"The Delicate Delinquent": Essential Jerry Lewis

“I’ll face the unknown, I’ll build a world of my own,” sings Sydney Pythias (Jerry Lewis) in The Delicate Delinquent (1957). This film, the first that Jerry Lewis made withouth Dean Martin, is an important, although largely neglected film in the Jerry Lewis canon—Leonard Maltin called it “an agreeable blend of sentiment and slapstick”—yet an appreciation of it does speak directly to what Gerald Mast called “The Problem of Jerry Lewis,” that is, “whether he should be taken seriously.” For The Delicate Delinquent, Lewis hired Don McGuire, a writer who had just directed his first film Johnny Concho (1956), starring Frank Sinatra. Lacking the stylistic influence of a strong director like Frank Tashlin or Norman Taurog, The Delicate Delinquent inevitably reveals much of its aspiring auteur, Jerry Lewis. In the story, a nebbishy apprentice janitor (Jerry Lewis) is mistaken for a young hoodlum by the cops, and a do-good patrolman (Darren McGavin) decides to take him under his wing and reform him. Jerry resists McGavin’s help at first, but pretty soon he wants to become a cop. 

The slim plot serves as a pretext for the redemptive value of niceness that would constitute an essential aspect of the Lewisian vision in later films. As Dana Polan noted in Being And Nuttiness: Jerry Lewis and the French (1984): “There are two Jerry Lewises—the Id (short for Idiot but also suggesting the roots of comic idiocy in a primal unreason) and Jerry Lewis the Serious Man.” One of the reasons Lewis’s films were not so well regarded in North America is because The Idiot is simultaneously silly and sentimental—although, for the French, Lewis’s life and films “appear to combine the contradictory sides of America.” At the same time as Lewis’s Sydney is The Idiot, he is also an idiot savant, the wisest character in the film. Even as Sydney is silly enough to become involved in the scientist’s crackpot plan to evacuate all of Earth’s frogs in tiny spaceships with little toilets, he frequently drops pearls of moral wisdom, like a Shakespearean fool. For example, despite his tongue-tied embarrassment in the presence of his neighbor Patricia (Mary Webster), Sydney’s love interest, he articulately explains his shyness to her by observing, “You got to find out what you are before you can know what you want to be.”

Sydney confesses to Damon: “When I was a boy, I was jerky. And now, now I’m a man. And I’m empty.” In other words, Sydney is grown physically but not psychically. Damon says in defense of Sydney as a police candidate to the captain (Horace McMahon), “He’s honest, he’s got guts, and he’s a decent human being.” And as the film moves toward its climax, Sydney becomes “something,” now capable of standing up to Monk (Robert Ivers): when the cops scuffle with the boys in the alley, Sydney is shown exchanging punches blow for blow. A close-up at the end of the fight shows a dribble of blood at the side of Sydney’s mouth, his red badge of masculine courage. And Sydney’s conception of this better life (“There’s an awful lot of nice people in the world, Monk, and I just wanna be one of them”) marks him as the type of homo americanus that William H. Whyte Jr. had defined in the bestseller “The Organization Man” (1956).

The last scene shows Sydney in his new police uniform, embracing a suddenly proud Patricia, who describes him as “tall and handsome” and “respectable.” The Delicate Delinquent overlays the generic codes of the newly emergent family genre in postwar American cinema on the similarly emerging auteur Jerry Lewis, belonging to what Richard Staehling describes as “the fantasy sociology of the 1950s.” Raymond Durgnat cites two main themes in Lewis’s films, both of which are fully apparent in The Delicate Delinquent: “Jerry’s desperate attempts to live up to his own ideals of ‘benevolent toughness,’ and his equally desperate search to find, be worthy of, and be accepted by a loving world.” Perhaps these two versions of youth in the 1950s, the delicate and the delinquent, represent what Scott Bukatman sees as the juvenile and virile sides of Jerry Lewis’s personality, respectively.

Within the larger generic landscape, The Delicate Delinquent occupies a contradictory position. It is a movie in the venerable tradition of the postwar social problem film such as Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) and Pinky (1949), filtered through Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause (both 1955) which present juvenile delinquency as a social problem. On the other hand, it is a comedy. Treating serious issues with humor is always a difficult aesthetic balancing act, so given its confusing mixture of tones it is no surprise that contemporary reviews of The Delicate Delinquent described the film as confusing, “neither fish nor fowl.” The film is Lewis’s attempt at making socially conscious comedy in the tradition of Charles Chaplin. At the conclusion of his musical number “By Myself,” Sydney moves two garbage cans from one side of the door to the other, a visual metaphor for the burden of his woes in the world. And when Monk confesses the truth about Artie’s gunshot wound in the climax, he explains that there “ain’t no reason for Sydney not to climb out of the garbage.” From scene to scene, The Delicate Delinquent veers between slapstick and social significance, just as Lewis lurches from stupid to smart. Where one scene is funny, the next is serious. The film’s very tone and style pull in two different directions, mirroring the tension within Sydney.

Beginning with shots of a city street complete with expressionist shadows and pools of water on the pavement, the film starts as film noir. Along with these images, jazzy percussion rises in volume on the soundtrack, the staccato rhythms connoting bohemianism, urban culture, and decadence. But when the delinquents begin to appear, their actions are expressionistic, stylized, like the gangster choreography of “The Girl Hunt Ballet” in The Band Wagon (1953). When three of the youths confront three others in the alley, they take out their weapons sequentially—first chain, then knife, then brass knuckles—with dramatic flair and in perfect time with nondiegetic musical accents. I wouldn’t agree that The Delicate Delinquent is “a minor work of American neorealism, a forgotten cousin of On the Waterfront (1954) or Marty (1955).” Lewis’s character challenges the typical representation of masculinity—here, delinquent adolescent masculinity—suggesting it is less monolithic than performative. 

