Peter Lawford was a brother-in-law of President John F. Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson, Juliet Prowse, Buddy Greco, and Shirley MacLaine were often referred to as the "Rat Pack Mascots".Ĭomedian Don Rickles wrote that "I never received an official membership card but Frank made me feel part of the fun." This group was originally known as the "Clan", but that name fell out of favor because it was reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan. The early 1960s version of the group included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. According to Stephen Bogart, the original members of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack were Frank Sinatra (pack master), Judy Garland (first vice-president), 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. Visiting members included Errol Flynn, Ava Gardner, Nat King Cole, Robert Mitchum, Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, Mickey Rooney, Lena Horne, Jerry Lewis, and Cesar Romero.
According to one version, Lauren Bacall saw her husband Humphrey Bogart and his friends returning from a night in Las Vegas and said, "You look like a goddamn rat pack." "Rat Pack" may also be a shortened version of " Holmby Hills Rat Pack", a reference to the home of Bogart and Bacall which served as a regular hangout.
The name "Rat Pack" was first used to refer to a group of friends in New York, and several explanations have been offered for the name. Humphrey Bogart, original Rat Pack leader (from Sabrina, 1954)