The Rat Pack was the epitome of old-school
cool.
But as effortlessly awesome as Frank Sinatra,
Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford,
and Joey Bishop appeared to be, there was
actually a lot of turmoil and sadness behind
the scenes.
This is their tragic history.
November 19, 1954 seemed like just another
day in the life of Sammy Davis Jr., doing
the exact kind of cool things he was known
for doing.
He was working on a movie soundtrack and driving
his Cadillac down Route 66, the most iconic
of all American roads.
Unfortunately, a decidedly uncool and downright
terrifying event interrupted his day, when
an elderly lady backed out of her driveway
directly into his path.
Unable to avoid the crash, the 28-year-old
Davis was sent face first into the steering
wheel.
The impact fractured several bones in his
face.
The damage to his left eye was even worse,
and the now-useless organ was left dangling
from its socket.
Davis had no option besides getting a prosthetic
eye and learning to maneuver on the stage
all over again.
The incident sent him on a path of soul-searching
and affected his eventual decision to convert
to Judaism.
"What is black and white and has two eyes?"
"You ready?"
"Yes."
"You and Moshe Dayan."
"How about this?
Queen of Bad Taste!"
Despite all the racism Sammy Davis Jr. had
to endure over the years, Hollywood was actually
quite fond of him.
That is, until 1957, when he started dating
Kim Novak, a major movie star and a white
woman.
The pair realized that their secret relationship
could kill both their careers, so they kept
things on the down low.
Still, it didn't sit well with the head of
Novak's studio.
Unfortunately for Davis, Columbia Pictures'
Harry Cohn had ties to the Mafia, and he ordered
a hit on the entertainer.
Reportedly, gangster Mickey Cohen delivered
a threat to maim and kill Davis to the singer's
horrified father.
The only way out was for Davis to marry a
black woman and forget all about Novak.
Davis tried to fight back by contacting his
own mob connection, Sam Giancana.
However, Giancana's reach couldn't protect
Davis in Hollywood, and in the end, the singer
ended up giving in to the threats.
In early 1958, he married singer Loray White.
But their doomed marriage wouldn't even last
until the end of the year, as they began divorce
proceedings in September.
According to a friend, Davis was so utterly
devastated on his wedding day that he got
drunk, attempted to strangle his new wife,
and later tried to bring a gun to his own
head.
Sammy Davis Jr. may have been a star, but
the racism of the era ensured that his skin
tone often defined what he could and couldn't
do in the eyes of the general public.
This was especially evident when he married
Swedish actress May Britt in 1960.
This was a time when interracial marriages
were not only uncommon, they were also outright
illegal in no less than 31 states.
Davis' daughter Tracey has even claimed that
John F. Kennedy himself reacted to the situation
by stopping Davis from performing at his inauguration.
Davis and Britt's marriage was not without
its consequences for both spouses.
Davis was harassed by Neo-Nazis and racists.
The era's segregation policies meant that
the couple ran into situations where they
couldn't share a hotel room, or even drink
from the same fountain.
Britt's own studio, 20th Century Fox, even
dropped her as soon as they got married.
Ultimately, their union didn't last, and they
got divorced in 1968.
If you're hard-pressed to name an iconic Peter
Lawford movie, you're probably not alone.
Though he had plenty of credits to his name,
he never quite reached the heights of his
fellow Rat Packers.
But he did have some things working in his
favor.
For one, he happened to be the brother-in-law
of a guy named John F. Kennedy.
Also, according to his entry on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame website, in later years he reaped
fame simply from his "off-screen activities
as a celebrity."
All of that might make it sound like Lawford
led an absolutely charmed life.
But in reality, he suffered from a nasty,
debilitating injury to his right hand.
The details on how it happened vary.
His Walk of Fame page says that he sustained
permanent nerve damage when he fell through
a glass door at the age of 14.
Meanwhile, according to the book The Peter
Lawford Story, his hand started to atrophy,
and the doctors' treatment in which his fingers
were forcefully opened left the appendage
comparatively normal-looking, but lacking
in strength.
The ensuing injury left him with enough damage
that he was declared unfit to serve in World
War II.
If the Rat Pack were giving out prizes for
most tenacious entertainer, Sammy Davis Jr.
would have been head and shoulders above the
rest.
The only African-American member of the squad
endured racism throughout his career, yet
he managed to shrug off humiliation after
humiliation and build a long, enviable career.
He wasn't even safe from discrimination from
his fellow Rat Packers, as the group's Las
Vegas shows often involved racially-themed
routines in which he was the punchline.
Some people accused Davis of being an "Uncle
Tom," meaning an African-American perceived
as being servile to white people.
Others, however, saw him as a trailblazer
who helped tear down racial barriers.
As for the man himself, it's worth noting
that he donated quite a lot of money to the
civil rights movement over the years.
Frank Sinatra was the Captain America of the
Rat Pack.
He was also the type of guy people are referring
to when they talk about how men were cooler
and more stylish back in the day.
As an entertainer, Ol' Blue Eyes may have
radiated effortless class, but his image was
tarnished by one thing that followed him throughout
much of his life.
He was believed to have dodged the draft for
World War II, which drew much ire and hurt
his early career.
