JERRY LEWIS,
1926-2017

Jerry Lewis, the comedy legend who died Sunday morning at his home in Las Vegas at the age of 91, was a success in film, television and philanthropy over the course of eight decades. His beginnings, though, were on the nightclub stage—and long before Dean Martin had a Top 10 hit album, Lewis had one of his own.

His nightclub act with Martin, started in the 1940s with Lewis as the crazed hyperactive comedy foil to Dino as the relaxed crooner was among America’s highest paid act by 1951, according to Life magazine. They had a radio show that ran from 1949 to 1953; appeared on early live TV variety shows; and in New York, played the prestigious Copacabana and the 6,000-seat Roxy Theater in Times Square. TV and film deals followed with Lewis taking greater creative control over almost all of his projects.

They met when sharing bills in Manhattan clubs and when a singer dropped out of a gig in Atlantic City where Lewis was booked, the comedian suggested they hire Martin as a replacement. They cobbled together an act that, within a week, was garnering rave reviews from the New York press.

Following the nightclub and radio success, Martin and Lewis moved on to television and were then signed to a five-year deal at Paramount Pictures that led to nearly 20 pictures, among them The Stooge, The Caddy and Hollywood or Bust. The duo split up after a final gig at Copacabana on 7/25/56.

Their acrimonious split in 1956 led to Lewis adding writer, producer, director and prank phone caller to his resume. His antics were at their best in The Bellboy and The Nutty Professor in the early 1960s; Martin Scorsese showcased a wholly different side of Lewis in The King of Comedy in 1982.

Ironically, in the immediate aftermath of the break-up, Lewis had a record break bigger than any of Martin’s hits of that period. Decca released his only music album, Just Sings, which contained his version of “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody,” a multi-million-seller. The album hit #3; the single went to #10.

Lewis became a fixture in Las Vegas and on NBC where he did a series of specials plus he the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon. His first son, Gary, meanwhile, had a string hits with Gary Lewis and the Playboys in the 1960s.

Son of vaudevillians—a song-and-dance man and a pianist—he developed his first comedy bit as a teenager, lip-synching to records. He performed it in New Jersey movie theaters as well as burlesque and vaudeville houses in the early 1940s.

While appreciation for his comedic talents ebbed and flowed, the Motion Picture Academy gave him the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his charitable activity in 2009; the French government inducted him into the Légion d’Honneur in 2006; and the 2013 Cannes Film Festival paid tribute to him as a “towering figure in cinema.” The Library of Congress acquired Lewis’s personal archives in 2015.

In Nashville in 2012, he made his theatrical directorial debut with stage musical based on The Nutty Professor with a score by Marvin Hamlisch and book and lyrics by Rupert Holmes. The show never made it to Broadway.

As a prankster, Lewis loved to get on the horn and mess with whomever picked up. One particular call was made in the hopes of adding to his record collection.