Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party

Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party
by Shawn Levy

Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party
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Book Summary Information

Author: Shawn Levy
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-07-20
ISBN: 0385495765
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Main Street Books
Product features:

Book Reviews of Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party

Book Review: Kitty Kelly Rehash
Summary: 2 Stars

The only reason I gave this a generous 2 stars is for the novelty of the one or two anecdotes that I haven't read before. Other than that, if you have read any of the billion books on FS and/or the Rat Pack, you have read all of this time and time again. Shawn Levy must have spent most of his time xeroxing pages from "My Way" by Kitty Kelly as every incident, quote, etc., that she had in her book is here AGAIN. There is always going to be some overlap in these types of books, but there is so much carbon copy in this one, Mr. Levy should be ashamed of himself. Good for those getting their feet wet in Rat Pack lore and gossip I suppose, but a waste of time for anyone who knows more than 4 Sinatra/Dino/Sammy songs.

Summary of Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party

For the first time, the full story of what happened when Frank brought his best pals to party in a land called Vegas

January 1960. Las Vegas is at its smooth, cool peak. The Strip is a jet-age theme park, and the greatest singer in the history of American popular music summons a group of friends there to make a movie. One is an insouciant singer of Italian songs, ex-partner to the most popular film comedian of the day. One is a short, black, Jewish, one-eyed, singing, dancing wonder. One is an upper-crust British pretty boy turned degenerate B-movie star actor, brother-in-law to an ascendant politician. And one is a stiff-shouldered comic with the quintessential Borscht Belt emcee's knack for needling one-liners. The architectonically sleek marquee of the Sands Hotel announces their presence simply by listing their names: FRANK SINATRA. DEAN MARTIN. SAMMY DAVIS, JR. PETER LAWFORD. JOEY BISHOP. Around them an entire cast gathers: actors, comics, singers, songwriters, gangsters, politicians, and women, as well as thousands of starstruck everyday folks who fork over pocketfuls of money for the privilege of basking in their presence. They call themselves The Clan. But to an awed world, they are known as The Rat Pack.

They had it all. Fame. Gorgeous women. A fabulouse playground of a city and all the money in the world. The backing of fearsome crime lords and the blessing of the President of the United States. But the dark side-over the thin line between pleasure and debauchery, between swinging self-confidence and brutal arrogance-took its toll. In four years, their great ride was over, and showbiz was never the same.

Acclaimed Jerry Lewis biographer Shawn Levy has written a dazzling portrait of a time when neon brightness cast sordid shadows. It was Frank's World, and we just lived in it.


If you're not inclined to read individual biographies of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr., Shawn Levy's Rat Pack Confidential is a perfect one-stop resource. Less a group biography than a series of impressionistic snapshots, the book is loaded with can't-miss material--the dirt on the making of Ocean's Eleven, information about Sinatra's wild stint as a casino owner, deep background on Peter Lawford's habit of introducing Jack Kennedy to glamorous starlets, wiretap transcripts of mobsters Sam Giancana and Johnny Formosa discussiong Dean Martin's lack of respect.

Levy, whose previous book, King of Comedy, is a serious consideration of Jerry Lewis's life and career, offers similarly well considered insights into the members of the Rat Pack. He covers Davis's lifelong struggle against racism and the complicated intertwinings of the Kennedy political machine and "the Clan," as the performers preferred to be called (they often denied anything like the Rat Pack even existed and resisted collective references).

The book's debts to its predecessors are often apparent; much of the material on Sinatra's friendship with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, for example, appears to have been gleaned from recent Bogart biographies. The writing style, which tries to capture the ring-a-ding-ding feel of the era, also owes serious debts to Nick Tosches by way of James Ellroy, while only intermittently reaching their level of mastery. But these are minor quibbles. As a synthesis of thirty years worth of journalism and celebrity biography, Rat Pack Confidential succeeds in portraying the supernova blowout of old-school showbiz in all its dazzling glory.

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