Courtesy Royal Talent
Henry Prego (left to right), David Hayes and Andy DiMino at "The Rat Pack."
Growing up in Southern California in the 1960s, Andy DiMino looked up to Dean Martin, the Italian crooner/actor/comedian who with his similarly multitalented cohorts Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr., seemed to lord over the swinging decade like “Mad Men”-styled kings.
“I’m from an all-Italian family, so of course as a kid I was watching his TV show like so many other people,” says DiMino, whose grandparents came to America from Sicily. “He was 9 years on NBC, so every Thursday night we’d rally around the TV and watch ‘The Dean Martin Show.’ Some of the greatest names in television and music were on that show. It was just a mixture off good music and fun. It made people feel good about themselves.”
He hopes to recreate a little of that same magic with “The Rat Pack Christmas Show,” a musical revue featuring DiMino playing Martin alongside performers portraying Sinatra and Davis. The show is at 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Gold Strike Casino’s Millennium Theater.
The term Rat Pack was originally applied to another assemblage of hard partying Hollywood actors in the 1950s headed by Humphrey Bogart with Sinatra a peripheral figure. By the dawn of the Kennedy-era, however, a new generation had taken over that included, among others, comedian Joey Bishop and actor Peter Lawford with song-and-dance men Martin, Davis, and Sinatra the undisputed leaders of the pack.
Though the core trio remained lifelong friends until their deaths in the 1990s — there was even a brief reunion tour in the late ’80s — DiMino says the legend of the Rat pack was really forged during a brief period in the late ’50s and early ’60s, climaxing with the filming of the 1960 crime caper “Ocean’s 11” in Las Vegas.
“The Rat Pack really only existed for two or four years,” says DiMino. “During the filming of “Oceans 11,” Frank, Dean, and Sammy and Joey Bishop all happened to be in Vegas at the same time. The entertainment director over at the Sands Hotel decided let’s put these guys on stage for two weeks at a time, and the other guys just kind of showed when it was not even their turn to be performing. The camaraderie was always what was so attractive to the audience.”
For DiMino, the path to playing Martin, who died on Christmas Day 1995, was a circuitous one. He started his music career as a teen playing in rock bands, even opening for the likes of the Doors and Iron Butterfly. As a member of the Eagles-like country band First Fire, he was signed to RCA Records for a time. Later as a solo act, he won first prize on the TV talent competition “The Gong Show.” By 1990 DiMino was living in Vegas, where the singer and multi-instrumentalist worked a wide assortment of music gigs to pay the bills, including portraying a singing gondolier named Dino, an homage to Martin’s nickname.
Then 10 years ago, DiMino saw another Rat Pack tribute show come through Vegas and set his sight on becoming Martin.
“It was a perfect fit for me at that point in my life,” he says. “It was a course in acting more than anything. You study the character. You learn the lines. And you learn the songs. And basically try to give the people what they remember.”
Besides this weekend’s Rat Pack show, which is produced by Kristy Lee Royle for Royal Talent, DiMino also portrays Martin in solo performances and another show that teams him with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator.
But DiMino says the annual holiday shows — which draws heavily on several compilations of Christmas songs by various members of the pack — are his favorites.
“For us this is a special time because we get to do something a little different from the rest of the year,” says DiMino. “Christmas songs are always just fun, and that includes for the audience, too.”
The Rat Pack Christmas Show
9 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Gold Strike Casino’s Millennium Theater, 1010 Casino Center Dr., Tunica Resorts, Miss. Tickets: $9.95 and $14.95, available at the casino gift shop, by phone at (888) 747-7711, and through Ticketmaster. For more information, visit goldstrike.com.
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