page_title: 500 Club
section_title: Acts
hierarchical_section_title: 500 Club / Acts
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Jerry Lewis (left) and Dean Martin performing on the first Ed Sullivan Show in 1948. The show was called The Toast of the Town at that time. CBS re-issued the photo in 1963 for a celebration of 15 years of The Ed Sullivan Show.
context_page_description: The 500 Club, popularly known as The Five, was a nightclub and supper club at 6 Missouri Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States. It was owned by racketeer Paul "Skinny" D'Amato, and operated from the 1930s until the building burned down in 1973. It became one of the most popular nightspots on the East Coast, and housed the first illegal casino to be run in the city.
  The main bar was large and black, with black and white zebra-patterned wallpaper on the walls of the room. An indoor waterfall surrounded by imitation exotic vegetation stood in the back. The club's main showroom, the Vermilion Room, often featured the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and the slapstick comedy duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
  The club and bar were destroyed in an electrical fire in June 1973, resulting in $1.5 million worth of damage. Subsequent plans to rebuild or reopen the club in a megaresort hotel in Atlantic City amounted to nothing in the years leading up to D'Amato's death in 1984.
context_section_description: The 500 Club became one of the most popular nightspots on the East Coast, regularly attracting top-name talent. Performers included Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Martin and Lewis, the Will Mastin Trio, Jimmy Durante, Eartha Kitt, Patti Page, Sophie Tucker, the Jackie Paris Trio, Milton Berle, Nat King Cole, and Liberace, among many others.
  Frank Sinatra called on his friendship with D'Amato to perform at the club in the 1940s when his career was at a lull. He regularly performed there from the 1940s through to the 1960s, each time doing all four shows and waiving his fee. During Sinatra's engagements at the club in the 1950s, the 500 Club marquee read simply, "He's Back". Comedian Pat Henry started as Sinatra's opening act at the 500 Club in 1958, continuing in that capacity in Las Vegas and other Sinatra venues for the next two decades. In 1960 New York AM radio station WNEW garnered 129,837 entries for its drawing for three couples to accompany disc jockey William B. Williams to a Sinatra performance at the 500 Club followed by a hotel stay. Sinatra was questioned about his association with Mafia gangster Tommy Lucchese by the United States House Select Committee on Crime in 1972, but said that he had only met Lucchese during his performances at the 500 Club.
  Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis paired up to do slapstick comedy for the first time at the 500 Club on July 25, 1946. While Martin was trying to get gigs as a singer, Lewis performed as a comedian at the club. One night a different act failed to show up and Lewis suggested to the owner that he hire Martin to do comedy with him. The owner was skeptical, but the two went ahead and tried to devise an act on paper in their hotel room, which did not work. The next night, they went on stage and improvised for three hours, bringing the house down. The comedy duo of Martin and Lewis was popular in nightclubs and in film from 1946 to 1956.
  After he and Jerry Lewis broke up their act, Dean Martin did not perform at the club again until August 1962.  Martin was originally billed as a solo act, but was joined by both Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. at the midpoint of his engagement.  The three performed as "The Rat Pack" until Martin's engagement at the club was over; this was the last time the Rat Pack performed in Atlantic City. Davis, Martin, and Sinatra performed their three night Rat Pack act at the club for no fee.  The club was in financial difficulty at the time; they were all close friends of D'Amato and had been helped by him in earlier times. A private recording was made of the August 26, 1962 5AM show at the 500 Club – the last performance of the Rat Pack there. It was later distributed as a souvenir to patrons of the now defunct Sinatrarama Room at Philadelphia's Latimer Cafe. The club continued to have financial problems in the 1970s.  The Internal Revenue Service closed the club for back taxes in August 1971.  D'Amato was allowed to reopen in November 1971 after an agreement was reached regarding payment of them.
caption: Martin and Lewis in 1948
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