FAREWELLS: DEBORAH KERR & JOEY BISHOP!

The Real "Rat Pack"

L-R: Frank, Dean, Peter, Joey and Sammy (center)

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Joey Bishop has died, just in case some of you missed the news. He was the last surving member of "The Rat Pack"--a name given by Humprey Bogart to the fun-loving, anti-social group who smoked cigarettes, boozed and staying up all night in Las Vegas creating mayhem when they weren't on stage. The group (photo above) included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. They entertained Las Vegas crowds with a mixture of singing, comedy and on-stage carousing considered tame by today's "Shock-TV" standards. The group formed in 1960 and disbanded in 1964. Sinatra referred to Bishop as the "Hub of the Big Wheel" and "Speaker of the House" for his role as the Rat Pack's emcee. Amazingly, Bishop was one of the few who could get away with zapping the "Chairman of the Board" in public, joking about Sinatra's long-rumored ties to organized crime. In one famous exchange with their audience, Bishop announced: "Mr. Sinatra will now speak of some of the good things the Mafia has done." Many forget this, but Joey Bishop was the host of ABC's late-night entry, also called "The Joey Bishop Show," opposite NBC's dominant "The Tonight Show" starring Johnny Carson. Bishop's sidekick for the show was Regis Philbin, who is today co-star of "Live with Regis and Kelly." "It was the thrill of my life to be chosen by Joey as the announcer for his talk show on ABC back in the '60s," Philbin said in a statement. "He was a master comedian and a great teacher, and I will never forget those days or him. " While Bishop proved no match for Carson in the ratings competition, he became a "Tonight Show" favorite after leaving ABC, filling in for Carson as guest host a record 177 times. Joey was 89.

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Photo Credit: Associated Press

With Gary Grant in "An Affair to Remember"

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Greer Garson and I met in 1989, when I was privileged to emcee a local fund raiser for a Parkinson's disease non-profit organization. Greer's late husband, energy executive Buddy Fogelson had succumbed to the disease. How sadly ironic it is that I would lose my father to the same damn disease 11 years later! After I summoned Rex Reed to the podium in the ballroom of a North Dallas hotel to comment on several movie clips we all watched of Greer, I had no idea that she preceded actress Deborah Kerr in stardom. Deborah Kerr passed away at 86 in Suffolk, England this past Thursday. She is best remembered for the film "From Here to Eternity". The film contained a racy scene for the times (1953) with her kissing Burt Lancaster on a Hawaiian beach as the waves roll over them. And here 54 years later, audiences are still drawn to this film! But film critics often point out that while both were in peak physical form, the power of the moment came from Kerr. Prior to the film, she came to epitomize "cinema's perfect lady", which often irritated her. It is said she looked 35 years old for more than 20 years. After arriving in the United States, she became a Hollywood star opposite Clark Gable in 1947's "The Hucksters", a send-up on Madison Avenue. She was nominated for six Academy Awards (for "Edward, My Son," "From Here to Eternity," "The King and I," "Heaven Knows Mr. Allison," "Separate Tables" and "The Sundowners") from 1949 to 1960. She won the Golden Globe Award for "The King and I" with Yul Brenner. After "The Arrangement" in 1969, she left movies at age 48, lamenting that she was either too old or too young for every role offered her. In the mid-1980s, she appeared in a handful of TV movies and mini-series. In 1994, Deborah Kerr was awarded a special Academy Award for being "an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance."