The coolest era in Las Vegas history began on the night of January 20th, 1960, when Dean Martin was performing onstage in the lavish Copa Room of the Sands Casino and was joined onstage by Frank Sinatra to sing “Sleep Warm.”  That same year, five entertainer friends – Martin, Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and the comedian Joey Bishop – appeared together in Vegas-based heist film Ocean’s Eleven and became known as the Rat Pack.  (Nobody knows who came up the name, which suggests a raffish, irreverent and tightly-knit group).

Throughout the 1960s, the group would return to the Sands for a series of classic performances that would firmly establish Las Vegas as the entertainment capital of the US.  Whenever one member was booked to perform, the others would often turn up for impromptu joint show – marquees began to read DEAN MARTIN, MAYBE FRANK, MAYBE SAMMY — and the sold-out audiences would be sprinkled with Hollywood goddesses from Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland and Angie Dickinson, as well as political aristocrats like the Kennedys (the Rat Pack members campaigned for JFK, and helped desegregate Las Vegas, refusing to appear in hotels that did not allow African-American performers).

The group’s popularity began to wane at the end of the 1960s as rock and roll gained momentum and the Rat Pack was seen as too “straight,” but nostalgia for the era has led to a revival of interest in recent years with, for example, a hit remake of Ocean’s Eleven starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, plus sequels Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen.  Visitors to Las Vegas in search of the iconic Copa Room, however, will look in vain: The Sands Hotel was demolished in 1996 to make room for The Venetian.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 8:45 am and is filed under United States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.