‘The Rat Pack: One More Time’ is coming to Poway on Saturday

Take a musical step into the past when “The Rat Pack: One More Time” comes to the Poway Performing Arts Center on Saturday.

Setting their performance in the early 1960s heyday of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, impersonators Sebastian Anzaldo (as Sinatra), Lambus Dean (as Davis) and Andy DiMino (as Martin) will be accompanied by a live orchestra.

Their performance is mostly based on The Rat Pack’s work in the early ‘60s, including the time they spent filming the 1960 movie “Ocean’s 11” in Las Vegas.

“While there filming, a hotel owner gave them two weeks each for shows,” DiMino said.

Regardless which one of the trio was scheduled to perform that night, the other two often showed up in the wings and would at some point appear on the stage to sing as guests.

In a similar style, DiMino said he usually opens “The Rat Pack: One More Time” by singing three or four songs, then he introduces the other two who each take their turns. They eventually sing together.

Each has a signature song. For Martin, it’s “That’s Amore.” The Sinatra song is “My Way” and the Davis one is “Mr. Bojangles,” DiMino said.

“Those are the ones people remember and resonate with when we sing,” DiMino said, noting their audiences are typically older.

Audience members now in their 80s remember hearing the real trio perform, and those in their 60s have memories of listening with their parents, as DiMino said he has.

“It reminds me of sitting next to my dad watching the Dean Martin TV show in 1974,” he said. “There is an emotional tie for a lot of people.”

The Poway show will be 90 minutes with no intermission, he said. Comedy bits — many of which he wrote — will be mixed among the songs. Because many of the Rat Pack’s jokes in the 1960s would be considered offensive today, DiMino said he has written some new, “non-offensive” jokes in a similar style.

“They were politically incorrect and we would not be allowed to do the things they did,” he said. “But of course, they were the kings of Las Vegas and could get away with anything.”

Anzaldo, Lambus and DiMino have been performing their act together for around two decades.

DiMino hails from the L.A. community of Tujunga. He started his music career in a high school rock band. He recorded an album for RCA, won first place on “The Gong Show” and did some comedy and acting bits on TV and in film. After he moved to Las Vegas he began singing at the big hotels, where he’d sometimes sing Martin’s songs.
Realizing he had a resemblance to the crooner, DiMino decided in the late 1990s to not just sing Martin’s music, but impersonate him as well.

“I’m Italian and I know his music because it is that of my parents. I grew up ... hearing it, so it made sense to me (to impersonate Martin). I have a similar look without trying too hard,” said DiMino. “I watched his TV shows without the sound so I could pick up the physical details that people would not expect to see but they remember about him. I also listened to his music so I could have the same vocal details.”

For a while after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, performers had a hard time getting work, and he pursued other show opportunities, including being a black light puppeteer at Excalibur. But eventually the shows resumed, and more than 20 years ago he joined forces with Anzaldo and Lambus as The Rat Pack. DiMino exclusively focuses on his Martin work.

Anzaldo, a Nebraska native, grew up in a musical family, according to his bio. He started playing drums and singing at age 11. While he started his professional music career in New York, within a year he moved to Los Angeles where he stayed for the next 14 years. He eventually moved to Las Vegas, where his Sinatra act began.

Dean is from Chicago. He started singing professionally in 1977 when he was hired for weddings, clubs and private events. By the mid-1980s he was appearing in various theatrical productions until moving to Las Vegas in 1998 to pursue a full-time singing career, according to his bio. His Sammy Davis Jr. act began in 2001.

The trio not only performs at public, corporate and private events in Las Vegas, but is booked for appearances all over the world including recent gigs in Germany, Austria and Egypt.

‘The Rat Pack: One More Time’

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Road, Poway

Tickets: $25-$70

Phone: (858) 748-0505

Online: powayonstage.org

Himchak writes for the U-T Community Press.