Sammy Davis Jr. Smoking

Incredible 1960 close up of The Rat Pack's Sammy Davis Jr. side portrait smoking a cigarette. One of the best images released in years.

One of Sammy Davis, Jr.’s enduring legacies will be as a member of the iconic ‘Rat Pack’, the name given to Frank Sinatra’s close circle of friends at the beginning of the 1960s – an ensemble which included Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, and associates Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson, Shirley MacLaine, Buddy Greco, and Henry Silva. In enduring popular culture, though, the ‘Rat Pack’ has come to center around Sinatra, Martin, and Davis. The origin of the ‘Rat Pack’ term dates back to the early 1950s and Humphrey Bogart, whose cabal of friends were known as the ‘Holmby Hills Rat Pack’. Members included Bogart’s wife Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Sid Luft, David Niven, Mike Romanoff, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy van Heusen, with Frank Sinatra as ‘pack master’. Sammy was on the periphery of this social group, having been taken under Bogart’s wing somewhat after Bogart saw him perform at Slapsie Maxie’s in 1946.

Photo by Globe Photos