Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown

The Jewish Film Society will present “Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown” at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 22 at the Jewish Community Center’s Arts and Education Building, 2 Millstone Campus Drive, St. Louis, MO. Since the early days of television, Lewis had audiences laughing at his visual gags, pantomime sketches, and signature slapstick humor. Yet Lewis was far more than a jokester. A groundbreaking filmmaker whose insatiable curiosity led him to write, produce, stage, and direct many of the films he would also appear in resulted in such adored classics as “The Bellboy,” “The Ladies Man,” “The Errand Boy,” and “The Nutty Professor.” Director Gregory Monro invites audiences to rediscover Jerry Lewis as an influential artist, humanitarian, and visionary. In addition, the short film, “The Man Who Shot Hollywood,” will also be shown, about photographer Jack Pashkovsky, who worked without fanfare photographing Hollywood celebrities. Over the years he compiled an incredible collection of celebrity photographs that previously were never seen by the general public. The films are free to Jewish Film Society members and $10 for the general public. Source: www.stljewishlight.com

In the fall of 1954, Frank Sinatra invited Dean and me to visit the set of his latest movie, The Man with the Golden Arm, a harrowing story of a former card dealer and heroin addict named Frankie Machine struggling to get his act together after he’s released from prison. Frank's performance was, I think, his greatest, even more spectacular than the work he’d done in From Here to Eternity two years earlier. Frank was always very gung ho about the team, and he had tremendous respect for both of us as individuals. Where Dean Martin was concerned, I’ll say this: Frank Sinatra idolized very few men—but Dean Martin was certainly one of them. It was complicated. Frank was a softie under a brass exterior, a mama’s boy. Dean was a man’s man, a big jungle cat, totally easy in his skin—or at least very, very good at convincing the world that he was. The reality was, this was his way of keeping the world at arm’s length. The truth behind the spaghetti-and-meatballs Steubenville myth was that Dean came from a cold, calculating, insensitive Italian family. Doesn’t match up with the cliché, right? Well, there are all kinds of Italians—scientists, statesmen, artists and killers. Dean got squat from his mother, father, brother, aunts, uncles. He was lonely, unhappy, and felt totally unloved. 

Dean was of two minds about wiseguys. On the one hand, unlike Frank, he never went out of his way to cultivate them. Believe me, Dean could have found any number of such gentlemen who would have been tickled pink to help him with his career early on. But he elected not to, because it was never his way to cozy up to anyone. Throughout his previous career as a casino dealer, small-time boxer, and semisuccessful singer, he was always alone. And so was I. Even though I had the love of my Grandma Sarah, who kept me weekends I was known as the Pony Express kid, shipped from one place to another—always traveling, because my mom and dad were always on the road, to burlesque, vaudeville, concert dates. And so Dean and I understood each other. Deeply. Our closeness worked for us, bonding us in the way that audiences loved, and—over time—against us. 

With Frank and me, it was different. We shared a huge regard for each other’s talent, and a deep personal affection: Our personalities dovetailed. Very often he and I would be alone, on a plane trip to a benefit somewhere, or at Paramount, in my office or dressing room, while Dean was playing golf. Frank was always very open about his love affair with Martin and Lewis, and when we split as a team, he had to make a choice. It had to be one or the other. Dean and I were not talking, and Frank knew that Dean needed a friendship with substance. For a while after July 24, 1956, people thought I would be just fine (even if I didn’t always know it myself). But they worried about Dean. But where Frank was concerned, Dean could never totally let down his guard. And—in a not totally healthy way—Frank was drawn to that reserve. It made Dean more manly and fascinating in Frank’s eyes. When Frank saw the way Dean handled the Mob, he was amazed. Dean never gave them the time of day; he played dumb or drunk, or he was just off playing golf. Frank, on the other hand, was drawn to the wiseguys’ mystique because it made him feel tougher. But he was also a very smart man, smart enough to know that it was a crutch, one that Dean didn’t need. —"Dean & Me" (2005) by Jerry Lewis

Count legendary crooner Frank Sinatra among those critical of Donald Trump. A new book claims Ol’ Blue Eyes once sent a blunt message to the future president, telling his manager to tell Trump to “go fuck himself,” per the New York Daily News. Sinatra even offered his phone number in case Trump wanted to hear it directly from him. The episode was detailed in The Way it Was (2017), an upcoming book written by Eliot Weisman, who served as Sinatra’s manager from 1975 until the singer’s death in 1998. Weisman made the deal with Mark Grossinger Etess, executive in charge of the Taj Mahal. Then, Etess died in a helicopter crash about six months before the Taj Mahal opened. Since the deal was never formalized, Trump decided he wanted to renegotiate, paying less for Sinatra and canceling the other acts. That’s when Sinatra sent his message to Trump. The interaction killed the deal and Sinatra performed at rival casino The Sands instead. Source: www.independent.co.uk