Just as Sydney—as he himself tells Patricia—is a torn man, a nobody who wants to be a somebody, so Lewis is torn between the comic and the social critic in The Delicate Delinquent. Gerald Mast argues in The Comic Mind (1973) that his problem with Lewis is that he “contrives gags—many of them good ones. But the gags do not flow from any personal center.” But such a criticism is true only if we measure Lewis’s characters by realist criteria. Lewis’s films might more accurately be called “incoherent texts” by Robin Wood in Sexual Politics and Narrative Film (1999). For Wood, in certain fragmented films the fragmentation “becomes a structuring principle, resulting in works that reveal themselves as perfectly coherent once one has mastered their rules.” Jerry Lewis’s films, with all their inconsistencies of narrative, mise-en-scène, and style, speak to the difficulties of maintaining the kind of masculine ego ideal typically constructed by Hollywood movies and reveal it as constructed, rather than natural. Andrew Sarris, in The American Cinema (1968), argues there is no “essential unity” to Jerry Lewis's personality. But as The Delicate Delinquent demonstrates, it is precisely this disunity (lack of unity) that is fundamental to Lewis’s vision—at war with itself—which is fully representative of Lewis’s cinema, built as it is on a number of tensions between auteur and genre. It is these tensions that reveal the ongoing attempt by “Jerry Lewis” to negotiate his place in “the world,” the Symbolic Order. Because of and not despite these tensions, The Delicate Delinquent emerges as an essential Jerry Lewis film.

As Frank Krutnik put it his critical analysis Inventing Jerry Lewis (2000), “American film and television reviewers routinely vilified his work before he even directed his first film.” There is indeed a smorgasbord of vilification laid out for Mr. Jerry Lewis, notwithstanding an important fact that Jean-Pierre Coursodon once emphasized: "Lewis was the only Hollywood comedian to rise from mere performer to “total filmmaker” during the sound era. The uniqueness of this achievement alone deserved sympathetic attention rather than the hostility or indifference it met with." Frank Krutnik identifies the Martin-Lewis split in 1956 as the origin of the sentimental dimension of the Lewis persona, and Lewis’s solo films, beginning with The Delicate Delinquent, do evince a pronounced sentimentality. Lewis himself has said, “At heart I really belong to the old school which believed that screen comedy is essentially a combination of situation, sadness and gracious humility.” As Krutnik astutely notes, some of the Martin and Lewis films feature a put-upon Jerry who commands our sympathy. Over the years, critics have sometimes found Lewis’s comic routines curiously disheartening, suggesting an implicit understanding of how humor can serve as a displacement for feelings that are more akin to hostility and despair. 

In his review of The Stooge for the New York Times in October 1953, Bosley Crowther described the film as “oddly depressing.” In 1961, in the Los Angeles Mirror, Al Capp described how he accidentally wandered into a movie theater showing The Ladies Man and he couldn’t stand the film, explaining: “It was painful: I felt it had been somehow indecent of me to peek at a grown man making an embarrassing, unentertaining fool of himself.” “It may well leave you in a state of depression,” read the Newsweek review of Hardly Working (1981), while the critic for Time magazine wrote of Lewis’s performance in the same film that “the only emotion he arouses is pity.” One of Jerry Lewis’s earliest forays into professional entertainment was with something known in the biz as a “dummy act,” in which he performed “outrageous mimes to phonographic records.” According to John Philip Sousa: “The phonograph is an extension and amplification of the voice that may well have diminished individual vocal activity.” Lewis’s dummy act looks like a significant example of the Sousa doctrine: the performer appears as an automaton whose movements and behavior are determined by the prerecorded status of the phonograph record. 

In You’re Never Too Young (1955), Jerry's character lipsynchs to a record by Dean Martin: in this ventriloquist act, an act of condensation, Dean is the voice, Jerry the dummy. This determinism is nowhere clearer than in the inevitable breakdown of phonographic technology as the record player winds down or the record skips or the wrong record is played. In The Patsy (1964), the staff of a dead comedian decide that they should use their combined talents to create a new star; their new “patsy” (Jerry) will be, in other words, programmed. Frank Krutnik describes one of the scenes when their big-hearted ex-bellboy patsy performs their material: “Stumbling onto the stage, he knocks the microphone off its stand and then proceeds to decimate the polished routines that have been taught to him. Stanley presents a spectacle of maladjustment.” Even the dummy act, perhaps a metaphor for this entire performance of middle-management ventriloquism, goes awry. Perhaps the performer of this dummy act is no dummy but a dialogic subject possessed of a new kind of self.

Jerry Lewis’s speech is characterized by free association, syncopated rhythms, and more than slightly Tourettic set of neologistically extended lines—a speech both smoothly improvised and stutteringly stuck. Like a ventriloquist, Lewis has multiple voices—his Donald Duck–like squawk, his high-pitched nasal drone, and the sober voice of the “adult Jerry Lewis.” Moved to laugh or not, we can see something startling and suggestive, even profound in some of his films. “Jerry” frequently seems intemperate and therefore asocial, even mortifying. He is strident, dysfunctional, uncoordinated, inarticulate, hyperactive (while at the same time paralyzed, as Scott Bukatman noted). Ed Sikov suggested that Lewis served postwar U.S. culture as “a jester in a court of sexual panic.” According to Andrew Sarris, “Martin and Lewis at their best had a marvelous tension between them. The great thing about them was their incomparable incompatibility, the persistent sexual hostility.” The appeal of Martin and Lewis was not a result of their closeness and cohesion but of the differences between them.

