A Life Of a Rat Pack Member
Back in the day, Sammy David Jr. was notorious for his love of drugs and alcohol. Sammy told The New York Times, that when he and his Rat Pack crew worked on Ocean’s 11, “[They were] drinking Salty Dogs—gin and grapefruit juice—at 8 in the morning, just to get the blood flowing… I drank so much my left eye would start to close, and they’d have to stop filming.”
Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Akim Tamiroff, and Peter Lawford in ‘Ocean’s 11.’ Photo by Moviestore Collection / Shutterstock
The actor was drinking two bottles of bourbon a day. Until nervous exhaustion and a misaligned liver led him to collapse. He admitted to The New York Times, “I looked at my liver on the electric scanner in the hospital. It was the shape of the state of Texas.”