Rat Pack

I just finished reading Rat Pack Confidential:Frank (Sinatra), Dean (Martin), Sammy (Davis Jr.), Peter (Lawford), Joey (Bishop) & the Last Great Showbiz Party by Shawn Levy. I need a shower. These men (except for Joey Bishop who as he liked to say, "was a Mouse in the Rat Pack.") were a bunch of self-absorbed, cruel, insecure, arrogant, users. The kind of men who refer to women as "broads." The RAT PACK was an apt name for them. Funny thing though, I pity them and their empty hedonistic lives.

One chapter, I feel dirty, begins with a list of people who were linked to one or another member of the group. By the end of the chapter there are 114 name and then the words, "and a cast of thousands..." -that would be the prostitutes and call girls.

The Rat Pack lived Hugh Heffner's Playboy Magazine philosophy of sex without any emotional attachment. Sex as a way to relieve tension, like booze. In other words, masturbation using another person's body.

Peter never wanted to get involved. It was easier to have call girls than to try and romance somebody
-Milt Ebbins (Lawford's manager)

Frank loved hookers and used them a great deal. He preferred them because he didn't have to deal with them emotionally.
-Mrs. Jack Entratter (wife of Jack Entratter, Sands Hotel manager)

Dino used to f### every human he could.
-a hometown friend of Dean Martin

I've never had a day-to-day relationship with a woman, to the extent that I've never even spent a whole night in bed with a woman. Never. When it was time to sleep either they'd go home or I'd fall asleep on the couch or the floor.
-Sammy Davis Jr. to future wife May Britt

Could they see women as real beings with needs and intelligence? Did they ever communicate on a fulfilling level? I was secretly grateful that I didn't really see them as potential lovers. Had anything like that developed, I would have been in real trouble.
-Shirley MacLaine

As human beings they were maple veneer over plywood. Emotionally hollow men who used drugs, booze, and sex to try and fill that emptiness. I pity them because they were a product of their times and (mostly) clueless.

There was some sex going on, switching partners, group sex, it was there to be had if you wanted it, any kind any way....and when living got too depressing, hanging out with a group like that got your mind off it, for that moment at least it fogged your brain and you didn't feel so bad....Sex wasn't the point, though. You didn't want to be alone.
-Sammy Davis Jr.