Jerry Lewis said, speaking to Cahiers du Cinéma in 1966: “One can talk about society, but in fact absolutely everyone is excluded.” In The Nutty Professor (1963) Julius Kelp says to Stella Purdy, “Whatever you see [in Buddy Love] is very well buried. Perhaps he chooses to keep the inner man locked up so no one steps on him.” A principal concern in the film, then, is the disentangling of the appealing, positive excitement but also the hurtful dominance that Buddy Love represents. One logic dictates that Kelp would learn positive excitement, confidence, and assertiveness from the “unleashing” of the Buddy Love within him, while retaining his gentle, kind demeanor to counter the hurtful dominance. But the film contradicts its own narrative trajectory. In the scene where Buddy Love transforms into Kelp in front of the college faculty and students, he says that the lesson he learned was to be himself—his insecure, submissive, but gentle self. —Sources: Shtick Meets Teenpic in The Delicate Delinquent (2000) by Barry Keith Grant and The Inner Man: Transformations of Masculinity in The Nutty Professor (2000) by Peter Lehman & Susan Hunt

Rose Marie, Jerry Lewis, Lou Reed

A new study in Evolutionary Psychological Science found that men were more likely to think of an opposite-sex friend as “a member of the opposite sex to whom I am attracted and would pursue given the opportunity” while women were more likely to think of them as simply “a friend of the opposite sex.” New research from the University of Guelph and Nipissing University shows that people who help others are more desirable to the opposite sex, have more sexual partners and more frequent sex. The study was published recently in the British Journal of Psychology. "This study is the first to show that altruism may translate into real mating success in Western populations, that altruists have more mates than non-altruists," said Pat Barclay, a psychology professor who worked on the study with lead author Prof. Steven Arnocky from Nipissing. Arnocky added: "It appears that altruism evolved in our species, in part, because it serves as a signal of other underlying desirable qualities, which helps individuals reproduce." However, "it's a more effective signal for men than for women," Barclay said. The study found that while altruism is a desirable quality among both genders, it affects men's lifetime dating and sex partners more than women's. "Also, given the importance we place on attractiveness, resources and intelligence, it would be worthwhile to explore how individuals 'trade-off' altruism against other desirable qualities," Arnocky said. Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Rose Marie "left them laughing" (and applauding) for nine decades, having traversed through every 20th century entertainment medium that ever was, as a singer and brilliant comedienne. With "The Dick Van Dyke Show," she was part of the cast of one of the most iconic television shows of the 1960s and what's more, she played a lady TV writer who held her own with the boys, thus, planting the seed in the minds of viewers, that girls could grow up to have interesting and creative jobs too! She professes to still go over her act in her head, since at age 94, she isn't booking tours anymore...

WAIT FOR YOUR LAUGH tells the story of the longest active career in entertainment, but it also looks at what it was like to be a female performer in the 20th century (she has opinions on the casting couch mentality), to work through periods of extreme personal heartbreak and it also casts an eye on how Rose Marie and her fellow nonagenarians Dick Van Dyke, Carl Reiner and Peter Marshall, still have the drive to create today. The film contains amazing behind-the-scenes color footage from Rose Marie's personal collection, chronicling what went on backstage on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and other sets.

Far more than just sassy Sally Rogers on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and the top center square on "Hollywood Squares," Rose Marie worked in every facet of showbiz. She was "the darling of the airwaves" at the age of four and went on to work in vaudeville, Vegas, Broadway, movies, television, theatre, concert halls and nightclubs. Along the way she was known as "the kid" by the mob. Though unlikely to reach nearly as broad an audience, this film will be warmly received by the TCM crowd. Sounding a bit like that network's late, beloved host Robert Osborne, narrator Peter Marshall (host of long-running game show The Hollywood Squares) begins with what will be news to most viewers younger than, say, 75: Before Shirley Temple was even born, Rose Marie was a comparable child-star sensation, touring the country singing with a grown-up voice under the moniker Baby Rose Marie. Belting tunes out in a style like that of "Last of the Red Hot Mamas" Sophie Tucker, she was a hit on the radio, with listeners demanding to see her in person to prove she was actually a child. It didn't hurt that she was adorable, with bobbed dark hair and easy poise.

As far as her personal life goes, Wise is most interested in her apparently blissful marriage to Bobby Guy, a stout trumpeter who was a standout in Bing Crosby's band. Vintage film and photos of the two capture a truly charming couple, but Guy contracted an unexplained blood disease and died in 1964. Even today, Rose Marie weeps when she tells the story. Her friends include the best show business has to offer: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Johnny Mercer, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Carson, Jimmy Durante, Milton Berle, Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney, Margaret Whiting and Bing Crosby to name a few!! Unbeknownst to fans, the woman always looking for a man was actually married for almost 20 years to the love of her life, Bobby Guy, one of the best trumpeters in the business. His untimely passing and its impact on "the one who makes you laugh" is recounted by her friends Peter Marshall, Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke, and Tim Conway. Source: www.broadwayworld.com

Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie's costar in The Dick Van Dyke Show, phoned Jerry Lewis to inform about Bobby Guy's doctor prognosis. Rose Marie got on the phone and Lewis was very supporting, not trusting the diagnosis of cancer of the liver given to his husband. Lewis sent his personal doctor Marvin Levy to the hospital in Santa Monica Boulevard and asked Rose Marie if she needed money. Jerry said: 'If you need money and don't tell me, I'll never talk to you again.' Rose Marie, appreciating his kind gesture, started to cry and thanked her friend. Dr. Levy examined Rose Marie's husband and made arrangements to move him to Cedars Sinai hospital, where Jerry Lewis called and visited Bobby frequently. Dr. Levy figured it was an overpowering blood infection. Lewis kept in touch daily with Dr. Levy and asked him to get in touch with all the specialists in the country, offering to pay for all the bills. Finally, Levy operated Bobby Guy, removing his spleen, but he couldn't save him. 

