Somber-looking comedian Joey Bishop, who achieved fame with the famed Las Vegas Rat Pack during the early 1960’s, died Thursday at age 89. He was the last surviving member of the group. Frank Sinatra died in 1998, Dean Martin in 1995, Sammy Davis, Jr. in 1990 and Peter Lawford in 1984.

Bishop died of multiple causes at his home in Newport Beach, California, according to the Associated Press.

During the early 1960’s, Las Vegas was the Kennedy-era playground of America and the Rat Pack were its schoolyard entertainers. The group appeared at the Sands Hotel with shows combining music, comedy and a whole lot of chaos. Bishop was remembered as having only played a small role, but Sinatra remembered it differently. He called the comedian the Hub of the Big Wheel.” It was Bishop, he said, who came up with some of the best one-liners and starting many jokes with “Son of a gun!”

The quintet appeared together in films as Ocean’s Eleven and Sergeants 3. They also included President Kennedy as an honorary member, but Bishop achieved a real honor when he served as master of ceremonies at Kennedy’s inauguration gala.

With Kennedy’s assassination the Rat Pack faded, but in the late 1990’s saw a cultural renaissance of a time gone by. Ocean’s Eleven was remade and an HBO movie portrayed the group.

On his own from the Rat Pack, Bishop starred in two TV series, both called The Joey Bishop Show. The series started out as Bishop playing a talk show host, but negative reviews brought a format change. The series switched networks but nothing helped and the show was cancelled in 1965. <

To counter the ratings juggernaut of Johnny Carson, Bishop was given an actual talk show on a rival network in 1967. Not denying the ratings slaying from Carson, the show was cancelled, although Bishop was a substitute host for Carson 205 times.

Born Joseph Abraham Gottleib in the Bronx, New York, he attended schools later on in South Philadelphia but did not prove to be a deft student, once commenting, “In kindergarden, I flunked sand pile.“ He adopted Joey Bishop as his stage name, learning the business through burlesque, vaudeville and the nightclub circuit. He eventually figured out his technique of laid-back drollery with a surprise zinger thrown in.

After a stint in the Army Bishop resumed his career in 1945, eventually earning $1,000 a week at New York’s Latin Quarter. It was there Sinatra saw him performing and hired him as an opening act. The rest is entertainment history.

In 1941 he married Sylvia Ruzga and their marriage survived until her death in 1999. Bishop spent his retirement years in California’s upscale Newport Bay, according to his son, Larry.