The Sands Hotel was a historic Las Vegas Strip hotel/casino that operated from December 15, 1952 to June 30, 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, the Sands was the seventh resort that opened on the Strip.

During its heyday, the Sands was the center of entertainment and "cool" on the Strip, and hosted many famous entertainers of the day. Regulars were able to mingle with the stars in the lounge after their late-night shows. In its time, the Sands was located next door to the Desert Inn. The two adjacent properties were once owned by reclusive businessman Howard Hughes in the mid-1960s. Today, The Venetian stands where the Sands once stood.^[2]

History[link]

The hotel first began as just a casino with a few hundred rooms. The hotel was designed by architect Wayne McAllister. It was founded by Jakie Freedman of Houston, Texas, grandfather of Houston socialite Carolyn Farb. In the late 1950s, Senator John F. Kennedy was occasionally a guest of Frank Sinatra at the Sands.

Arguably the hotel's biggest claim to fame was a three-week period in 1960 during the filming of Ocean's 11. During that time, the movie's stars Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford performed on stage together in the Copa Room. The performances were called the "Summit at the Sands" and is considered to be the birth of the Rat Pack. Sinatra would also own a stake in the Sands for a time.^[3]

In the 1950s, (limited) integration came to heavily segregated Las Vegas when the Sands allowed Nat King Cole to stay at the hotel and gamble in the casino. In the 60s, Sammy Davis, Jr. convinced the Sands to hire more African-Americans, and to allow them into the casino.

When Howard Hughes purchased the hotel in the mid-1960s, architect Martin Stern, Jr added a 500-room circular tower in 1967 and the hotel became a Vegas landmark. Kirk Kerkorian (MGM) bought the hotel in 1988, and seven months later in 1989 it was purchased by the owners of The Interface Group - Sheldon Adelson, Richard Katzeff, Ted Cutler, Irwin Chafetz, and Jordan Shapiro.

In its final years, the Sands became a shadow of its former self—a throwback to the old days, and it ultimately could not compete with the newer and more exciting megaresorts that were being built on the Strip. The decision was eventually made by its final owner, Sheldon Adelson, to shut it down and to build a brand new resort. On November 26, 1996, it was imploded^[4] and demolished much to the dismay of longtime employees and sentimentalists. The Las Vegas scenes of Con Air were filmed at the Sands prior to its demolition.

With the Sands gone, its casino chips are now valuable collector's items due to the casino's musical history, with the average $1.00 chip fetching around $30.00. Some rarer chips reach hundreds of dollars, and sometimes over $1,000.00^{[citation needed]}.

Film history[link]

The 1960 film Ocean's 11 was filmed here. Footage of the demolition also appeared in the closing credits of The Cooler. The climactic plane crash in 1997's Con Air wound up with the aircraft crashing into the soon-to-be-demolished Sands' lobby.

Musical legacy[link]

Dean Martin ("Live At The Sands - An Evening of Music, Laughter and Hard Liquor") Frank Sinatra (Sinatra at the Sands), Sammy Davis, Jr. (The Sounds of '66, That's All!), Tommy Sands, Nat King Cole and Count Basie (a posthumous set, also recorded during the Sinatra at the Sands stand) were among those who recorded live albums at the Sands. The albums feature credits to many of the musicians who performed on the albums and at the Copa and to band leader, producer, and musical conductor Antonio Morelli who appeared on hundreds of such albums by these artists throughout the 1950s and 60s.

Morrissey's b-side track, "At Amber" (1990) takes place at the Sands Hotel, and recounts its by-then aging and somewhat seedy atmosphere.