"Jerry Lewis was an angel to me. Loved him & will never forget what he did for me during one of the worst times in my life. RIP, Love Roe," tweeted Rose Marie when Jerry Lewis died. "A lot of people only saw the ego & harshness that he used as a defense to push people away due to his fears," replied one of her followers. "I hear people talk ill of Jerry. I don't care what anyone says to me. I will never forget his kindness and thoughtfulness at the most horrible time of my life. I will be grateful to him forever. He is truly one of my special angels," she had written previously in her memoir Hold the Roses (2003).

"I’d never been what you’d call a ladies’ man—all the more so since I had married at 18," Jerry Lewis wrote in his autobiography. Esther Calonico had been married to singer/band leader Jimmy DiPalma (Jimmy Palmer) in the early 1940s. Esther entered into a singing career using the stage name Patti Palmer. A fledgling comedian (Jerry Lewis), who was working the East Coast Vaudeville circuit with his "record mime" act, met the divorcee Patti in 1944; and after a short romance, they got married. In September 1980, thirty-six years after they first met in Detroit, Patti filed for divorce in California Superior Court, asking for $450,000 a year in alimony, custody of and support for sixteen-year-old Joseph, and half of their community property. These demands would have been hard enough for Jerry to meet, but he was also facing a mid-October trial date in Los Angeles Federal Court stemming from bankruptcy. His entire life’s earnings were in jeopardy. His checking account just contained $140,000. 

Patti claimed she had written her book I Laffed Till I Cried to help support herself. But there was clearly a measure of revenge involved; the book may even have begun after Patti heard the news that Jerry and SanDee had adopted a baby girl. Jerry never said a word about the book in public. And Patti determinedly tried to maintain an air of dignity. Publishers Weekly reviewed I Laffed Till I Cried in 1993, calling it "this shapeless script, presumably a history of Patti's marriage to Jerry Lewis, provides too few details of the story promised." In 1983 Patti Lewis was forced to put the Bel Air house on the market. Asking $7.5 million for a house in less than pristine condition, she had to wait nearly three years before she sold it, afterward buying a smaller home in nearby Westwood and filling it with the mementoes she and Jerry had accumulated on St. Cloud Drive. Patti Lewis lives now in an assisted living facility, and has occasional visits from family members. 

Americans had never seen a grown man behave this way before. Jerry Lewis created a number of comic masterpieces, most notably The Nutty Professor and The Patsy. Even his worst films have their moments of redeeming comic brilliance. No wonder then that Jerry has influenced the very shape of modern comedy. Comedians from Robin Williams to Woody Allen to that vile epigone Jim Carrey have drawn inspiration from the free-form id-driven comic style Lewis created. By his late 20s, despite a nasty split with Martin, Lewis was the most popular entertainer in America. Twenty years later, he was a ridiculed has-been. Lewis accused Martin of being aloof. Dean Martin saw Jerry Lewis sometimes as a hostile guy with a big temper. But Lewis was a brilliant talent, an immense humanitarian, a difficult boss/interview, and a quixotic sort of genius, as often inspired as insipid, as often tender as caustic. The scrim of individual identity keeps the essential Jerry at an impassable distance. —"King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis" (1997) by Shawn Levy

During his early years in Syracuse, Lou Reed's mannerisms came from his idols Dion, James Dean, Jerry Lewis, and Lenny Bruce. 'Who else but Lou Reed,' Lester Bangs wrote for Creem magazine in 1975, 'would look like a bizarre crossbread of Jerry Lewis and a monkey on cantharides?' Born Lewis Allan Reed on March 2, 1942, at Beth El Hospital in Brooklyn, Lou Reed's problems began with his complicated and antagonistic relationship towards his parents, Sidney Joseph and Toby Reed. Sidney was a smart ambitious accountant, and Toby a housewife whose beauty was remarked upon by all who knew her. She had been chosen “Queen of the Stenographers” at one of the many local beauty pageants in New York at that time. Her photo ran in the Brooklyn Eagle, and she was crowned queen at the Stenographers Ball held at the Manhattan Center. Sidney Reed was an opinionated man who despised organized religion. He was something of a loner, and the family did not have many close friends. And when Sidney Reed was offered the job of treasurer at Cellu-Craft, a Long Island firm that, in the true spirit of The Graduate, manufactured plastics, it seemed as if the Reeds were finally getting their shot at the American dream. So in 1952, the Reed family moved to Freeport, Long Island. The Reeds’ home was an undistinguished three-bedroom ranch-style house at 35 Oakfield Avenue. Reed’s gay posturing in his parents’ and others’ presence was a defiant, conscious provocation, and, along with his mood swings and general recalcitrance, it elicited a crushing response. 

Allan Hyman described Reed’s affect during and immediately after the electroshock treatments. “When I saw him during the holidays, he was very withdrawn,” he said. “He was never a friendly, outgoing type, but he was totally hostile and more sarcastic than ever. He was dark. He had always had this rebellious side to him, but that was kind of comical. It was fun. Now he had a nasty edge to him that he had never had before. Very cynical.” Lou Reed's first girlfriend Shelley Albin said about his sexuality: "I think by nature he was more driven to women because of his relationship with his mother. That’s what he thought was normal. It was comfortable.” Reed, Shelley said, was “a romantic. He could be very sweet. He’s probably the only person who ever literally gave me a heart-shaped box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day. But he wasn’t happy unless he made somebody more miserable than he was. Misery made for his best work, whether it came from me or somebody else. He wasn’t anybody I wanted to live with and put up with. It wasn’t worth it. It was too much grief.” As for his reputation as a sexual player, that, too, was something of an image. “I got the impression that he never really had a girlfriend in high school,” she said. “I think he put on an aura later of being a ladies’ man. Hardly at all. That didn’t fit with the guy I met. He didn’t do as much in college as he pretended later. I met him after he’d been at college for a year. He was awkward. Boys I went out with in high school were smoother.” 

