Joey Bishop, last of the 'Rat Pack,' dies at 89

Bishop died at his home in Newport Beach, California, last night, according to the Associated Press, citing his friend and publicist, Warren Cowen.

The Rat Pack, which also included Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and actor Peter Lawford, became synonymous with Las Vegas after the group caused a sensation with its show at the Sands casino in January 1960. Sinatra called Bishop “The Hub of the Big Wheel,” citing him as the anchor of the Rat Pack’s anarchic nightclub act.

An accomplished stand-up comic, Bishop was content to play the straight man to his more-swinging cohorts.

“He wasn’t filler,” said Sandy Hackett, the son of comedian Buddy Hackett, who played Bishop in a touring revue called “The Rat Pack Is Back” this year. “Joey wrote a lot of what the Rat Pack did. He wrote a lot of the great lines and then gave them to Dean, Frank and Sammy.”

The Rat Pack was spawned in 1959 after Sinatra assembled a cast including Bishop for the heist film “Ocean’s Eleven.” At night after filming, in what was billed as “The Summit,” Frank, Dean, Sammy, Joey and Peter would take the stage of the Sands Copa Room for an evening of song, dance, drinking, bawdy jokes and ethnic gags. Guests included dignitaries, mobsters and Lawford’s brother-in-law, future U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

The three-week act was so successful — the Sands turned down 18,000 reservation requests in the first week alone — it led to reprises in Miami; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Palm Springs, California, and the Rat Pack legend was born.

In addition to “Ocean’s Eleven” (1960), which was remade with George Clooney and Brad Pitt in 2001, Bishop joined the Rat Pack in “Sergeant’s 3” (1962). He dropped out of the group’s third film, “Robin and the 7 Hoods,” (1964) after a dispute with Sinatra.

Bishop gained wide exposure to U.S. audiences through his appearances on “The Tonight Show” starring Jack Paar between 1958 and 1962, where he would utter his catchphrase, “son of a gun,” and later as a fill-in host for Johnny Carson after Carson succeeded Paar. Bishop substituted for Carson a record 177 times.

He also starred in his own situation comedy, “The Joey Bishop Show,” between 1961 and 1965, where he played a talk-show host named Joey Barnes alongside actress Abby Dalton as his wife.

Between 1967 and 1969, Bishop hosted a 90-minute late-night talk show on ABC that competed, though not successfully, with “The Tonight Show” on NBC. Bishop’s sidekick was a relatively unknown Southern California talk-show host named Regis Philbin.

In films, Bishop appeared in “Who’s Minding the Mint?” and “Valley of the Dolls” (both in 1967). He also played non- comedic roles in three 1958 war films, “The Deep Six,” “The Naked and the Dead” and “Onionhead.” Later in his career, Bishop appeared in “The Delta Force” with Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin (1986) and “Mad Dog Time” (1996), which was directed by his son, Larry.

Joseph Abraham Gottlieb was born on Feb. 3, 1918, in Bronx, New York, the son of a Jewish bicycle repairman. Raised in South Philadelphia, he quit high school after two years to work in his father’s bike shop.

Bishop got his professional start in vaudeville as part of a comedy act with his brother. Billed as Joey Gottlieb, he later joined a comedy group called “The Bishop Trio.” After the team disbanded, he kept the surname for himself.

Bishop married Sylvia Ruzga from Oak Park, Illinois, in 1941 before serving in the Army during World War II. After the war he worked as a stand-up comic, playing for two years in Chicago, where he was billed, much to his chagrin, as “The Frown Prince of Comedy.”

In 1952, while performing at the Latin Quarter nightclub in New York, he caught Sinatra’s eye, and the singer made sure that Bishop got billed as his opening act.

“He got a reputation as that tough little funny guy who opened for Frank,” wrote Shawn Levy in “Rat Pack Confidential” (Broadway Books, 1998).

Before long Bishop began to make a name for himself through appearances on television game shows such as “What’s My Line?”

During the Rat Pack’s heyday, Bishop often served as master of ceremonies for the group. Along with Martin, he was the only member of Sinatra’s inner circle who was allowed to poke fun of the famously short-tempered crooner. His independent streak appealed to Sinatra.

“He loved Sinatra and loved being part of the Rat Pack, but he refused to be bullied by anyone,” wrote Michael Seth Starr in his biography, “Mouse in the Rat Pack” (Taylor Trade, 2002).

Bishop was admired by other comics for his dead-pan delivery and cynicism about show business. As recounted in Levy’s book, Bishop floored the audience at a Friar’s Club roast of Martin. After a string of entertainers declared how happy they were to be in attendance, Bishop opened his bit by declaring, “I was told to come here.”

Bishop’s wife died in 1999. They were married for 58 years.

In his later years, Bishop was quick to debunk the myth of the Rat Pack, telling interviewers that the group’s reputation for hard drinking and chasing women was a fabrication. He would express incredulity at the Rat Pack tributes, books, film recreations and the overall cult of cool that had grown up around the group, especially after Sinatra died in May 1998.

“What you’re hearing and seeing now about the Rat Pack is hearsay,” Bishop told People magazine in August of that year. “I have been married 57 years. I never had a drink of liquor in my life except for wine at the Passover services. Dean didn’t drink. He played golf every morning at 8:30 with Nicky Hilton. Five thousand dollars a game they played. You can’t drink and play golf like that and then do two shows a night, you understand? I never saw Frank drunk. I never saw Dean drunk. I never saw Sammy drunk.”

But what about chasing women?

“Do you believe these guys had to chase broads?” he asked a reporter for Time magazine. “They had to chase them away.”