LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — At one time, Frank Sinatra and his fellow Rat Pack members were practically synonymous with Las Vegas.
Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Junior, and their crew all drew fans to Vegas in droves, and Sin City returned the favor by boosting the whole pack’s level of celebrity.
“I think Las Vegas was popular before the Rat Pack and would have been popular without the Rat Pack, but there was a kind of merging there, a meeting of the minds.”
And the merger began when Sinatra played his very first show on the Strip.
“Frank Sinatra first performed here in September of 1951 at the Desert Inn, and what a lot of people don’t realize now is that was the down period. He’d left his wife for Ava Gardner, his record contract had gone bluey, he wasn’t getting any movie deals. And he didn’t even draw a lot of people.”
But, UNLV history professor Michael Green tells us, the crowds grew with Sinatra’s popularity.
“But then comes From Here to Eternity and the Academy Awards, and the great Columbia recordings with Nelson Riddle, and he is the Chairman of the Board at that point.”
Sinatra came back in a big way, and as he gained more and more attention, so did Las Vegas.
“In 1960, when Eisenhower and Khrushchev were going to have a summit, it was cancelled, the same publicist Al Freeman had this idea, why don’t we have a summit of the leading entertainers, and this was when they were going to film Oceans 11, so they had the Summit at the Sands,” says Green. “It was just an incredible event that got world publicity, world attention, and then the movie comes out and gets a lot of attention for Las Vegas.”
And it created a distinct vibe.
“These guys were in tuxedos, they had an element of class about them. And they’re smoking and drinking and they’re chasing women, doing all the things you’re not really supposed to do, and that exemplified Las Vegas.”
But the Rat Pack also set an unexpected example.
“They also exemplified the diversity of Las Vegas, the diversity of the entertainment, the diversity of the population. (14:51) Sinatra and Martin were Italian, remember Dean Martin was Dino Crocetti. (14:57) You have Sammy Davis, Jr., African American, Joey Bishop – Jewish, Peter Lawford – uppercrust English. (15:04) And Las Vegas brings all those people together on the Strip but also in the community.”
In fact, Sinatra took a stand against the segregation practiced at the Sands and most other casinos in the 50’s. As part-owner of the Sands, he lobbied for the Moulin Rouge Agreement, which ended segregation in casinos in 1960.
What didn’t end were the rumors of Sinatra’s ties to organized crime that followed him to Sin City.
“He had a piece of the Sands, so did Martin. And there are rumors they were front men for mobsters, but it’s also important to bear in mind that mobsters had clubs around the country, and these guys were entertainers; they went where the entertainment could be performed, so there were these links in the first place.”
The Sinatra’s relationship with the Sands ended when Howard Hughes bought the property, but that did not end his love affair with Las Vegas. He would play a variety of showrooms over the years, performing his last Las Vegas show in May of 1994.
Four years later, all the marquees along the Strip would dim their lights in tribute after this death at the age of 82.
Sinatra never became an official Las Vegas Resident, but he still invested in the community. In 1976, UNLV awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his charitable donations. Sinatra would later confess, it was the only diploma he ever earned.
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