Jerry Lewis

Biography

Jerry Lewis (born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926, died in Las Vegas in 2017) was an American comedian, actor, singer and filmmaker, one of the most recognisable physical comedians of the twentieth century. His birth name appears inconsistently in the records: official documents list Jerome, while he claimed in his autobiography that he was born Joseph. Over seven decades he worked across film, television, the stage, radio and records, and his slapstick style influenced generations of comics.

Lewis grew up around show business. His father, Daniel Levitch, was a vaudeville master of ceremonies who performed as Danny Lewis, and his mother was a radio station pianist. He began performing at the age of five with his parents in the Catskill Mountains. He left school in the tenth grade, and during the Second World War he was turned down for military service because of a heart murmur. His breakthrough came with the singer Dean Martin. In 1946 they debuted as Martin and Lewis at Atlantic City's 500 Club. Martin played the straight man to Lewis's antics, and the improvised bits in their routines set them apart from other comedy teams. They rose quickly through nightclubs, radio and television, and in films they starred for Paramount in a run of comedies that began with At War with the Army (1950). They made sixteen films together, all produced by Hal B. Wallis. Their partnership ended in 1956 without a bitter public break, and the two rarely shared a stage again, with a charity mini show in 1976 among the notable exceptions.

On his own, Lewis reinvented himself. In 1956, at the urgent request of Sid Luft, he stepped in for Judy Garland in Las Vegas, singing on stage alone for the first time since childhood. The album Jerry Lewis Just Sings reached number three on the Billboard charts. He starred in his first solo film, The Delicate Delinquent (1957), and worked with the director Frank Tashlin, whose background in animation suited Lewis's physical humour. In time he took on directing his own films, handling writing, staging and performance. He was also a tireless fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, serving as its national chairman and hosting its Labor Day telethon for decades. His career earned honours from the Academy, the Venice Film Festival and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

His legacy is twofold: that of a comic admired for his physical energy and gift for improvisation, and that of a philanthropist tied to the fight against muscular dystrophy. His film work continues to be reassessed, and his partnership with Martin was dramatised in the 2002 biopic Martin and Lewis. He died in August 2017, leaving a body of work that mixes popular success with a long presence in charity television.

Key films

• Artists and Models (1955): a comedy with Dean Martin at the height of the duo's film popularity.
• The Delicate Delinquent (1957): his first solo film, which established him as a comedy star in his own right.
• The Nutty Professor (1963): one of his best-remembered films, combining his physical style with a more authorial approach.
• The King of Comedy (1982): a substantial supporting role in Martin Scorsese's satire about fame.