What drew her to Reed was his sensibility. “I liked his brain,” Shelley said. “We could talk for hours and hours, days and days. We connected. He was an incredible romantic. So we connected on that level. It was very much a creative-mind thing. I was crazy about him. He was a great kisser and well coordinated. His appeal was of a very sexy boy/man. Lou was very insecure, and he needed a nurturer. Like many men are, Lou was basically looking for a replacement for his mother with a little sex thrown in.”  Lou's deep, passionate love of doo-wop and that kind of adolescent swept-away-on-the-wings-of-love, it was a very essential emotion for him. But he definitely enjoyed getting under particularly his father's skin—he was acting out almost in performative terms. There was an incredible level of fear of abandonment and terror and that's what motivated his violence—coming out of a kind of desperation, it was less about hostility than about a kind of self-hatred and fear. As Lester Bangs wrote: "I never met a hero I didn´t like. But then, I never met a hero. But then, maybe I wasn´t looking for one."

At the time of its release, the box set Between Thought and Expression (1992) did not make much of an impression, either commercially or critically. Before the release of the box set, Reed had delivered a book of his lyrics, titled Between Thought and Expression: Selected Lyrics of Lou Reed. Published by Hyperion in 1991, perhaps the most striking aspect of the book is its dedication: “For Sid, Toby, Bunny / And most of all / For Sylvia.” Including his family in a book devoted to his most prized vision of himself—that is, as a writer—suggests an ongoing effort on Reed’s part to come to terms with his upbringing and his past. Bill Bentley, who handled Reed’s publicity at Sire, accompanied him to a book signing for Between Thought and Expression at Book Soup in Los Angeles. “Lou built a real toughness around himself,” Bentley said. “He would be polite, sign everything. He could be rude but he wasn’t a hard person. At that signing, one lady said, ‘My sister had cancer, and Magic and Loss really got me through it.’ Lou would never show a whole lot. But afterwards he went into a private room in the back of the store, and just sat down, fell into Sylvia’s arms, and started to weep. That image has always stuck with me. He’d been so touched by what people said. These were his words: 'I’ll never forget that.' I remember looking at him and thinking, ‘That’s a Lou Reed that very few people have ever seen.’ I would always think of that when another side of him would come out. It made me really appreciate the depth of his feeling for other people. Lou Reed was no fool.” —Sources: "Transformer: The Complete Lou Reed Story" (2014) by Steve Bockris and Fresh Air Podcast (NPR Music) by Terry Gross

Jerry Lewis: “I do comedic shtick, but the French call it Art." In The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies (1979), film historian Gerald Mast explained: "Where American critics and audiences see Jerry Lewis as banal, for the European critic, Lewis's comic strength is the comically accurate depiction of the American mentality, its brash overzealousness." During the disastrous production of the Broadway show “Hellzapoppin” (1976) wich teamed unsucessfully Jerry Lewis with Lynn Redgrave, several backstagers were witnesses of how often Jerry Lewis displayed symptoms of profound exhaustion and grief, being seen while weeping openly at least fifty times offstage. The “Hellzapoppin” stage play was modeled on the 1941 film version directed by H.C. Potter, following the story written by the comedy team of John Olsen & Harold Johnson about a millionaire pretending to be poor so a girl will love him for himself. Kevin Kelly wrote in the Boston Globe in 1977, “The evening’s beckoning, wide open, gap tooth smile finally is revealed as a mock tic paralyzed in place,” commenting on the disconnection of Jerry Lewis from his audience. As Victor Hugo pondered in his novel The Man Who Laughs (1889) of Gwynplaine whose mouth has been mutilated into a perpetual grin, “What a weight for the shoulders of a man, an everlasting laugh!” —"King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis" (1997) by Shawn Levy

Jerry Lewis' Legacy, Intellectual Humility

Men might want to ditch the pickup lines and polish their punchlines in their quest to attract women, new research at the University of Kansas suggests. Jeffrey Hall, associate professor of communication studies, found that when two strangers meet, the more times a man tries to be funny and the more a woman laughs at those attempts, the more likely it is for the woman to be interested in dating. Those findings were among the discoveries Hall made in his search for a link between humor and intelligence. For the past decade, research has debated whether women appreciate men’s humor, which is often cited as one of the most valued traits in a partner, because it allows them to suss out the smarts of potential mates. In the article “Sexual Selection and Humor in Courtship: A Case for Warmth and Extroversion,” Hall said “If you meet someone who you can laugh with, it might mean your future relationship is going to be fun and filled with good cheer.” When men make jokes and women laugh, they may be performing a script in courtship. Men acting like jokers and women laughing along may be part of it, too. “The script is powerful and it is enduring,” Hall said. The results suggest the more times a man tried to be funny and the more times a woman laughed at his jokes, the more likely she was romantically interested. The reverse was not true for women who attempted humor. Source: news.ku.edu

The way your brain functions changes when you fall in love, and not just when you're with or thinking about your sweetheart. Your brain changes again if that love comes to an end—but doesn't go back to the way it was before you ever fell in love. It's a spectacular confirmation of what many of us probably would have guessed, based on how subjectively intense love can be. “Our findings suggest that people who value virtuous motives may be able to reason wisely for themselves, and overcome personal biases observed in previous research,” explains psychological scientist Alex Huynh of the University of Waterloo. “To our knowledge, this is the first research that empirically ties this conceptualization of virtue with wisdom, a connection that philosophers have been making for over two millennia,” says Huynh. “These findings open up new avenues for future research to investigate how to increase a person’s level of wisdom. This is in part due to their ability to recognize that their perspectives may not be enough to fully understand a situation, a concept referred to as intellectual humility.” Source: www.psychologicalscience.org

Jerry Lewis's son Anthony got left out of the will, so he is saying he got whipped twice as a kid, and now he is saying that’s abuse. Years ago he was boasting that he was the only son that never got whipped for bad behavior. So which is it? Jerry Lewis also found out that ex-wife Patti was about to get thrown out of her nursing facility because Anthony was pocketing the money himself, and got really pissed off at him. Jerry then had Patti moved closer to him in another asylum in Las Vegas. This is what Anthony originally said in his mother's book about his father, a whole different picture than what he paints now: "My father was always the strongest person in my life growing up. He was the ultimate role model, the consummate disciplinarian... Sure my father became angry at times. When properly provoked, anyone will. But he was never wild or uncontrollable. Even in the depths of his percodan addiction, he never made insane gestures or spoke abusively.... The act of children making money by defaming their parents should only be classified as mercenary opportunism. God forbid show people should be human.” 

