Let's have another treble

By GRAHAM REID

Steve didn't intend being Dean. In fact he was being Groucho when a guy being Frank suggested he be Dean. The guy being Frank had already had a guy being Dean, but he went to Las Vegas to be a Blues Brother. So Steve became Dean.

That was eight years ago and Steve has been Dean ever since: He's been Dean on the E! Channel's Hollywood True Stories programme, in The Rat Pack's Hidden Secrets of Las Vegas on the History Channel, in a BBC doco, a six-page spread in Esquire and mostly on stage as one of the three performers playing the core of the legendary Rat Pack - Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis jnr and Dean Martin.

Steve Apple sings in Martin's lazy and endearing manner, has the mannerisms down perfectly and can even improvise on stage in the way Martin used to. More than just being Dean, he becomes Dean for the two-hour show of jokes, songs, drinking and jibing.

The seeds of the present Rat Pack show - which he also produces and scripts - came when he was being Groucho Marx at a corporate function eight years ago where more than 20 lookalikes were gathered.

"There was Reba McEntire, John Wayne, the Pope, Elvis, Neil Diamond and Cher - a real A-list of lookalikes. A guy there who was Frank Sinatra suggested I try Dean Martin, so I did. The first show we did together went well and generated more work, so I studied the character more and more. It took years but I have just kept honing it."

At the time several Rat Pack shows were touring, but a producer wanted to pull together the best, so picked Apple, and Gary Corsello to play Sinatra.

"So in 96 Gary and I were introduced. In 99 we were headlining in Las Vegas on the first Rat Pack show to hit the Strip since the real guys ,and I had at that point met Lonnie [Parlor, who plays Sammy Davis jnr] who came into the cast.

"Of all the guys I've worked with as Sammy Davis jnr, I loved what he did, his heart and soul went into every performance. Everything was just right between the three of us. For the last two and a half years we've had an absolute magical chemistry."

Separately, and then together, they studied video footage of the Rat Pack's shows, and today their two-hour show with a 12-piece band contains elements of some of the group's funniest moments.

The Rat Pack were notorious in the late 50s and early 60s. Their edgy performances, often winging it on stage while more than slightly drunk, was shot through with great songs and racially tinged humour which would be considered politically incorrect today.

Sinatra, Martin and the superb impersonator Davis were already legends, but their shows at places like the now-demolished Sands Hotel only added to their mystique as womanising, hard-living swingers as capable of charm as offensiveness.

With the popularity of big swinging bands like the Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Brian Setzer Orchestra, the George Clooney/Brad Pitt remake of the Rat Pack film Ocean's Eleven, and Michael Buble's Sinatra-styled debut album, there is once more an audience for the style of this era, even if these entertainers are smoking and drinking on stage. But, as Apple says, these guys made it look cool.

"It was a unique period that people really enjoyed and now, after 9/11 when we are at such a time of heightened alertness, it's nice to go back to this and think, 'I remember when ... '

"At the end of the show when we are in the lobby signing autographs and having our picture taken we have many people come up and say, 'Thanks for bringing me back to that period'. "

The Rat Pack has travelled across the States and Asia, but their most nerve-racking night was when they played a venue in Las Vegas, the first time a Rat Pack show had been on the Strip since the originals tore it up.

"But it was also a neat feeling because the venue was the Desert Inn, which was one of the last old-style Las Vegas hotels which had charm all the way. It had its own golf course, the Crystal Showroom and Starlite Lounge, it had its own class about it. It was one of the last places Sinatra played in so it had some mystique connected to them.

"Within a month the show generated so much interest and curiosity we were sold out every night and we added seats in the aisles. We were rated No 6 of the top 10 shows that year."

Apple says the hardest part about being Dean Martin was locating his singing voice. As a voice-over actor before becoming Dean, he could deal with Martin's speaking voice easily enough, but being a natural tenor it was difficult to sing in Martin's warm baritone.

"I had to bring my voice down to that level. I could get the tonal quality but not necessarily the same strength as if I were singing in my own key. The thing that's difficult to keep in mind is the amount of crooning and vibrato and feeling that is put into the lyrics. He spoon-fed sugar into his words with the charm he delivered."

Apple has become something of a Martin expert and has read all the books, many of which - such as Nick Tosche's novelised biography Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams - portray Martin as profligate of his gifts because they came so easy to him, and sleepwalking through recording sessions and movies with indifference.

Martin is a tragic figure who cared very little about anything, and in the end not even about himself.

"I have studied him thoroughly because I wanted to understand not only the character but also the depth of the man and how his life was. The part of his life that was the most destructive was after his son Dean jnr died.

"He slammed his plane into a mountainside in California and it took them three days to find him, which was extremely sad. Everybody says that was the destruction of Dean Martin's life - and that was 13 years before he died. But that was the true death of Dean Martin, not when he died eight years ago.

"He had no interest in performing anymore or doing anything in the business. He became a recluse and stayed out of the public eye. His passions were his family and golfing."

Apple is also a golfer but admits his interest falls well short of Martin's, whose life revolved around the green.

"His whole deal with NBC was he'd come in one day and do the variety show live. He didn't want to rehearse because he wanted things fresh - and the rest of the time he could be golfing."

But the Martin we see as Apple on stage with the Rat Pack is the wisecracking, tipsy crooner. The suave tuxedoed epitome of cool, cigarette in hand and a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"There was a 10-year period when they set the pace for charm, style and grace. They also had the ability to tell people to let their hair down, kick their feet up, chase broads, gamble and drink booze.

"They set the trend of cool when they were in their prime. People liked the idea they could go there and dress up and be a part of that period, just like they do today.

"It's like stepping away from the hustle of our time and just having fun."

Performance

* Who: The Rat Pack

* Where: Civic Theatre

* When: tomorrow night, Saturday and Sunday