Legends of the Copa Room[link]

The greatest names in the entertainment industry graced the Copa Room Stage (the showroom at the Sands, named after the famed Copacabana Club in New York City) including Judy Garland, Lena Horne, (she was billed at the Sands as "The Satin Doll"), Jimmy Durante, Pat Cooper, Shirley MacLaine, Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, Shecky Greene, Martin and Lewis, Danny Thomas, Bobby Darin, Rich Little, Louis Armstrong, Robert Merrill, Wayne Newton, Red Skelton, and along with "The Copa Girls". These were only a few of the legendary entertainers to not only perform at the Sands, but in all the showrooms along the Strip, from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. The public could sit ringside in a showroom holding no more than five hundred, paying as little as three dollars in the 1950s up to $25.50 in the early 90s. Much of the musical success of the Copa Room is credited to the room's band leader and musical conductor Antonio Morelli. Morelli not only acted as the band leader and musical conductor for the Copa Room during the Hotel's Rat Pack heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, he also played that role on hundreds of recorded albums by those same entertainers who graced the stage of the Copa including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, and many others. Oftentimes the festivities would carry over after hours to Morrelli's home in Las Vegas, nicknamed "The Morelli House", which was eventually relocated and sanctioned an historical landmark by the State of Nevada.^[5]

The Sands is also the place where Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys performed the Rock 'n' Roll-song "Hound Dog", and they were seen by Elvis Presley. After Presley saw that performance at The Sands, he decided to record the song himself, and it became a hit for him.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Photo gallery of the last day of operation at the Sands Hotel - June 30th, 1996
• The Sands Hotel on a post card in the fifties.
• 1967 Tower architect Martin Stern, Jr.
• Video of Tower Implosion
• Sands Hotel Macao

Coordinates: 36°07′17″N 115°10′08″W / 36.12139°N 115.16889°W / 36.12139; -115.16889

The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop, who appeared together on stage and in films in the early-1960s, including the movie Ocean's 11.^[1] Sinatra, Martin and Davis were regarded as the group's lead members.^[2][3]

1950s[link]

Humphrey Bogart, original leader

The name "The Rat Pack" was first used to refer to a group of friends in New York.^[4][5] Several explanations have been offered for the famous name over the years. According to one version, the group's original "Den Mother," Lauren Bacall, after seeing her husband (Bogart) and his friends return from a night in Las Vegas, said words to the effect of "You look like a goddamn rat pack."^[4] "Rat Pack" may also be a shortened version of "Holmby Hills Rat Pack", a reference to the home of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall^[4][5] which served as a regular hangout.

Visiting members included Errol Flynn, Nat King Cole, Mickey Rooney and Cesar Romero.

According to Stephen Bogart, the original members of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack were:Frank Sinatra (pack master), Judy Garland (first vice-president), Bacall (den mother), Sid Luft (cage master), Bogart (rat in charge of public relations), Swifty Lazar (recording secretary and treasurer), Nathaniel Benchley (historian), David Niven, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, and Jimmy Van Heusen.^[4][5] In his autobiography The Moon's a Balloon, David Niven confirms that the Rat Pack originally included him but not Sammy Davis, Jr. or Dean Martin.

1960s[link]

The 1960s version of the group included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and for a brief stint, Norman Fell.^{[citation needed]} Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson, Juliet Prowse, and Shirley MacLaine were often referred to as the "Rat Pack Mascots"^{[citation needed]}. The post-Bogart version of the group (Bogart died in 1957) was reportedly never called that name by any of its members — they called it the Summit or the Clan. "The Rat Pack" was a term used by journalists and outsiders, although it remains the lasting name for the group.

Often, when one of the members was scheduled to give a performance, the rest of the Pack would show up for an impromptu show, causing much excitement among audiences, resulting in return visits. They sold out almost all of their appearances, and people would come pouring into Las Vegas, sometimes sleeping in cars and hotel lobbies when they could not find rooms, just to be part of the Rat Pack entertainment experience. The Rat Pack's appearances were unprecedentedly valuable because the city would always become flooded with high rollers, wealthy gamblers who would routinely leave substantial fortunes in the casinos' coffers. The marquees of the hotels at which they were performing as individuals would read, for example, "DEAN MARTIN - MAYBE FRANK - MAYBE SAMMY" as seen on a Sands Hotel sign.

