Jerry Lewis
by Live Music Head
On this day, Jerry Lewis turns 88.
And so I remember growing up
watching the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon
that he hosted and founded over fifty years ago;
a program that entertained us
for two days straight
while raising money for charity and marked the end of
summer;
a program that warmed our hearts,
and saw us off into a brand new
school year,
for years.
It was also a program that,
if memory serves,
was my first exposure to Jerry Lewis.
Years later, I was fascinated to see him play
opposite
Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s 1982 film
The King of Comedy.
What an amazing
little film that is.
I was also fascinated to read the interview he did
with
Amy Wallace in GQ Magazine in 2011.
Look it up.
It’s a great read.
Also a great
read is
We’ll Be Here for The Rest of Our Lives,
a book written by Paul Shaffer
(Letterman’s sidekick) in 2009.
Shaffer grew up watching the Telethon as well,
and
counts Jerry Lewis as a major idol.
Shaffer told the story in the book
of how
excited he got to meet his idol,
over brunch with their mutual friend Richard
Belzer
(stand-up comedian aka Det. Munch on Law & Order),
and his
disappointment over not impressing his idol
when he interjected their
conversation
with tidbits from his life-long accumulation
of Jerry Lewis minutiae.
No matter how much Shaffer tried,
all Lewis wanted
to talk about was
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,
of which he
guest-starred in 2006
and gave an absolutely brilliant performance
as a depressed,
homeless man caught up in
the investigation of a brutal rape.
The dramatic work
of Jerry Lewis is amazing.
But Lewis is best known as a genius slapstick
comedian.
And it will likely be his work
as a genius slapstick comedian in a
duo with Dean Martin
that will be widely remembered.
For theirs was one of the
most popular comedy duos in history,
beginning in 1946 and ending,
not on the
best of terms,
ten years later.
I also grew up with The Rat Pack.
So when Frank
Sinatra instigated a reunion between
Jerry and Dean
on the Telethon in
1976,
it was a big moment in television...
