Comedian Joey Bishop, last of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack, dead at 89

LOS ANGELES – Joey Bishop, the stone-faced comedian who found success in nightclubs, television and movies but became most famous as a member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack, has died at 89.\nHe was the group’s last surviving member. Peter Lawford died in 1984, Sammy Davis Jr. in 1990, Dean Martin in 1995 and Sinatra in 1998.\nBishop died Wednesday night of multiple causes at his home in Newport Beach, publicist and longtime friend Warren Cowan said Thursday.\nThe Rat Pack became a show business sensation in the early 1960s, appearing at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in shows that combined music and comedy in a seemingly chaotic manner.\nReviewers often claimed that Bishop played a minor role, but Sinatra knew otherwise. He termed the comedian “the Hub of the Big Wheel,” with Bishop coming up with some of the best one-liners and beginning many jokes with his favorite phrase, “Son of a gun!”\n“He was the perfect match for the Rat Pack. He fit right in like an old shoe,” Hollywood’s honorary mayor, Johnny Grant, said Thursday.\nThe quintet lived it up whenever members were free of their own commitments. They appeared together in such films as “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Sergeants 3” and proudly gave honorary membership to a certain fun-loving politician from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, at whose inauguration gala Bishop served as master of ceremonies.\nThe Rat Pack faded after Kennedy’s assassination, but the late 1990s brought a renaissance, with the group depicted in an HBO movie and portrayed by imitators in Las Vegas and elsewhere. The movie “Ocean’s Eleven” was even remade in 2003 with George Clooney and Brad Pitt in the lead roles.\nBishop defended his fellow performers’ rowdy reputations in a 1998 interview.\n“Are we remembered as being drunk and chasing broads?” he asked. “I never saw Frank, Dean, Sammy or Peter drunk during performances. That was only a gag. And do you believe these guys had to chase broads? They had to chase ‘em away.”\nAway from the Rat Pack, Bishop starred in two TV series, both called “The Joey Bishop Show.”\nIn the first series, Bishop played a TV talk show host.\nThen, he really became a TV talk show host. His program was started by ABC in 1967 as a challenge to Johnny Carson’s immensely popular “The Tonight Show.”\nLike Carson, Bishop sat behind a desk and bantered with a sidekick, TV newcomer Regis Philbin. But despite an impressive guest list and outrageous stunts, Bishop couldn’t dent Carson’s ratings, and “The Joey Bishop Show” was canceled after two seasons.\nBishop then became a familiar guest figure in TV variety shows and as sub for vacationing talk show hosts, filling in for Carson 205 times.\nHe also played character roles in such movies as “Johnny Cool,” “Valley of the Dolls” and “The Delta Force.”\nIn 1941 Bishop married Sylvia Ruzga and, despite the rigors of a show business career, the marriage survived until her death in 1999.\nBishop, who spent his retirement years on the upscale Lido Isle in Southern California’s Newport Bay, is survived by son Larry Bishop; grandchildren Scott and Kirk Bishop; and longtime companion Nora Garabotti.