may have been the best perk of all of being back in the film game. A lot of timesI’d play late-night bartender, so I could see the pack in action. Sinatra was like a starstruck kid, in awe of Bogart, and watching his every move. With all the people around, it was hard to be alone with Bogart, but Sinatra tended to shadow him, following him into the kitchen or out into the garden, hanging on everything he said. Sinatra saw Bogart as his mentor, though I doubt that he ever told Bogart that. Bogart would have laughed at him. Be your own mentor, kid, or you’ll never get anywhere, he’d probably have said. This time Bogart was wrong. Sinatra learned his lessons with straight A’s. The two men had a lot of natural attributes in common. They were about the same size, short and skinny, and both men were losing their hair, though Bogart’s was in much deeper retreat than his younger fan’s. Bogart had fabulous clothes, cashmere jackets, Italian shirts, and velvet slippers, and a certain cool and grace in the way he’d smoke, in the way he’d put away the Jack Daniel’s, eventually a trademark taste Sinatra acquired from Bogart. Bogart had an effortless physical grace, which Sinatra only had when he sang. Otherwise, Sinatra was tense and jumpy, and remarkably insecure for someone used to playing to screaming fans. That they had stopped screaming was probably what made him this way. The Jack Daniel’s definitely helped loosen him up. I noticed that he was much more “on” around Bogart than he was when I saw him at other gatherings.
Even though he played the tough guy in films, and had a tough-guy growl in his voice, Bogart was really an East Coast aristocrat-type with a top background and a polish he got at prep school at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. His father was one of the leading surgeons in Manhattan; his mother was a well-known illustrator. They were accomplished, as well as pillars of society. It was an unusual background for a movie star, most of whom came out of nowhere, or from Hoboken. But that pedigree was just onepart of the whole Bogart mystique. Another was his enormous talent and success (he had won the Oscar that year for The African Queen ), and the third part of what made Bogart Bogart was his fabulous wife, Betty. Even though she was a head taller than him and looked like a sleek, tawny lioness, and had this deep sophisticated voice, Betty was just a young girl from the Bronx, as in awe of the whole scene as Frank was. Bogart was in his fifties, Betty was in her early twenties, and when he called her “kid,” he meant it. Frank was about thirty-seven at this time, but around his idol he seemed like a kid, too.
Sinatra never showed up with Ava, or with any other woman. Everyone knew that Ava was his woman, and that she was hurting him terribly by not loving him the same way he loved her. No one would even mention her, or say, “Frank, how’s Ava?” She was off limits. Once, somebody put on a new Sinatra record, “I’m a Fool to Want You,” without realizing it was his own personal torch song to Ava. There was an interminable silence until the song was over. No one even dared to compliment Frank on it. I think it was Ruth Gordon who broke the ice by suggesting they all play charades.
By and large, this first Rat Pack was a pretty tame lot. It would be hard to imagine Frank, Dean, and Sammy, in their latter incarnation of the Rat Pack, playing charades. The Bogart pack was like a civilized, witty New York cocktail party, an Algonquin Round Table kind of experience. There was a lot of drinking, not just Jack Daniel’s, but martinis, mixed drinks, champagne, and no one ever got really drunk, except for Judy Garland on a few occasions. When Judy got plastered, the worst she would do was get up and start belting show tunes like “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun,” and everyone would join in. I never had to drive guests home who couldn’t make it on their own. The discussions
Even though he played the tough guy in films, and had a tough-guy growl in his voice, Bogart was really an East Coast aristocrat-type with a top background and a polish he got at prep school at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. His father was one of the leading surgeons in Manhattan; his mother was a well-known illustrator. They were accomplished, as well as pillars of society. It was an unusual background for a movie star, most of whom came out of nowhere, or from Hoboken. But that pedigree was just onepart of the whole Bogart mystique. Another was his enormous talent and success (he had won the Oscar that year for The African Queen ), and the third part of what made Bogart Bogart was his fabulous wife, Betty. Even though she was a head taller than him and looked like a sleek, tawny lioness, and had this deep sophisticated voice, Betty was just a young girl from the Bronx, as in awe of the whole scene as Frank was. Bogart was in his fifties, Betty was in her early twenties, and when he called her “kid,” he meant it. Frank was about thirty-seven at this time, but around his idol he seemed like a kid, too.
Sinatra never showed up with Ava, or with any other woman. Everyone knew that Ava was his woman, and that she was hurting him terribly by not loving him the same way he loved her. No one would even mention her, or say, “Frank, how’s Ava?” She was off limits. Once, somebody put on a new Sinatra record, “I’m a Fool to Want You,” without realizing it was his own personal torch song to Ava. There was an interminable silence until the song was over. No one even dared to compliment Frank on it. I think it was Ruth Gordon who broke the ice by suggesting they all play charades.
By and large, this first Rat Pack was a pretty tame lot. It would be hard to imagine Frank, Dean, and Sammy, in their latter incarnation of the Rat Pack, playing charades. The Bogart pack was like a civilized, witty New York cocktail party, an Algonquin Round Table kind of experience. There was a lot of drinking, not just Jack Daniel’s, but martinis, mixed drinks, champagne, and no one ever got really drunk, except for Judy Garland on a few occasions. When Judy got plastered, the worst she would do was get up and start belting show tunes like “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun,” and everyone would join in. I never had to drive guests home who couldn’t make it on their own. The discussions
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