Crowned by serious French critics as "Le Roi du Crazy" and inducted into the French Legion of Honor by presidential decree in 1984, Jerry Lewis is most closely identified in this country with the perennial Labor Day telethon that bears his name and raises money to fight muscular dystrophy. Whether you love his work or hate it, he was the most recognizable auteur of the American cinema in the early 60s, writing, directing, producing and starring in such movies as "The Bellboy" (1960), "The Ladies' Man" (1961) and "The Nutty Professor" (1963). Though the French regard him as a latter-day Buster Keaton, "sophisticated" Americans have decried his lowbrow humor, summarily dismissing him as an idiot, despite an appeal that made his films, at least for awhile, pure gold at the box office.
Born Joseph Levitch to show business parents, Lewis made his debut at the age of five on New York's Borscht Circuit singing "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" He quit high school after a year and began making the rounds with his "Record Act", miming and silently mouthing lyrics of operatic and popular songs played off-stage. On July 25, 1946, he began his partnership with Dean Martin, an association that would skyrocket them to fame. Initially working separately, they found success together, improvising insults and jokes, squirting soda water, hurling bunches of celery and exuding general zaniness. In less than 18 weeks their salaries soared from $250 a week to $5000. The producer Hal Wallis put them in their first film "My Friend Irma" (1949), and the pair managed to sandwich sixteen money-making films between nightclub engagements, personal appearances, recording sessions, radio shows and TV bookings before disbanding in 1956 after their July 25th show at the Copacabana, ten years to the day they had first teamed.
The situations and directors varied, but the Martin and Lewis formula was always the same. Martin played the blase and selfish stud opposite Lewis' naive and frantic misfit, whose spastic, cross-eyed lunacy practically parodied the mentally and physically afflicted. Take "Artists and Models" (1955), which many believe to be their best film. Lewis plays a horror-comic addict who dreams bloodcurdling sequels to the stories he reads by day. His cynical buddy Martin, a commercial artist, overhears him gibbering in his sleep and sells his ideas to a pulp publisher. The comedy escalates when Lewis dreams a secret formula of interest to both American and Russian governments, and agents of each are soon in hot pursuit. Boasting an excellent cast including Shirley MacLaine, Dorothy Malone and Anita Ekberg, "Artists and Models" introduced Lewis to writer-director Frank Tashlin, who would also direct their last movie "Hollywood or Bust" (1956) and later remember that the acrimonious pair "didn't speak during the whole picture. It was a bitch." The experience didn't sour him from working with Lewis, however, whom he would subsequently direct sans Martin six times.
Of Lewis' first seven solo films, Tashlin would write and direct three ("Rock-a-Bye Baby" 1956, "The Geisha Boy" 1958 and "Cinderfella" 1960) and Norman Taurog, who had directed six Martin and Lewis movies, would helm two ("Don't Give Up the Ship" 1959 and "Visit to a Small Planet" 1960). Taurog was the archetypal studio director, an excellent craftsman capable of turning almost any assignment into a box-office hit, and any influence on Lewis' developing style is not as readily apparent as that of Tashlin, who had begun as a cartoonist and had a talent for sustained visual gags (i.e., the rubber glove as udder to feed three babies in "Rock-a-Bye Baby"). Tashlin occasionally managed to tone Lewis down into something even his worst critics grudgingly praised. Bill Richmond entered the picture as co-scenarist with Lewis on his directing debut "The Bellboy" (1960), and they would go on to script seven more pictures together with Lewis at the helm. Taurog, Tashlin, Richmond and, of course, Martin stand out as Lewis' most frequent collaborators during his career.
Lewis' first three films as auteur, "The Bellboy", "The Ladies' Man" and "The Errand Boy" (1961) abandoned plot almost entirely in favor of gags laid end to end, a technique which garnered more critical praise in Europe than in the USA. "The Ladies Man" gave Lewis the opportunity to play both the mother-dominated Herbert Herbert Herbert and his dominating mother, and the huge interior set (four stories high and spanning two Paramount sound stages), inspired Jean-Luc Godard to emulate it in "Tout va bien" (1972). After acting in Tashlin's "It's Only Money" (1962), Lewis (along with Richmond) abandoned the episodic structure for a more conventional plot in "The Nutty Professor" (1963), regarded by many as his masterpiece. One sight gag (among the many) leaps out--Professor Kelp, seeking to develop some muscles, grabs a pair of dumbbells so heavy that his arms stretch to the floor; that night in bed, lying full-length, he can still scratch his sock-clad feet protruding from under the covers. The final two Lewis-Tashlin partnerings followed, "Who's Minding the Store" (1963) and "The Disorderly Orderly" (1964), before Lewis returned behind the camera for the unfunny "The Patsy" (1965), notable only as Peter Lorre's last film.
