Rat Pack Confidential
The first biography of the Rat Pack – Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop et al – the original Swingers. Brilliant and beautifully written story of their rise and fall, and their connections with the Kennedys and the Mafia.
They alit in Las Vegas for a month to make a movie and play a historic nightclub gig they called the Summit; they hit Miami, the Utah desert, Palm Springs, Chicago, Atlantic City, Beverly Hills, Hollywood back lots, illegal gambling dens, saloons, yachts, private jets, the White House itself.
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.
It was Frank and Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin and Peter Lawford for a while and Joey Bishop when they asked him and Jack Kennedy and Sam Giancana and tables full of cronies and who knew how many broads.
It was the ultimate spasm of traditional showbiz – both the last and the most of its kind.
It was the Rat Pack.
It was beautiful.
‘Rat Pack Confidential’ – you’re never far from a cocktail, a swingin’ affair and a fist-fight.
Shawn Levy is the author of King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, Movieline, Film Comment, and Pulse! He is a former senior editor of American Film.