Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47399 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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 discussing 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 Toches by way of James Ellroy, while only intermittently reaching their level of mastery. But these are minor quibbles. As a synthesis of 30 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.

Synopsis
First biography of The Rat Pack -- Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop et al -- the original Swingers. Brilliant and beautifully written story of their rise and fall, and their connections with the Kennedys and the Mafia, which will appeal to fans of Swingers!, Goodfellas and Nick Tosches' Dino. They alit in Las Vegas for a month to make a movie and play a historic nightclub gig they called the Summit; they hit Miami, the Utah desert, Palm Springs, Chicago, Atlantic City, Beverly Hills, Hollywood back lots, illegal gambling dens, saloons, yachts, private jets, the White House itself. It was sauce and vinegar and eau de cologne and sour mash whiskey and gin and smoke and perfume and silk and neon and skinny lapels and tail fins and rockets to the sky. It was swinging and sighing and being a sharpie, it was cutting a figure and digging a scene. It was Frank and Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin and Peter Lawford for a while and Joey Bishop when they asked him and Jack Kennedy and Sam Giancana and tables full of cronies and who knew how many broads. It was the ultimate spasm of traditional showbiz -- both the last and the most of its kind.

It was the Rat Pack. It was beautiful. Rat Pack Confidential -- you're never far from a cocktail, a swingin' affair and a fist-fight.

Customer Reviews

confusing
I really wanted to love this book but only ended up liking parts of it. That's not the fault of the author, there is a real pace to his words. But the structure is just too difficult, trying to look at too many huge stars and personalities one after the other. It means there are overlaps and repetitions and it is easy to get lost with where you are. I hope the author takes more closer looks at each individual in turn from now on. I would read all of those immediately.

Tread carefully and enjoy
This book is, as other reviewers have said, a page turner and a riveting read. Easy prose, that simplifies things to a level glossing over the more complicated aspects of this troupe. If you want an intro to the gossip and background of the Rat Pack, then it's a good place to start. But tread carefully - this book skips over some more troublesome stories (e.g. Sammy Davis's marriage to Loray White, the rampant and unchallenged sexism of the Summit) - so use it to whet your appetite and then turn to more in depth and challenging biogs.

Fascinating Stuff!
If you don't fancy a mammoth biography on the life of these stars then this is the perfect substitute and makes for riveting reading. In simple but fabulous fashion, Levy relates how they all started out, how they came to know each other, how things took off for them and how it all went wrong, bringing the scandal, mayhem and dodgy connections of the group into things along the way.

My only quibble would have to be the authenticity of some of the stories told. Sinatra is portrayed as a psycopathic power-hungry showbiz prima donna and bully, Martin as a layabout and Davis as the eternal victim of racism, whilst Lawford comes across as a nobody who had political connections and Bishop as a plain nobody. How much of it all is true and how much has been dressed up for the sake of the book? That's why I'm giving four instead of five stars.

Other than that, it's absorbing reading. Just take things with a pinch of salt!