The stark stage for the Judy Garland Show, 1962. This "special" in 1962 guest starred Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and was nominated for 4 Emmy Awards. Her TV "comeback" was hailed as a massive triumph by public and critics and was watched in over 12 million homes. It was directed by Norman Jewison.
Text: Shawn Levy, from The Rat Pack
Photo: Bob Willoughby
He was the Little Engine That Could of showbiz, the Jackie Robinson of showbiz, the Sputnik of showbiz—choose your metaphor. A tiny bit of a man stuffed to brimming-over with talent, drive and verve, Sammy Davis Jr. was going to break into the consciousness of the world and make sure it remembered him if it killed him, which, quite often, it seemed very nearly capable of doing... But for all the curses he was born with—and those that came to him later, like his choice of religion or of women to love, or the awful car accident which cost him an eye and nearly his life—he had more gifts and more energy with which to express them than any man whom any audience had ever seen.
Text: Shawn Levy, from The Rat Pack
Photo: Sid Avery
As calculating an effort as was ever conceived in Hollywood, Ocean's Eleven was a workmanly caper movie graced by a lack of self-importance and yet not nearly as much fun to watch as it was, evidently, to make. They knew what they were doing. If the final product was never going to stand among the great crime films—comic or dramatic—it was peppered with enough moments of interest and energy to keep audiences happy. Made for a budget of approximately .2 million, it grossed nearly million by the end of the decade, and it gave rise to a smash hit remake and two sequels forty years later.
Text: Shawn Levy, from The Rat Pack
Photo: Sid Avery
In some ways, he was the essence of the Rat Pack and the things they symbolized: sauciness, booziness, a cynical shrug at the pomposities of affluence, power and culture, a tweak of the noses of authority and conformity and the done-thing. He got away with it because of his talents, yes, and because of his natural grace, but he got away with it, too, because he truly didn't care if he was granted favors or not. His cool went all the way to his heart, and it was the reason they all loved him.
Text: Shawn Levy, from The Rat Pack
Photo: Sid Avery
Frank had things to prove in the world, had holes of loneliness inside his heart to fill, had a dullard of a father whose spoor he needed to erase and the monkey of his mother's interfering nature to shake from his back. Dean was more comfortable in his own skin, maybe more so than anyone who ever lived, and he seemed drawn to achievement not because he burned to make a name for himself but because it came to him so easily and it paid so fantastically well—and in currencies beyond money, too.
Text: Shawn Levy, from The Rat Pack
Photo: Bob Willoughby
This photo was taken on the day the Polaroid camera was released. It shows the incredible access granted to certain photographers, "specials", into the private lives of the Rat Pack. Until now, nobody outside family and business associates has seen shots like this of Sinatra, Lawford, his wife, and Marilyn Monroe, taken in Frank's house.
Text: Shawn Levy, from The Rat Pack
Photo: Bernie Abramson
Two singers, two stools, two cigarettes. All they needed. This photo, from another TV special, shows Sinatra and Martin. Of the two, Dean was the one who excelled on the small screen. In fact, it was Dean who truly owned TV-in part because Dean, of them all, was the most content just to sit there and be. He had learned while standing beside the dervish that was Jerry Lewis that he could come off as confident, familiar and content simply by maintaining an easeful stillness and tossing off the occasional bon mot.
Text: Shawn Levy, from The Rat Pack
Photo: Gerald Smith
The only time it was ever serious was when Frank sang. Dean and Sammy would maybe be allowed to squeeze in a single straight song-maybe-and it would be warmly received. But when Frank sang, a stillness befitting a cathedral came upon them. He was the most dramatic, the most serious, and, yes, the most gifted. You can imagine his entire singing career unchanged in a world in which Dean and Sammy never crooned a note, but not vice versa, no, never. He was the sine qua non of the art, the style, the times. They were silver poets; he was Apollo.
Text: Shawn Levy, from The Rat Pack
Photo: Gene Howard
Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, 1960, during the filming of Ocean's Eleven.
Photo copyright Bob Willoughby/mptvimages.com
Marilyn Monroe, 1961, with her dog Maf Honey at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Studio reps told the photographer he had 10 minutes to get his shots of Marilyn—but she demurred, "You have as long as you want; they're my pictures, not theirs."
Photo copyright Eric Skipsey/mptvimages.com
