It’s hard to imagine the culture of cigars without some of its most famous members: The Rat Pack. Known for alcohol, casinos, women, mob ties, and stogies, the Rat Pack was a group of Hollywood superstars who did everything in excess. Leaving no vice unturned, they were known as the rulers of Vegas, the raisers of Hell, the biggest indulgers, and the setters of culturist trends.
While Frank Sinatra is generally credited with being the leader of the Rat Pack, it actually began with Humphrey Bogart when he served as the common tie in a group of friends who frequently partied together. The term "Rat Pack" is rumored to have been coined by Bogart’s wife, Lauren Bacall, when she saw this group of red-eyed, tired, drunken friends after a five-night party binge in Las Vegas and stated that they looked like a "Rat Pack." Others believe the term came from the Holmby Hills Rat Pack, a group of many of the same people who typically partied at Judy Garland’s house. From a scientific perspective, it is believed that the term "Rat Pack" was adopted because of the biological law where rats reject outsiders. Wherever the name was derived, it stuck, adhering to the group and to pop culture forever.
Though the Rat Pack is thought of as a pseudo-traveling gentlemen’s club, it did include women. Shirley MacLaine, Lauren Bacall, and Judy Garland were all involved to some degree. However, when Humphrey Bogart died, Frank Sinatra took over and many of the original group was no longer affiliated with the pack. At Sinatra’s hands, the Rat Pack eventually included a variety of others. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr., and Joey Bishop are typically thought of as its most famous troupe.
While many of the members of the Rat Pack where often associated with each other, appearing together on film and in concerts and skits, each person involved was also famous in his own right. Frank Sinatra, or Old Blue Eyes, was known as one of the greatest singers of all time, sitting near Elvis Presley and the Beatles on the spectrum of musical greatness. He was known as living larger than life and making sure things were done to his liking, a desire he epitomized in his classic song My Way. Dean Martin was also known as one of the finest singers of his time. His acting abilities and his comedic sense of timing left him permanently imbedded in pop culture as well. Sammy Davis Jr. was a man of many talents, a virtual renaissance man of the arts. He was an actor, a comedian, a musician, a singer, an impressionist, and a tap dancer. Peter Lawford was not only famous for his acting talents - taking roles in several highly acclaimed films - but also for his family relations; John F. Kennedy was his brother-in-law. Joey Bishop was a comedian who served as the straight man in Rat Pack performances. He also holds the honor of hosting The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson more times than anyone else.
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Article comments
1 - EJS
Your two versions of the origin of the term "Rat Pack" are really the same. Bogart and Bacall lived in Holmby Hills (on S. Mapleton Drive). The "Pack" would gather at their house, and for this reason Bacall took to calling them the "Holmby Hills Rat Pack", which later became "Rat Pack". As far as I know, Judy Garland did not live in Holmby Hills.
2 - Heloise
Nice article. But since you also focus on cigars here is some trivia: JFK order like 2,000 of Cuba's best cigars before he closed down the trade between the two countries--still in effect today.
Jack has famous photos with a cigar dangling from his mouth in many, many photos. I wonder who influenced whom in terms of smoking them. In a former life he rolled his own.
Thanks.
Heloise