Word: sinatras
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...wife of 57 years, Sylvia, he says he doesn't much like giving interviews (while graciously agreeing to this one). So, I ask, to what does he attribute the ongoing obsession with his early '60s apotheosis, the nights in Vegas clowning around on stage and off with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford? "Could it be anything else but money?" he snaps, resenting all the new books, the tributes, the upcoming HBO movie, the kids pretending to be swingers. More or less retired, he could have used this interview for an autumnal victory lap, but deflating...
...issue Bishop is particularly sensitive about is his position in the Rat Pack. He was the pro comedian who anchored the group's anarchic stage performances and conceived much of its material--Sinatra called him "the Hub of the Big Wheel." He and Martin were also the only ones who could make jokes at Sinatra's expense. Yet Bishop is often portrayed as the expendable member, the one who was lucky to be along for the ride, the Ringo. In books he usually has fewer index entries than even Lawford. "One guy wrote that I worked with the Rat Pack...
...cites an offending item from a long ago Earl Wilson column: "'Would you believe that not once has Joey Bishop sat down to dinner or drinks with Frank Sinatra without being invited?'" The slight isn't that Wilson got it wrong, exactly. What rankles Bishop is Wilson's mocking disbelief. "I'm the comic on the bill. He's having dinner, O.K.? If he wanted me present, he would invite me. How do I know he's not talking business? I knew my place. You people"--journalists--"don't believe the truth...
Despite Bishop's mostly patient efforts, the nuances of it all--the fine line, say, between friendship and deference where Sinatra was concerned--still lie beyond my grasp. Why, I ask, were people so afraid of him? "They weren't afraid of Frank Sinatra. They were afraid of honesty. The one thing that he demanded above all else was honesty." All the same, and even though Bishop had "carte blanche" with Sinatra (as he tells me more than once), "I always dealt with him with humor." That would include up to the last time the two men spoke, about...
...give you an example about Frank Sinatra," Bishop continues. "We were at the Fountainbleu Hotel. One night a young lady was standing on my balcony. These are her exact words: 'I paid the bellhop to let me in. If I don't meet Frank Sinatra tonight, I'm going to jump.' I said, 'Honey, just give me a chance.' I ran over to his suite. Joe DiMaggio and somebody else were playing cards. At the time, Frank was going with Juliet Prowse, and they were already in bed. So I said to Joe and the other guy, 'I know this...