from a paperback copy of the 1961 book “Sinatra and His Rat Pack,” page 71:
“Bishop is the only member of Sinatra’s gang who can tell The Leader what to do with himself and not only get away with it, but actually, incredibly enough, become more firmly entrenched in favor,” author Richard Gehman wrote.
Bishop said the ink the Rat Pack got was always about boozing and womanizing, but it was the women who chased Sinatra around. The Rat Packers did everything together, including traveling, hanging out at nightclubs, making movies, even campaigning for Lawford’s brother-in-law, John F. Kennedy. The drunken swagger of Dean Martin was also part of the act.
But wasn’t the whole Rat Pack mystique drenched in brown liquor? he was asked.
“I have never had a drop of liquor in my life, except for Passover, when I had four sips of wine,” Bishop reported several times during the day.
As he paced around his living room in a velour sweatsuit and sandals and talked and talked, huge yachts motored by his picture window.
He said he had last seen Sinatra about 18 months ago when they dined together in a restaurant. They talked by phone, however, whenever Bishop got news that Sinatra was ill. During one call to Sinatra’s sickbed, Bishop said he told the Chairman of the Board, “Frank, you got millions of fans. Whatever you got, they’re gonna want it.”
When it was mentioned a few years ago that Sinatra and Bishop were the last of the living Rat Packers, Bishop said he remarked, “Be quiet! Frank’s got connections.”
Naturally, Bishop said, he will miss Sinatra. But “I felt sorrier for Sammy Davis Jr., I felt sorrier for Peter Lawford’s death, because they were comparatively young.”
He said he felt worst knowing Sinatra was not himself anymore, and that his friend probably wasn’t happy about that.
“I called him about a year ago when I heard he was sick, and I said ‘Frank, if you’re just tired, and you’re not really sick, I will never speak to you again.’ I tried to only call him when I had something I thought would cheer him up. . . . The Rat Pack was all about fun, and illness isn’t fun. . . . I think he’s in heaven now and they’re happy he’s singin’ again.”