As the story goes, Sinatra had paid a hefty
$40,000 for a doctor to decide he was unfit
for service.
However, the FBI looked into the matter and
ultimately decided that Sinatra's dismissal
had perfectly legitimate reasons behind it,
namely, psychological issues and a punctured
eardrum.
According to NPR, Sinatra's reputation as
a draft dodger made him one of the most despised
men in America at one point, after Pearl Harbor
in particular.
Military personnel felt that the young singer
was doing his level best to hound their women
while they were fighting the enemy abroad.
Of course, they were sort of right about that
part.
Dean Martin's public image may have been that
of an easygoing guy who liked a drink and
a good time and cared for little else, but
this wasn't strictly true.
As it turns out, his nonchalant, debonair
image was just that, an image.
Martin was actually a shy and somewhat gruff
man of few words who had little taste for
small talk.
By the time his third marriage ended in 1976,
he apparently started embracing this side
of his personality.
He nearly stopped performing and settled into
a semi-hermit state that involved a daily
routine of golf, dinner at his regular club,
some drinks, and a Western movie.
His seclusion took a turn for the worse in
the late 1980s, when a series of people who
were important to him, including his eldest
son, died over a relatively short period of
time.
These losses were apparently more than he
could take, and he slid further into autopilot.
In his last years, though, he did somewhat
manage to be a bit more social, at least when
it came to his family.
Dean Martin's oldest son, Dean Paul, was arguably
at least as talented as his father.
He had chops as a TV performer, and as a musician
he found success with his band, Dino, Desi,
and Billy.
Outside of his entertainment career, he was
a talented athlete and a pilot.
Unfortunately, that last endeavor was the
one that cost him his life.
On March 21 1987, Dean Paul Martin and another
crewman were flying a fighter jet out of March
Air Force Base in California, when a combination
of heavy clouds, a 400 mile per hour speed,
and an unexpected mountainside caused them
to crash and instantly perish.
Dean Martin initially held out hope that his
son might have survived the crash, but when
the body was eventually found, the loss weighed
heavily on him.
Martin's friend Jerry Vale told People
Magazine in 1996,
"He couldn't handle it.
After [Dino's death] it seemed he was just
walking through life."
"We speak of him.
We talk.
We drink to him, you know."
Sinatra had tons of admirers over his career,
but there was one persistent group of fans
he probably could've done without.
We're talking about none other than the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI kept a file on Ol' Blue Eyes for over
40 years, compiling thousands of pages on
his life, contacts, and alleged shenanigans.
The agency became interested in him due to
the rumors of his draft dodging, and after
they decided that these rumors were unfounded,
they started looking into his social circle.
Sinatra's list of acquaintances included several
notable mobsters.
He was never prosecuted through these connections,
though at one point he grew quite concerned
about the mounting rumors of his association
with organized crime members.
In 1950, he even approached the FBI and offered
to become an informant, in a possible bid
to get in their good graces.
The FBI declined.
After all, they were also looking into him
because of his other suspicious activities,
such as supposed Communist sympathies and
his open support of the anti-racist movement.
Still, the FBI was also known to assist Sinatra
on occasion.
The most high-profile time was in 1963, when
the Bureau caught the three men who had kidnapped
the singer's son, Frank Jr.
"I was scared.
I was a little bit nervous, naturally.
But the only thing I could do was hope for
the best."
To say that Frank Sinatra's relationship with
actress Ava Gardner had its ups and downs
is an understatement of truly colossal proportions.
The pair first met in 1943, started dating
in 1949 while Sinatra was still married to
his first wife, and then got married in 1951.
In a Vanity Fair article by Gardner and her
biographer, Peter Evans, the Hollywood legend
reminisced about the time she first met Sinatra,
whom she described as a "cocky god."
When the two eventually hooked up, they reportedly
indulged in shenanigans like drunk driving
through a small town with guns blazing, shooting
at store windows and streetlights.
Gardner also noted that lots of people, including
some of Sinatra's former partners, advised
her against marrying him.
Yet, she went through with it anyway.
Before their divorce in 1957, they had an
incredibly intense relationship that was marred
by separations, two abortions, and numerous
infidelities on both sides.
Despite all this, the pair remained friends
until Gardner passed away in 1990.
Despite how easy-going Frank Sinatra seemed
in public, the man had his demons.
In fact, he was rather prone to desperate
moves behind closed doors.
According to Sinatra biographer James Kaplan,
the singer made three or four attempts to
end his life over the years, one of which
was severe enough that he could've bled to
death.
The first attempt happened during the early
1950s during a career slump that Sinatra took
pretty hard, while the others happened during
his relationship with Ava Gardner.
On one occasion, Gardner reportedly walked
into a room where Sinatra was holding a gun
to his head.
As Gardner tried to wrestle the gun away from
the singer, it fired, but the shot luckily
missed both of them.
According to the book Frank & Ava: In Love
and War, Gardner found Sinatra's attempts
incredibly difficult, especially
since he appeared to believe that no one would
care if he ended his life.
But Gardner said,
"I care.
He knows that it would blow me apart and that
I will always protect him."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal
thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK
(8255)​.
