JERRY LEWIS
Friends and family provide insight into the genius behind the humor.
“I get paid to do what most kids get punished for.”
— Jerry
Jerry Lewis could always turn it on. Magician Penn Jillette sat next to his childhood idol on a flight when Jerry was in his 80s. “The entire time, Jerry was performing for everyone: pulling things out of his nose and doing voices,” Penn tells Closer. “He had nothing left to prove — he was just doing it because he loved to make people laugh. Some make people laugh because it’s their job, then turn it off the second they have the opportunity. That wasn’t Jerry.”
But Jerry, who died from heart failure at 91 on Aug. 20, was many things: a comedic innovator, skilled dramatic actor, groundbreaking inventor, tireless charity advocate and ultimately a devoted family man. He also influenced generations of comics like Richard Belzer, who tells Closer, “He was like a father to me.”
In all his pursuits, timing was everything. He rocketed to mega-fame in the ’50s after teaming with Dean Martin, but the pair endured a painful split a decade later when their divergent working styles clashed (Jerry was painstakingly exact, Dean was laid-back). Yet when Dean’s beloved son Dean Paul tragically died in a plane crash at 35 in 1987, Jerry was there for his pal in the most respectful way. At the funeral, “He snuck in the back, completely unnoticed because he feared if people saw him, all eyes would be on him, not my dad,” Dean’s daughter Deana Martin tells Closer.
“This was not about a show — this was about being there for a friend during an incredibly difficult time.”
Jerry had endured some tough times of his own, beginning with his childhood in Newark, N.J., as the son of a vaudeville entertainer dad and pianist mom. “He always tried to live up to his dad’s expectations,” says Gregg Barson, director of Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis.
After following in his father’s showbiz footsteps, “One night, Jerry did the best stand-up of his life and asked his dad, ‘How’d I do?’ He said, ‘It was OK, but you turned your back on your audience to get a laugh from the orchestra — don’t ever do that.’ ”
In Dean, who was nine years older, Jerry found another father figure he strived to please. “Jerry idolized and adored my dad,” Deana says. “Together they were unstoppable.” Adds Barson, “He was trying to get Dean’s love and respect. Without Dean, Jerry knew he would be nothing.”
That made it all the scarier when Jerry set out on his own. “There were telegrams from people saying you can’t break up — it was a horror to people,” recalls Deana. But Jerry enjoyed wild success as an actor with his patented slap-shtick and as an auteur on classics like The Bellboy and The Nutty Professor. “He wanted everything to be perfect,” says Barson. That’s why Jerry devised the video-assist monitor, which allows directors to watch instant playback of scenes. It became such an invaluable tool, Steven Spielberg said every video assist should have “Jerry Lewis invented this” on it.
LIVING IT UP
Jerry’s professional success came at a personal cost. He had six sons (including the lead singer of the ’60s band Gary Lewis and the Playboys) with his first wife, crooner Patti Palmer, but “he was away more than home,” son Ronnie Lewis, 67, tells Closer. “When he was home, he would be holed up at his desk, writing in his inner sanctum.” As Jerry admitted, “I almost resent being Charley Moviestar. Yeah, I’m grateful. But it takes me away from my kids.” Still, Ronnie warmly recalls Jerry carefully shooting their Christmas home movies as if they were feature films and believes Jerry’s dis-
tance was a product of his own difficult childhood: “Most of the things he did — good, bad and indifferent — had a great deal to do with how he was raised.”
Three years after Jerry and Patti ended their 36-year marriage, he wed Las Vegas dancer SanDee Pitnick in 1983 and they adopted a daughter, Danielle (named after Jerry’s dad, Daniel). This time, he could not have been a more doting husband. “He had an amazing wife, and the love he had for Danielle was beyond belief,” Tony Orlando, who toured with Jerry, tells Closer.
Of course, Jerry had a strong bond with his other “kids,” the children with muscular dystrophy for whom he raised $2.5 billion via his roundthe-clock Labor Day telethons from 1966 to 2010. He had begun working for the charity with Dean in 1952, and Frank Sinatra famously arranged for a heartwarming reunion between the estranged duo on the 1976 broadcast. “I worked with my dad on the telethons, and he didn’t understand what it was to get tired,” recalls Ronnie. As for the mystery of why Jerry chose MD as his signature cause, “meet the children, and you’ll answer your own question.”
A SERIOUS MAN
When his comedy career hit the skids in the ’70s, he turned to drama — directing and starring in 1972’s The Day the Clown Cried, set at a Nazi concentration camp. A notorious perfectionist, Jerry wasn’t pleased with the film and kept it out of public view, although clips have popped up online. “That’s never going to be released,” Jerry said last year, adding he’d been offered large sums to change his mind, and “I told them what to do with their money.”
He earned acclaim for dramatic work in other films, however, starting with Martin Scorsese’s 1982 gem The King of Comedy, in which he played a thinly veiled version of himself, a comic stalked by an unhinged fan (Robert De Niro). “It was an experience I’ll always treasure,” Scorsese says. For his part, Jerry was baffled by the praise. As Barson reports, “He said, ‘My whole life, I didn’t get raves, now I do this and I’m just being myself. Schmucks.’” Actually, Jerry was appreciated as a master comic, actor and filmmaker in his time — just not by many U.S. critics. He was revered in France, for example. Says Barson, “Jerry called Paris ‘my room,’ like it was his nightclub.”
In his final film, 2016’s Max Rose, Jerry plumbed the depths of his soul with a shattering turn as a widower. “If grief is genuine, it’s because you loved,” he said. “And love is the most wonderful gift God gives us.”
Now friends, family and fans grieve for Jerry. Pal Steve Lawrence tells Closer, “He had an amazing gift, and he loved sharing it with the world.” He did it with an inexhaustible spirit. “If he wanted to do something, he just kept going,” says Ronnie. Adds Tony, “It takes a very special person to make the world laugh for seven decades.” Concludes Deana, “He brought joy to the world. He was a remarkable human being.”
“Going unnoticed has never been my strong suit.”
— Jerry