Joey Bishop, last of the Rat Pack, dies at 89

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Joey Bishop, the deadpan comedian, TV host and last of the super-hip team of performers known as the Rat Pack, led by Frank Sinatra, has died at age 89, his publicist said on Thursday.

Bishop, born Joseph Abraham Gottlieb on February 3, 1918, in the Bronx, died on Wednesday night at his home in Newport Beach, south of Los Angeles, following an illness of several months, publicist Warren Cowan said.

The self-styled "mouse" of the Rat Pack, Bishop was part of an iconic group of entertainers, including Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford, who came to epitomize the freewheeling cool of the late 1950s and early '60s.

With Sinatra's death in 1998, Bishop was the last surviving member of that group, which performed together as a legendary Las Vegas nightclub act and in such films as "Some Came Running," "Ocean's Eleven" and "Sergeant's 3."

Fellow comic Don Rickles remembered his glum-faced contemporary's distinct "attitude" and said he was "a great innovator when it came to comedy."

Raised in Philadelphia, Bishop started out in vaudeville and performed with a comic trio called the Bishop Brothers, a name he ultimately kept for himself, before serving in the Army during World War II.

His big break came when he met Sinatra in 1952. The two teamed up for a series of gigs at the famed Copacabana nightclub in New York City and remained friends for life.

Referred to by Sinatra as the "Hub of the Big Wheel" and "Speaker of the House" for his role as the Rat Pack's emcee, Bishop was one of the few who could get away with zinging the "Chairman of the Board" in public, even joking about Sinatra's long-rumored ties to organized crime.

In one famous exchange with their audience, Bishop announced: "Mr. Sinatra will now speak of some of the good things the Mafia has done."

ACTOR, TALK-SHOW HOST

Sinatra could give as could as get, often referring to Bishop's singing voice as one "that only Jewish dogs could hear," though Bishop recorded a country western album in the 1970s.

Bishop drifted from the Rat Pack when the 1964 film "Robin and the 7 Hoods" was being made but remained close to Sinatra.

After Sinatra's death, he recounted in a Los Angeles Times interview calling his old friend to cheer him up when he was ill, telling him: "'Frank, if you're just tired, and you're not really sick, I will never speak to you again!'"

The comedian also appeared in several straight film roles, including "The Deep Six" and "The Naked and the Dead," and developed a successful television career in his own right.

After playing a talk show host on an eponymous NBC and CBS sitcom for four seasons, 1961-1965, he landed the job as a real-life host of ABC's late-night entry, also called "The Joey Bishop Show," opposite NBC's dominant "The Tonight Show" starring Johnny Carson.

Bishop's sidekick for the show was Regis Philbin, who went on to co-star in his own long-running morning TV show, currently titled "Live with Regis and Kelly."

"It was the thrill of my life to be chosen by Joey as the announcer for his talk show on ABC back in the '60s," Philbin said in a statement. "He was a master comedian and a great teacher, and I will never forget those days or him."

While Bishop proved no match for Carson in the ratings competition, he became a "Tonight Show" favorite after leaving ABC, filling in for Carson as guest host a record 177 times.

He also was a regular on such game shows as "Keep Talking" and "What's My Line?"

Bishop -- the master of ceremonies at President John F. Kennedy's inaugural gala in January 1961 -- made his Broadway debut in 1981 in the musical hit "Sugar Babies," replacing Mickey Rooney.

Bishop's wife of 58 years, Sylvia, died in 1999.