The Rat Pack is Back

Do you remember the Rat Pack? Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford

The Rat Pack was the name given to a few choice friends of Frank Sinatra who performed and caroused with him in the early 1960s.

The Rat Pack was never an official title -- the name is said to have been borrowed from a group of drinking buddies of Humphrey Bogart who were dubbed a "rat pack" by Bogart's wife Lauren Bacall. But the name stuck to Sinatra's gang, and nostalgia for the Rat Pack only seems to increase as time goes by.

The Pack's high-water mark came in 1960, when the group hit Las Vegas to make the spoofy heist film Ocean's Eleven. Sinatra and chums filmed during the day, did two live shows nightly at The Sands, and drew crowds and publicity wherever they went.

Last night Don and I were taken back to the sixties to see a Las Vegas show featuring Rat Pack look alikes and sound alikes at the Seneca Allegany Casino.
  Up on a smoky stage the boys sang and joked amid drinking and cigarette smoking. The lighting and costumes were first rate and made the show even more enjoyable. They even featured a woman singer who could really belt out a tune. It was a fun evening.
    Before the performance we had dinner with my friends Yrsa and Charlie at Meyer’s steak house in Salamanca. I dined on a Tuscan chicken dish while Don had a delicious Prime Rib.
   What a great way to spend a Saturday night.