In the course of Marilyn Monroe’s career, she had the choice of many photographers to work with. In 1954, she chose Milton H. Greene. Monroe formed a partnership with Greene that would result in more than 5,000 images taken over the course of three years. These photo sessions are the subject of a new book, The Essential Marilyn Monroe, Milton H. Greene: 50 Sessions. The photos were a collaboration between photographer and muse, a dynamic that shows in the range of photos from posed studio shots to candid photos with other personalities including Marlon Brando, Lawrence Olivier and her husband Arthur Miller. Among the many gems are a series of photos that also ran in LIFE magazine in the June 3, 1957 issue under the headline "Marilyn in Many Roles." They show her at her playful best, “ransacking the 20th Century Fox costume department with Milton on Sunday afternoons." Source: time.com

A friend of Frank Sinatra’s, Jimmy Whiting, recalled: “Marilyn was real dependent on Frank. There were many late-night phone calls to him. She used to say, ‘If I have any problem in the world about anything, there’s only one person I know can help: Frankie.’ Frank’s feeling was ‘hey, if I can help out the dame, I will. She’s a good kid’.” In 1954 Frank Sinatra was miserable about the slow erosion of his marriage to actress Ava Gardner, said to be the love of his life. Despite any problems with her, Frank always felt that Marilyn was intelligent, witty, sexy, and exciting. He understood her frailties. “Frank said that Marilyn was like a shooting star,” observed actress Esther Williams, “and you couldn’t help but be fascinated by her journey. While you knew she was going to crash and burn, you didn’t know how. However, you knew it was going to be a merry ride.” Frank couldn’t resist Marilyn's charms. “He was in love with her, no doubt about it,” said Milt Ebbins, who was a good friend of Sinatra’s and also vice president of Chrislaw production company. “By 1961, though, his feeling about her was more protective than passionate.” —"The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" (2010) by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Rat Pack Party Girl (2017) is the gutsy and wrenching story of former Rat Pack high-roller and party girl Jane McCormick. She was living in Las Vegas from 1960 to 1972. She met Frank Sinatra in 1960, when he was shooting Ocean’s Eleven. In her time in Las Vegas, McCormick made a half-million dollars a year for twelve years, as much as any big name in showbiz. She reveals her 1960s sexcapades with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Vic Damone, Jerry Lewis, and other celebrities. At the end of that road, she was finally able to obtain what she wanted all along: happiness fueled by the discovery of her true sexual identity as a gay woman, which has resulted in the comfort of experiencing real love in her now twenty-two year relationship.

On her fling with Jerry Lewis: We sat in his hotel suite for about two hours laughing and telling jokes. Jerry stumbled around the room, being clumsy, feet and legs of jelly, doing his nerdy routine. He cracked me up. Jerry said I reminded him of a beautiful girl with blond hair and green eyes he had noticed among the fans hanging around after his shows in New York. Jerry said he had never talked to her but that she always had stuck in his mind. "And you, my dear, have the same fabulous face." He did a little song-and-dance routine, a soft-shoe shuffle, then jumped up and clicked his heels together. I noticed how soft-spoken he could be, and how serious about his work. He wasn't at all the zany guy I'd thought. He told me how much he loved his family and how hard he worked to support them. Jerry said he felt lonely on the road and he was glad to meet such a sweet girl. Maybe, for a few moments, I could take some of his loneliness away.

I was thinking about how handsome Jerry was when he was serious and sincere. He just liked me and my sense of humor. At the Sands, Jerry drove into the circle drive in the wrong direction. He headed the Lincoln toward the curb and drove up onto the sidewalk near the entrance of the casino. Laughing like crazy, we jumped out of the car, ran into the casino, and out the side door by the pool. We both ran yelling around the pool twice before heading back to the room. We fell onto the bed in stitches. We had another drink. Then Jerry sent for sandwiches. When I told him I'd been molested as a little girl, Jerry told me it was the most horrible thing he'd ever heard. He held me in his arms while I cried and he cried with me. I just loved him then, and I do to this day. Jerry was almost bashful when it came to having sex, but he thoroughly enjoyed it. He didn't go all the way, though, to preserve his loyalty to his wife. As we returned to the Sands on Las Vegas Boulevard, we quietly enjoyed the sunrise over Sunrise Mountain. Jerry Lewis was one of the nicest men I have ever met. —"Rat Pack Party Girl" (2017) by Jane McCormick