Jerry Lewis - a little bit nutty but true comic legend
UNITED STATES: Jerry Lewis, the manic, rubber-faced showman who jumped and hollered to fame in a lucrative partnership with Dean Martin, settled down to become a self-conscious screen auteur and found an even greater following as the tireless, teary host of the annual muscular dystrophy telethons, has died. He was 91.
Lewis died yesterday of natural causes in Las Vegas with his family by his side.
Tributes from friends, co-stars and disciples poured in immediately. Jim Carrey called him an ’’Undeniable genius and an unfathomable blessing’'. Carl Reiner said Lewis was ’’A true comic icon’'.
In Las Vegas, Caesars Palace featured a message honouring him on a marquee, and in Los Angeles, fans gathered at Lewis’ two Hollywood Walk of Fame stars – one of which was for television and one for film.
Lewis’ career spanned the history of show business in the 20th century, beginning in his parents’ vaudeville act at the age of 5.
He went on to make such favourites as The Bellboy and The Nutty Professor, was featured in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy and appeared as himself in Billy Crystal’s Mr Saturday Night. In the 1990s, he scored a stage comeback as the devil in the Broadway revival of Damn Yankees.
In his 80s, he was still travelling the world, planning to remake some of his earlier movies and working on a stage version of The Nutty Professor. He was so active he would sometimes forget the basics, like eating, his associates would recall. In 2012, Lewis missed an awards ceremony thrown by his beloved Friars Club because his blood sugar dropped from lack of food and he had to spend the night in the hospital.
Lewis, at 90, said he still woke up every day at 4.30am to write, and had a handful of standup shows on the schedule.
‘‘When the truth comes down to the truth, I am so grateful that I’m on that stage or in front of that camera. I still feel it like it’s the first day,’' Lewis said.
‘‘To have a career that I had in film, I’m the luckiest Jew that ever lived. I’m so grateful for it. I don’t take advantage of it. I don’t use it improperly. And I love the fact that there’s nowhere I can go where people don’t know me.’'
A major influence on Carrey and other slapstick performers, Lewis also was known as the ringmaster of the Labour Day Muscular Dystrophy Association, joking and reminiscing and introducing guests, sharing stories about ailing kids and concluding with his personal anthem, the ballad You’ll Never Walk Alone.
From the 1960s onward, the telethons raised about $1.5 billion. He announced in 2011 that he would step down as host, but he would remain chairman of the association he joined about 60 years ago.
He was the classic funnyman who longed to play Hamlet, crying as hard as he laughed. He sassed and snarled at critics and interviewers who displeased him. He pontificated on talk shows, lectured to college students and compiled his thoughts in the 1971 book The Total Film-maker.
‘‘I believe, in my own way, that I say something on film. I’m getting to those who probably don’t have the mentality to understand what ... A Man for All Seasons is all about, plus many who did understand it,’' he wrote.
‘‘I am not ashamed or embarrassed at how seemingly trite or saccharine something in my films will sound. I really do make films for my great-great-grandchildren and not for my fellows at the Screen Directors Guild or for the critics.’' – AP