'Rat Pack Show' set for Saturday at OWA

• Popular
• Related

• BEMC offers $5,000 reward for power-outage vandalism
• VIDEO West Brunswick dance team
• Judge denies Warren’s request for injunction
• Sea Trail reorganization plan proposes selling assets
• Judge to rule on DSS board member’s removal hearing this week
• Daniel Faircloth
• Sheriff’s detectives search for missing Shallotte man
• Calabash proceeds with plans for park, town hall growth

more

• BEMC offers $5,000 reward for power-outage vandalism
• VFW monthly breakfasts resume this Sunday, Feb. 5
• Judge denies Warren’s request for injunction
• Sea Trail reorganization plan proposes selling assets
• Cash is king in 2012

7020565772996 4408555259695

 The Rat Pack is back in town.

Photos contributed Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show will be presented at 7:30 p.m. this Saturday, Jan. 28, in Odell Williamson Auditorium at Brunswick Community College.

Thanks to Sandy Hackett, son of legendary actor/comedian Buddy Hackett, this coming Saturday night ol’ Sammy, Dean, Joey and Blue Eyes will be crooning and reviving a few of their cool onstage moves at Odell Williamson Auditorium.

Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show is making its Brunswick County debut at 7:30 p.m. In a phone interview Monday, Hackett promised it’s a great show not to be overlooked.

Produced in conjunction with Hackett’s wife, Lisa Dawn Miller, it showcases performances of “Rat Pack” legends Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Frank Sinatra.

“It’s not a tribute,” said Hackett, who plays Joey Bishop in the production. “It’s loosely based on their relationship. We’re a theatrical production that recreates the essence of what these guys did. We don’t hire look-a-likes. We hire wonderfully talent actors who sing, act and can recreate the essence and spirit of these wonderful icons.”

Hackett has done his homework.

Ask him anything about The Rat Pack, and he has the answer—including “where did The Rat Pack get its name?”

“The original moniker came from Humphrey Bogart,” Hackett promptly responds.

According to mid-1950s history, Bogart used to have all his cronies come over and hang out his house in Holmby Hills, Calif. In the wee hours one night, amid another of the group’s bouts of poker and drinking, Bogart’s wife, Lauren Bacall, arose to observe they “looked like a pack of rats,” Hackett said.

The name stuck, and The Rat Pack was born. Though other members and mascot members came and went, its core consisted of Dean, Davis, Bishop and Sinatra, the stars portrayed in Hackett’s show.

Hackett got involved when he received a phone call about 12 or 14 years ago from his lifelong pal and neighbor, Bishop, who invited him to try out for Bishop’s part in an HBO movie about The Rat Pack.

“He said, ‘I think you would be perfect to play me,’” Hackett recalled. “I say, ‘Wow, Uncle Joey, what an honor.’ ”

Hackett didn’t get the part, but “it set me on a course wanting to pay homage to my dear friend Joey Bishop and have an opportunity to portray him,” Hackett said. “It put me on the road to create a stage version. A lot of years later and here I am still playing Joey.”

Bishop, along with other Rat-Packers, was a friend of Hackett’s father, who died in 2003.

“Frank didn’t hang around my house, but he played golf with Dean on a regular basis,” Hackett said, describing Buddy Hackett as “the best comedy teacher on the planet.”

“As a kid, you don’t know that’s anybody else except Dad’s friends,” he said. “You realize, ‘My dad is on film and television and other kids’ dads aren’t.”

Hackett’s Rat Pack Show originated about two and a half years ago in Las Vegas and underwent some changes separate from Hackett’s original partners. His wife, he says, is a genius whose father was Motown songwriter Ron Miller.

“We have three of her father’s songs in the show,” Hackett said, including “For Once In My Life” as sung by the Sinatra, Martin and Davis performers.

Some of the songs are not as familiar but are brilliant as well, Hackett said.

There’s an unspoken narrative in the show “to make you move and make you feel,” he said, describing the show as “an original comedy in which the guys are sent back to modern-day in their prime. It’s contemporary as opposed to being stuck in 1960 with just those jokes.”

The show is part of a 70-city tour and Brunswick Community College’s Performing Arts Series for 2011-2012.

After the show, Hackett and his troupe of performers will also be on hand to greet the crowd and sign autographs.

Tickets are $27 for adults, $25 for seniors and $10 children ages 12 and younger.

For more information, call the Odell Williamson Auditorium box office at 755-7416 or log onto www.bccowa.com.

“It’s a crowd-pleaser appropriate for all ages—even for the kids,” Hackett said. “It’s fun, silly stuff, great music, big-band and swing. We’ll make you laugh, we’ll make you cry and we’ll send you home with a big smile on your face.”