Jerry Lewis was one unequivocal token of American exceptionalism at its finest. I remember a story that Penn Jillette told about meeting Lewis for the first time. Jillette was pontificating to some fellow comedians at an event that Lewis would be appearing at that he never understood why Lewis was worshiped, especially since he hadn't done anything "good" since The Nutty Professor era. Lewis then appeared before him and Jillette wept as if before Christ, and poured his heart out to him, extolling his genius and thanking him for the joy Lewis brought into his life. Jillette's experience really personifies the struggle a lot of us have with Jerry Lewis. Here is a man who revolutionized comedy and became an overnight sensation, playing to shrieking crowds the likes of which wouldn't be seen until The Beatles. Yet, at a certain point, Lewis aged and became a mythical figure who hadn't been involved in a smash project in decades. He was remembered as a clown, whose circus tent had deflated many moons ago. His often disastrous interviews earned him an ire in the critical world.

Yet, after his death, there were many who disparaged Lewis during his life that praised him as a genius after his death. Technical filmmakers bowed to advancements to film because, after all, he practically invented the system known as "Video Play-Back." Prior to the revolutionary tool, the daily "rushes" of that day's filming would be a mystery until they were developed and show on a screen. Lewis invented the system where the scene could be instantly played back and fixed while the cast was still in make-up and costumes. The Total Film-Maker was practically a bible to legendary directors such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Lewis was also a champion of The Character Actor and the genius misfit. In an interview in 1996, Kathleen Freeman talked about working with Lewis as "something quite magical in life to have a friendship with Jerry built on unbelievable respect and appreciation."

Do we see him as The Clown or The Human being? Lewis was once called "The Human Care Package", since he'd donate clothes and assorted goods to many of his collaborators. He's believed to have handed over 400s suits. In his heyday, Lewis would spend as much as $35000 on Christmas gifts. Do we judge him for his faults or extol him for the joy he brought to millions? My verdict is that the legacy of the man will be a personal Legacy. He will mean to you what he meant to you, despite the protestation of others. It's really all lesson in self-actualization when we can stick to our tastes, even when the world is disparaging the object of our affection ad nauseum. Knowing what makes you laugh, above all, is the eternal indicator of a well-rounded human being. We are at our most vulnerable when we laugh and, to true open yourself up to laughter, is a phenomenon that unsettles even the most stentorian of souls.

Jerry Lewis, to millions, was the epitome of laughter, joy, and pure silly fun. "Laughter is healing, it's a spiritual feeling," Jerry Lewis affirmed. In the end, the words of the man himself speak better than any further pontificating: “A lot of people resent that I’ve been in someone’s life for 50 years. Why shouldn’t people have an affection for me and what I’ve done? Didn’t I have to be genuine for them to buy into what I did? There are children who grow up today who will not have that. With whom will they have it? Name an example for me.” Source: www.chicagonow.com

Jerry Lewis learned some painful lessons since breaking with Dean Martin. Here was a likeable refugee from the tough vaudeville-nightclub circuit who became wealthy and famous before he was 30. With his handsome singing partner, Dean Martin, he had a lifetime guarantee to glory. 'I loved Dean almost as much as my family,' said Lewis. Some insiders said their wives (Patti Palmer and Jeanne Martin) clashed. This attitude, more than occasional jealousies and rifts, led to their break-up. After breaking with Martin, Lewis plunged into the most nerve-shattering, career-wrecking of Hollywood ventures – producing and directing his own films. Lewis’ day begins at 7 a.m. His first production was “The Delicate Delinquent” (1957), developing an idea for a chest of drawers that fell apart when slammed and then reassembled itself. “It’s cost $3,750,” the prop man added. 

It’s a tribute to Jerry’s strong family loyalty that his consuming ambition is never at the expense of his wife, Patti, and their boys. The Lewis’ vacations are always family vacations, and Jerry’s business trips are arranged to keep him away from home as little as possible. Jerry was at the Paramount Theater in New York when Ronnie broke his leg. The comedian flew back to Hollywod after his last show, spent four hours at his son’s bedside, then returned East without missing a performance. During an appearance at Chicago’s Chez Paree, Patti phoned Jerry to tell him the children were lonesome. Jerry promptly made arrangements for a police escort to Midway Airport after his last show and a car standing by at Los Angeles International Airport to meet his flight. He had only an hour and a half to talk and joke with his family before returning to Chicago, but it was worth it. 

“Loneliness” is a terrifying word in Jerry Lewis’ world. He remembers his own childhood in Newark, N.J., as one haunted by feelings of desolation. His parents were vaudevillians who had to accept billings far from home. At 8, Jerry was cooking his own meals, keeping house, and spending endless hours in the dark in an empty apartment where each creak magnified to dreadful proportions. His closest companion was his grandmother, who lived nearby. She died when Jerry was 14 and the world closed in tighter. Childhood loneliness, as an Hollywood do-it-yourself psychoanalyst will tell you, is the deep-seated answer to “What makes Jerry run?” Jerry needed success and admiration to protect him from memories of being small and alone. 

