Rat Pack show producer fan of originals

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Sandy Hackett, son of brilliant comedian Buddy Hackett, and his wife, Lisa Dawn Miller/Hackett, daughter of legendary composer Ron Miller, are used to having celebrities visit their homes while growing up. Hackett remembers when Richard Pryor and Robin Williams, among others, visited his house, but also admits he had no clue how famous his own father was until later in life.

“He was the brightest comedy mind ever,” Hackett says of his father, who died in 2003, with his son placing him with the “crème de la crème” of comedians that includes Pryor, Williams, and Jonathan Winters, to name just three.

Miller/Hackett, who sings a song written by her father but never covered in his lifetime, in a duet with Sinatra, agreed that it’s hard to realize sometimes just how famous a famous father really is when you’re young. In her case, though, having a talented songwriter for a father (“For Once in My Life,” “Touch Me in the Morning”) had some important side benefits.

“People always ask me where I learned to sing, and I say I just watched my father working with Barbra Streisand and Stevie Wonder,” she said.

Hackett, who has been doing a version of his Rat Pack show for 10 years, said the show has moved to another level the last 2½ years after his wife joined the show as producer and partner.

It all began, though, when Rat Packer Joey Bishop called Hackett and said he’d like the young comedian to portray him in a Rat Pack movie being filmed in 1998. Although the role was already cast by the time Hackett found out about it, Bishop later gave Hackett the exclusive rights to play him.

Hackett and his wife both say their show is not a Rat Pack “tribute,” but a narrative theatrical production that provides the essence of the Rat Pack without blindly aping the famous quartet, which included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr., as well as Bishop.

Hackett, who knew all four Rat Pack members as a kid, said that the entertainers were “kindred spirits” who grew up with similar backgrounds and personalities.

Davis Jr. may have had the toughest life early on, since he began entertaining at the age of 4 and never went to school, Hackett noted. Sinatra grew up in Hoboken, N.J., the son of a dockworker, while Martin was born in the Ohio town of Steubenville and Bishop was a Brooklyn native who later moved to Philadelphia and many other towns.

Both Hackett and Hackett/Miller praised the other members of the show’s cast, including David DeCosta as Sinatra, Johnny Edwards as Dean Martin and Desmond Meeks as Davis.

Hackett/Miller said it is the acting ability of the quartet, as well as their singing and dancing talent, that earned the show standing ovations in all of the 70 cities the show played in this year (with Van Wert the last).

Although she says her character in the show isn’t directly modeled on Sinatra’s one big love, Ava Gardner, she did talk about the fact that, while both Sinatra and Gardner were deeply in love with each other, they just couldn’t seem to make a relationship work.

Friday night’s show, which was the final performance in the Rat Pack show this year — the 50th anniversary of the Rat Pack — was also enhanced by the addition of the Toledo Jazz Orchestra, an 18-member group of musicians from Ohio and Michigan that was founded in 1980.

In addition to some great singing and dancing by DeCosta, Meeks and Edwards, Hackett also displayed his comedic talents and timing to perfection.