Jack Paar and John F. Kennedy on The Tonight Show in 1960

Peter Lawford was a brother-in-law of President John F. Kennedy (dubbed "Brother-in-Lawford" by Sinatra),^[6] and the group played a role in campaigning for him and the Democrats, appearing at the July 11, 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.^[7] Lawford had asked Sinatra if he would have Kennedy as a guest at his Palm Springs house in March 1963, and Sinatra went to great lengths (including the construction of a helipad) to accommodate the President.^[8] When Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy advised his brother to sever his ties to Sinatra because of the entertainer's association with Mafia figures such as Sam Giancana, the stay was cancelled.^[9] Kennedy instead chose to stay at rival Bing Crosby's estate, which further infuriated Sinatra.^[10] Lawford was blamed for this, and Sinatra "never again had a good word for (him)" from that point onwards.^[11] Lawford's role in the upcoming 4 for Texas was written out, and his part in Robin and the 7 Hoods was given to Bing Crosby.^[10]

On June 20, 1965, Sinatra, Martin, and Davis, with Johnny Carson as the emcee (substituting for Bishop, who was out with a bad back), performed their only televised concert together during the heyday of the Pack at the Kiel Opera House in St. Louis, a closed-circuit broadcast done as a fundraiser for Dismas House (the first halfway house for ex-convicts) and fed live to movie theatres across the country. Thirty years later Paul Brownstein tracked down a print of the "lost" show in a St. Louis closet after someone noticed mysterious cameras onstage during a CBS documentary on Sinatra which filmed part of the show. It has since been broadcast on Nick at Night (in 1998) as part of The Museum of Television & Radio Showcase series^[12] and released on DVD as part of the Ultimate Rat Pack Collection: Live & Swingin.

Later years[link]

In 1981, Martin and Davis appeared together in the film Cannonball Run, and were joined by Sinatra in the sequel Cannonball Run II. This would be the last time that the three would appear in a movie together. (Shirley MacLaine also appears in the latter film).

Revival[link]

In December 1987, at Chasen's restaurant in Los Angeles, Sinatra, Davis, and Martin announced a 29 date tour, called Together Again, sponsored by HBO and American Express. At the press conference to announce the tour, Martin joked about calling the tour off, and Sinatra rebuked a reporter for using the term "Rat Pack," referring to it as "that stupid phrase".^[13]

Dean Martin's son, Dean Paul Martin, had died in a plane crash in March 1987 on the San Gorgonio Mountain in California, the same mountain where Sinatra's mother, Dolly, had been killed in a plane crash ten years earlier. Martin had since become increasingly dependent on alcohol and prescription drugs. Davis had had hip replacement surgery two years previously, and been estranged from Sinatra because of [Davis'] use of cocaine.^[14] Davis was also experiencing severe financial difficulties, and was promised by Sinatra's people that he could earn between six and eight million dollars from the tour.^[15]

Martin had not made a film or recorded since 1984, and Sinatra felt that the tour would be good for Martin, telling Davis, "I think it would be great for Dean. Get him out. For that alone it would be worth doing".^[16] Sinatra and Davis still performed regularly, yet had not recorded for several years. Both Sinatra and Martin had made their last film appearances together, in 1984's Cannonball Run II, a film which also starred Davis. This marked the trio's first feature film appearance since 1964's Robin and the 7 Hoods. Martin expressed reservations about the tour, wondering whether they could draw as many people as they had in the past. After private rehearsals, at one of which Sinatra and Davis had complained about the lack of black musicians in the orchestra,^[15] the tour began at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on March 13, 1988.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

To a sold-out crowd of 14,500,^[16] Davis opened the show, followed by Martin and then Sinatra; after an interval, the three performed a medley of songs. During the show, Martin threw a lighted cigarette at the audience;^[17] this, coupled with his increasingly blasé attitude to the tour and his frustration with Sinatra's anger over hotel accommodations in Chicago, led to his leaving the tour after only four performances. Martin cited 'kidney problems' as the reason for his departure. Eliot Weisman, Sinatra's representative, suggested replacing Martin with his client, Liza Minnelli. With Minnelli, the tour was called The Ultimate Event, and continued internationally to great success.

