The Rat Pack — Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop — defined cool in the 1960s. They sold out casinos, made hit films, and embodied the swagger of an era. But behind the tuxedos, cocktails, and effortless charm, egos clashed, tempers flared, and friendships sometimes crumbled.
While Peter Lawford’s exile from the group has been well documented, Joey Bishop, the Rat Pack’s quick-witted comedian, also found himself on the wrong side of Sinatra’s famously fierce temper — and the fallout would change his career forever.
According to authors Richard A. Lertzman and Lon Davis in Deconstructing the Rat Pack, the trouble began when Sinatra asked Bishop to fill in for him at the Cal Neva Lodge, a glamorous casino partially owned by Sinatra. By that point, Bishop’s career had soared thanks to the Rat Pack’s success, and he saw the request as an opportunity to assert his worth.
But his response stunned Sinatra: Bishop allegedly demanded $50,000 and a private jet. To Sinatra — a man who valued loyalty above all else and who believed he’d helped elevate Bishop’s profile — this smacked of arrogance and ingratitude. The call ended abruptly, Sinatra hung up, and Bishop’s fate within the group was sealed.
From that moment, Sinatra froze him out of future Rat Pack projects, including the 1964 film Robin and the 7 Hoods. The once-inseparable stage comrades drifted apart, and Bishop’s career never again reached the dizzying heights of the Rat Pack’s glory years.
Bishop, who had been grinding away since the 1930s to build his career, quietly nursed a sense of betrayal. In a later Time magazine interview, he admitted the feud left him wounded:
“One guy wrote that I worked with the Rat Pack occasionally. Occasionally. Another talks about how I kissed Frank’s ass. That hurt me a little bit. I know I sound bitter, but I have a right to.”
Despite his public bitterness, friends say Bishop never stopped admiring Sinatra, even if their friendship could never truly be repaired. They would reconcile to a degree in later years, but the easy camaraderie they once shared was gone.
The Sinatra–Bishop feud remains a telling chapter in Rat Pack history — a reminder that even at the height of their fame, no one was immune from Sinatra’s temper or his unbending code of loyalty. In Sinatra’s world, friendship was a privilege, not a guarantee, and once lost, it was nearly impossible to regain.
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