Ocean’s film franchise was the brainchild of a gas station attendant
WHEN aspiring film director Gilbert Kay heard a gas station attendant tell a story about army buddies robbing Vegas Casinos he thought he might be on a winner
Today in History
Don't miss out on the headlines from Today in History. Followed categories will be added to My News.
WHEN television director Gilbert Kay got chatting with a petrol station attendant in the 1950s, he heard an incredible tale. The attendant, Jack Golden Russell, was a former GI who had served in World War II with a unit whose tasks included smuggling.
He also told Kay he had a great idea for a film about army buddies with special skills pulling off a big heist in Las Vegas. Kay loved the idea, but he was unable to get a backer to make the idea a reality.
One of the big-name actors he approached with the idea was English-born star Peter Lawford, who liked the idea but turned it down because Kay was only a small-time TV director and lacked funding to make a film. In 1959 when Kay had given up on the project he offered it to Lawford, who bought it for $10,000 (Lawford’s wife Patricia, sister of John F. Kennedy, put up half the money).
Lawford would eventually make Russell’s story a reality as the 1960 hit film Ocean’s 11, starring some of the biggest names in entertainment at the time, which inspired the modern Ocean’s franchise — the latest of which Ocean’s 8, starring Cate Blanchett, opens in cinemas today.
Once Lawford owned the rights to the story he started looking for people to work on the project. Initially Lawford imagined William Holden in the lead role of Danny Ocean. But Lawford told his friend Frank Sinatra about the project and the singer liked the idea so much he bought the rights from Lawford for $20,000 and a large slice of the profits. The crooner had been wanting to make a film with some of his industry friends, including Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. They referred to themselves as “the summit” or “the clan”, but were known as the “Rat Pack”, a name coined by actor Lauren Bacall for her husband Humphrey Bogart and his close circle of acting friends in the 1950s.
Sinatra and his pals had a habit of turning up to guest star in each other’s performances, so they wanted to recapture that chemistry on screen.
He hired Lewis Milestone as producer and director. Born Leib Milstein in Moldova, in what was then the Russian Empire, in 1895, Milestone had arrived in the US in 1912.
In World War I he made training films in the US Army signals corps, turning to filmmaking after the war.
His film Two Arabian Knights, about two US army buddies in WWI who end up in Arabia, won him an Oscar at the first Academy Awards in 1928. He also won an Oscar for his 1930 war film All Quiet On The Western Front. He even came to Australia to make the American-Australian co-productions Kangaroo (which starred Lawford) and Melba. But in the ’50s he left the US during the McCarthy era.
When Milestone returned in 1957 he worked mostly in TV. One of the big attractions for Sinatra was Milestone didn’t like shooting his films until after 1pm.
To flesh out the story, aspiring novelist George Clayton Johnson (later more famous as a science fiction writer) worked on Russell’s original outline to create a story about
ex-soldiers robbing Las Vegas casinos by shutting off their power and avoiding their alarms.
The screenplay was written by Charles Lederer (whose credits included Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Can Can) and Harry Brown (A Place In The Sun and The Sands Of Iwo Jima).
Rounding out the titular 11 alongside Sinatra, Lawford, Martin and Davis was comedian Joey Bishop, another sometime Rat Packer, and actors Richard Conte, Henry Silva, Buddy Lester, Richard Benedict, Norman Fell and Clem Harvey. Sinatra offered Steve McQueen a role but legend has it that Hedda Hopper told him to refuse lest he become a Sinatra “flunkey”.
Filming took place partly on location in Vegas between January and February 1960, mostly in the early hours, because Sinatra, Bishop, Davis, Lawford and Martin were all booked to perform there at the time. They would all race from their dressing rooms after performing to the set, ready to go.
Although Milestone was hired to direct, at times Sinatra took the reins. When Milestone would ask for a second take Sinatra would refuse telling him they didn’t need to do it again because the first take was “perfect”.
Sinatra also insisted on changing the ending involving them getting away on a plane with the money. However, it was shot again with a comic ending where the money is cremated with one of the 11 who dies from a heart attack after the caper.
The film premiered at the Fremont Theatre in Las Vegas on August 13, 1960, and was a smash hit.
Originally published as Ocean’s film franchise was the brainchild of a gas station attendant
Gallipoli to D-Day: Aussie’s epic war story
George Dixon went ashore with the original Anzacs at Gallipoli, aged just 15 – and was shot. Three decades later he was fighting again, at history’s other most famous wartime landing.
Love story behind escape tragedy
An Australian murdered in the infamous wartime Great Escape died after swapping places with another man. And his story is still unfolding, 80 years on.