Lewis wrote (with Richmond), directed, produced and played seven different characters in "The Family Jewels" (1965), which was just too much Lewis for his detractors. In 1959, he had signed a contract with Paramount that represented the then-biggest single pay-out in film history for the exclusive services of one star: $10 million plus 60 percent of the profits from 14 films over a seven year period. "Boeing Boeing" (1965) was his last film for a company which had grown disenchanted with his insistence on complete control, since two of his self-directed films had failed to do as well as ones in which he only starred. Lewis continued to work at other studios through the 60s, but his heyday had clearly been at Paramount. Whether he was trying to dissociate himself from the "idiot" or just worn down by an addiction to judgment-clouding Percodan first taken for a back injury suffered in a 1965 pratfall, his movies became less and less funny (a revelation to those who never cared for his brand of humor in the first place).
After "Which Way to the Front?" (1970), Lewis' next picture was "Hardly Working" (1981), although he had made the never-released "The Day the Clown Cried" (lensed 1971), a horrific story of a famous clown in Nazi Germany sent to work as a nightmarish Pied Piper leading children to the gas chamber. Once again the director, star and co-author of "Hardly Working" experienced the savagery of American critics, but the film's $50 million grosses in North America alone proved there was still a Lewis public out there. His screen appearances over the past two decades, though few, have often been memorable. He scored a personal triumph in his first serious role as an arrogant talk show host who is kidnapped in Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" (1983) and turned in an acclaimed portrayal as a clothing merchant tempted by mob influence in a five-episode story on TV's "Wiseguy" (CBS, 1990). He also delivered impressive performances as Johnny Depp's uncle in the European-styled "Arizona Dream" (1991) and as Oliver Platt's famous comedian father in the British film "Funny Bones" (1994). The comic served as executive producer when Eddie Murphy paid homage to Lewis' most iconic role for a popular 1996 remake of "The Nutty Professor" with Murphy playing Sherman Klump, a sweet but obese academic with his own obnoxious Buddy Love unleashed. Lewis, always a welcome presence on the talk show circuit, also made some memorable TV guest appearances in his later career, including a 1993 stint as an eccentric tycoon on the hit NBC sitcom "Mad About You," and a 2003 visit to "The Simpsons" for the annual "TreeHouse of Horror" Halloween episode as the father of Prof. John Frink (that character's voice actor Hank Azaria had clearly drawn inspiration from Lewis' nutty Professor Kelp).
Lewis fulfilled a lifelong dream by appearing on Broadway as Applegate (the Devil) in "Damn Yankees" in 1995, a dream that had been thwarted when a 1977 production of "Helzapoppin", in which he also starred, closed out of town. His national tour of "Damn Yankees" broke all previous attendance records for traveling Broadway shows and he performed the role in London as well. A proposed international tour with a return engagement on Broadway was jettisoned, partly over Lewis' near record $100,000 salary and his netting close to 90 percent of the revenues from merchandising that featured his name or likeness.
Lewis survived a heart attack that left him clinically dead in 1982 thanks to by-pass surgery performed by renowned surgeon Michael DeBakey and a new lifestyle no longer dependent on cigarettes and junk food. Some theorize a guilty conscience spurred Lewis in his fight against muscular dystrophy, and if it is indeed penance for unfortunate jokes at others' expense, it is magnificent penance. The Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, an American institution almost since its inception, towers above his other accomplishments and will undoubtedly outlive the entertainer as his legacy. Even though he admits he cannot recall several mid-70s telethons due to his dangerous Perdoan addiction, and even after he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2001 and his steroid-based treatment caused his weight to balloon to unrecognizable proportions, Lewis refused to allow his own health issues to keep him from missing the telethon. Nominated for Nobel Prize for his 50 years of work with the cause, Lewis also come full circle in his show business career via the telethon: at the 1976 instalment, Frank Sinatra surprised Lewis by bringing out a friend who admired Lewis' efforts. The friend was Dean Martin, and the two performing partners shared a warm and emotional reunion on live television. The duo would permanently re-cement their bond in 1987 following the death of Martin's son Dean-Paul and remain friends until the end of Martin's life.