Even so, none of these achievements is likely to help Jerry as much as his marriage and family have. Patti Calonico and Jerry Lewis met in a downtown Detroit theater where he was doing pantomimes to records and she was singing with Ted Fio Rito’s band. Love came to Jerry, then only 18. The best he could manage in the way of introductions was to smear a lipstick message on her dressing-room mirror, “How about a date tonight?” The approach was unorthodox but successful. He followed it up by leaving a pair of baby shoes on her dresser with a pink and blue note asking, “How about filling these?” And so they were married. Patti was five years older but that was just as well because she often had to be mother and sister, too. —"What Makes Jerry Run" (1957) by Peer J. Oppenheimer for Family Weekly magazine

I had always thought Jerry Lewis was a great entertainer, never dreaming I would meet him. I thought he was one of the greatest comedians in the world. So I decided to shop for a new dress at the shop in the Flamingo, and then I went to the Colonial Motel on the Strip. My gay hairdresser, Jim,  bleached my hair champagne beige and styled it in a bouffant—a stunning fashion statement. He gave me new eyelashes so I’d look like a showgirl. After looking in the mirror I could see that I looked a whole lot more sophisticated and mature than a girl of only nineteen. Afterwards I went to my apartment, took a shower and slid into my sexy Mr. Blackwell design evening dress. The front of the dress was see-through from the inch choker-neckline to my waist. Delicate black crossed-lace held the front of the dress together, slightly exposing the inside of my voluptuous breasts. I splashed on my hundred-dollar Davinci perfume, popped an Ambar #3 in my mouth and drove my Thunderbird convertible to the Flamingo. I looked around to see everyone staring at me in my six-inch heals. I walked like a model, one foot in front of the other, sashaying my hips and arms like I owned the place. In the lounge we drank together. There were crowds of tourists and gamblers, and every once in a while someone interrupted to ask for an autograph. When we got to his suite, we had cocktails and he ordered a tray of hors d’oeuvres. The tray was loaded with shrimp, crab legs and the finest cheese. 

He was so romantic as we sipped champagne. We went to dinner at the Candlelight Room in the Flamingo Hotel, where he was appearing. It was the first gourmet restaurant opened in Las Vegas.  I wished Jerry wasn’t attached because I felt attracted to him. We had drinks and Jerry took me to his car, a Lincoln. We went for a drive toward downtown and he showed me the recording equipment he had installed in his car. Jerry practiced many of his routines using that tape recorder and played them back while he was driving. Jerry invited me to his show that night. I accepted and really enjoyed it. He saw me in the crowd and looked right down at me. He directed some of the lines and antics in his routine straight at me. He was one of the nicest men I’d ever met. Jerry just liked me. He felt comfortable with me. I knew that being a celebrity on the road could be hard and lonely. I think guys like Jerry thought of me as a breath of fresh air because I saw them as the people they were, and I was down-to-earth with them. 

Harry James owned the Harry James Orchestra during the Big Swing Era. He had hired Frank Sinatra in 1939, giving him his first gig as a vocalist with a known band. Harry told me about his ex-wife, Betty Grable, an international sex symbol. He said she was a nymphomaniac, never sexually satisfied. He said he couldn’t handle her infidelities—she had to have sex with other men to get enough—which led to their divorce. But I never did hear her side of the story. In the 1960s the casinos never allowed girls off the streets inside. If they tried to enter, the vice cops were called and escorted them out or arrested them for vagrancy. But a few of my new friends—Annette, Audrey and Laurie—and myself, who were the new girls, were allowed through the casino doors. We were the queen bees of Vegas—elegant, charming, witty, seemingly carefree, beautiful, and fun. One evening in June, I went to the Regency Lounge at the Sands and I met Harry Goodheart, the Sands casino manager. He was a friendly guy in his early fifties and he always listened to my problems, offering advice and support. He never judged me and I looked forward to seeing him every time I went into the Sands. He also became another big connection; I trusted his judgment and knew he wouldn’t set me up with anyone who wasn’t in good standing with the casino. Annette was one of the elite hustlers in Vegas that I’d met through Jonesy, the pit boss from the Sahara. Annette was an attractive brunette and had worked Vegas for six years. 

The lights went down and the Rat Pack came out on the stage to sing. Just before the end of the first song, the audience turned to the back of the room. I turned too and saw Marilyn Monroe standing in the doorway in a long white gown decorated with flashy beads. The very large Nick Kelly escorted Marilyn down the aisle to our table. She sat in a chair next to me with all eyes upon her. The Rat Pack seemed stunned but continued to sing. When they finished, Frank introduced Marilyn. I thought she was beautiful, though a little fuller in the hips than I had imagined. Marilyn shook my hand as Jilly Rizzo introduced her to me. She said, “Pleased to meet you, Janie,” in her wispy voice. After the show, Marilyn stayed a few minutes to talk with Frank.  One afternoon in February of 1962, George, Frank’s valet, called and told me to come down to the Regency Lounge at the Sands because Frank was back in town. I dressed in my beautiful Ship ‘n Shore designer dress and rushed to meet him. Frank was happy to see me, standing up and giving me a kiss on the cheek. Sammy and Annette were sitting with him at the table and it seemed like the continuation of a party that had never ended. Getting out of the shower, I heard a TV newsman say that President Kennedy had been shot. It was November 22, 1963. I watched for about an hour until there was a newsflash that the president had died from a gunshot wound to the head. This seemed to me the saddest thing that had ever happened in America. 