Davis's associate recalled Sinatra's people skimming the top of the revenues from the concerts, as well as stuffing envelopes full of cash into suitcases after the performances.^[18] Eliot Weisman had already been convicted of skimming, the act of taking money before it has been accounted for taxation purposes, after a series of Sinatra performances at the Westchester Premier Theatre in 1976, eventually being sentenced to six years in prison for the offence.^[19] In August 1989, after Davis experienced throat pain, he was diagnosed with throat cancer; he would die of the disease in May 1990. Davis was buried with a gold watch that Sinatra had given him at the conclusion of The Ultimate Event Tour.^[20]

A 1989 performance of The Ultimate Event in Detroit was recorded and shown on Showtime the following year as a tribute to the recently deceased Davis. A review in The New York Times praised Davis's performance, describing him as "pure, ebullient, unapologetic show business."^[21]

Deaths[link]

Peter Lawford

Concerning the group's reputation for womanizing and heavy drinking, Joey Bishop stated in a 1998 interview: "I never saw Frank, Dean, Sammy, or Peter drunk during performances. That was only a gag! And do you believe these guys had to chase broads? They had to chase 'em away!^[22] "

• Peter Lawford died on December 24, 1984, of cardiac arrest complicated by kidney and liver failure at the age of 61.^[23]
• Sammy Davis, Jr. died at the age of 64 on May 16, 1990, of complications from throat cancer.
• Dean Martin died at home on Christmas morning, December 25, 1995, aged 78.
• Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, at the age of 82.
• Joey Bishop, the last surviving and longest-lived (89) Rat Pack member, died on October 17, 2007.

Films[link]

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra (1958)

• It Happened in Brooklyn (1947) (Sinatra, Lawford)
• Some Came Running (1958) (Sinatra, Martin, and MacLaine)
• Never So Few (1959) (Sinatra, Lawford, and initially Davis, who was replaced by Steve McQueen)
• Ocean's 11 (1960) (Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Lawford, and Bishop)
• Sergeants 3 (1962) (Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Lawford, and Bishop)
• 4 for Texas (1963) (Sinatra and Martin)
• Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) (Sinatra, Martin, Davis, and initially Lawford, who was replaced by Bing Crosby)
• Marriage on the Rocks (1965) (Sinatra and Martin)
• Texas Across the River (1966) (Martin and Bishop)
• Salt and Pepper (1968) (Davis and Lawford)
• One More Time (1970) (Davis and Lawford)
• The Cannonball Run (1981) (Martin and Davis)
• Cannonball Run II (1984) (Sinatra, Martin, Davis, and MacLaine)

MacLaine also had a major role (and Sinatra a cameo) in the 1956 Oscar-winning film Around the World in Eighty Days. MacLaine played a Hindu princess who is rescued by, and falls in love with, original Rat Pack member David Niven, and Sinatra had a non-speaking, non-singing role as a piano player in a saloon, whose identity is concealed from the viewer until he turns his face toward the camera during a scene featuring Marlene Dietrich and George Raft. MacLaine also briefly appears in Ocean's Eleven as a drunken woman. The 1984 film Cannonball Run II marked the final time members of the Rat Pack shared theatrical screen time together.

In popular culture[link]

• There is a reference to the Rat Pack in the film Bye Bye Birdie, in a scene in which Ed Sullivan says: "And now: Frank Dean and Sammy. Frank, Dean and Sammy McWilliams."
• The film poster of the film Advance to the Rear says: "You've met the Rat Pack, now... meet the mouse pack!!!"
• There are several references to Frank Sinatra in the film Ocean's Thirteen, which is a reference to the fact that the original Ocean's Eleven is a Rat Pack film.
• In Family Guy episode Brian Sings and Swings, the group formed by Brian, Stewie and Frank is called The New Rat Pack.

See also[link]

• Brat pack
• Brit Pack – 1980s
• Child actor
• Frat Pack – 1990s & 2000s (decade)
• Splat Pack – 2000s (decade) & 2010s
• Typecasting
• ..The Rat Pack.. is a 1998 HBO TV movie about the Rat Pack of the 1960s
• The Wack Pack (from The Howard Stern Show)

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Gehman, Richard (1961). Sinatra and His Rat Pack. Belmont. 
• Levy, S. (1998). Rat Pack Confidential. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 1-84115-001-0. 
• Spada, James (1991). Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-07185-8. 

External links[link]

• The Rat Pack: 25 Never-Seen Photos - slideshow by Life magazine