When I went to the Thunderbird Hotel, the waiters at the seafood bar said the hotel was draping all its gambling tables and slot machines in black to mourn the president. The city was going to turn off all the lights, including those on the Strip, for a long moment that night. That evening the lights did go off, and there was total darkness in Las Vegas. It was eerie. Nothing moved. All the people bowed their heads in prayer. Frank Sinatra complained about the press constantly hounding him about his connections with the mob. The only reason he knew any of the mob was because he used to serve coffee and sing for them as a kid. He told me he was tired of the media’s rumors and false stories. I could tell it was taking a toll on him. He’d worked hard to get where he was and he expected others to follow orders and respectfully do their jobs. I leaned over and whispered, “Frank, let’s get the hell out of this joint and go up to your room and play house. That’ll calm you down.” “This broad has the right idea,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me from the chair. Over to his suite we went. I took him to the bedroom, hoping to settle him down. He never wanted to stop but once I got him to relax, he curled up in my arms and went to sleep. —"Rat Pack Party Girl" (2017) by Jane McCormick

Marilyn Monroe (Intimacy-Desire Paradox), Jerry Lewis (Funny Bones), The Kennedy Years

Algorithms conceived by cutting-edge computers still fail to predict romantic attraction. While such algorithms have been able to accurately predict the weather, University of Utah researchers found poor results when it came to predicting desire. A new study finds artificial intelligence simply can’t predict attraction between two people. “We found we cannot anticipate how much individuals will uniquely desire each other in a speed-dating context with any meaningful level of accuracy,” says study lead author Samantha Joel in a press release. “I thought that out of more than 100 predictors, we would be able to predict at least some portion of the variance. I didn’t expect we would find zero.” “It may be that we never figure it out, that it is a property we can never get at because it is simply not predictable,” says co-author Paul Eastwick of the University of California. “Romantic desire may well be more like an earthquake, involving a dynamic and chaos-like process, than a chemical reaction involving the right combination of traits and preferences.” Another different research shows that "partners who are responsive to each other outside the bedroom are able to maintain their sexual desire," says Gurit Birnbaum, psychology professor at the Interdisciplinary Center: "Responsiveness--which is a type of intimacy--is so important in a relationship because it signals that one is really concerned with the welfare of the other." Responsive partners are willing to show understanding at a deep level. They make the relationship feel special which is, at least in Western societies, what people seek from their romantic relationships. In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Birnbaum and coauthor Harry Reis, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, report the "intimacy-desire paradox" lies in the contradiction between intimate and familiar relationships that many people strive for. "Sexual desire thrives on increasing intimacy and being responsive is one of the best ways to instill this elusive sensation over time; better than any pyrotechnic sex," Birnbaum says. Source: journals.sagepub.com

The staircase scene in Frank Tashlin’s sex-swap farcical updating of the Cinderella fairy tale Cinderfella (1960) resulted in Jerry Lewis having a heart attack. The stair scene was shot with one take of Jerry Lewis going down the stairs and one take going up. He ran up the stairs  (63 steps) in less than nine seconds and collapsed at the top. He was taken to the hospital and spent four days in an oxygen tent with his second cardiac event. This delayed filming for two weeks. On the evening of the ball, Fella (Jerry Lewis) is turned into a handsome prince and sent to the ball in a limousine. The great big band leader Count Basie is playing at the ball when Fella makes his grand entrance. The young man quickly gains the attention of the Princess (Anna Maria Alberghetti). The night is cut short when midnight strikes and Fella flees, losing his shoe along the way. The rest of the film plays out just like the classic fairytale! Jerry Lewis is priceless when it comes to engineering clever, complex, high-energy sight gags. A testament to his versatility here is mimicking the musicians as he listens to a song on the radio in the kitchen. Source: www.roguecinema.com

By the time I was sixteen, I was a high-school dropout and I worked the Catskill resorts as a busboy and a tummler—the guy who makes faces and gets the guests in a good mood for the real entertainment. That’s what I wanted to be, the real entertainment. But what was I going to do? I always saw the humor in things, the joke possibilities. At the same time, I didn’t have the confidence to stand on a stage and talk. One night, at a New Jersey resort where my parents were doing their act, a friend of mine, Lonnie Brown—the daughter of resort hotelkeepers Charlie and Lillian Brown—was listening to a record by an English singer named Cyril Smith, trying to learn those classy English intonations. I had a crush on Lonnie and, attempting to impress her, I started to clown around, mouthing along to the music. Lonnie broke up, and that was music to my ears. An act was born. I hit on a genius solution—or what seemed at the time like a genius solution. After a couple of hard years on the road, playing burlesque houses where the guys with newspapers on their laps would boo me off the stage, I became a showbiz veteran (still in my teens) with an act called “Jerry Lewis—Satirical Impressions in Pantomimicry.” I’d do Sinatra singing “All or Nothing at All.” I knew where every scratch and skip was on every record, and when they came up, I’d do my shtick to them. I had gotten better at contorting my skinny body in ways that I knew worked comedically. I practiced making faces in front of a mirror till I cracked myself up. God had given me something I always felt: funny bones. 

Maybe Patti and I stayed together as long as we did (thirty-six years) because she called me on the carpet when I was indiscreet. She'd let me know that I’d face temptations on the road and, being a man, I’d give in to them. I had plenty of strengths, but even the strongest men will get their heads turned around. There was never any stopping my partner Dean, and there was no stopping women once they’d set eyes on him! Imagine—just months before Dean and I played the Copa and Slapsy Maxie’s, I was lucky to have fifty bucks to my name. Now I was walking down Fifth Avenue with three grand in hundred-dollar bills in my pocket and I got Gloria DeHaven on my arm. It was fantasyland... I said to Dean it was over, we would’ve only another couple of years and then we would’ve been knocked out of the ring like Joe Louis. 

I get pleasure from giving to those I love. That’s my pleasure. But I’m perceptive enough to realize that there are those who have felt oppressed by my generosity. It’s not always easy to get when you can’t give back to the same degree. Dean always used to take me to task for what he called 'flag-waving.' That could mean any number of things. It could mean giving money to the needy. We would walk down the street together, and I literally couldn’t pass a man with his hat out. If we walked back the same way and the same guy was still there, I’d hit him again. Dean would say, “That fucker can get a job! What the fuck are you givin’ him money for?” At the same time, I think he was happy to see me do what he couldn’t, even when he wanted to. Flag-waving was showing your colors emotionally. It was the exact opposite of everything Dean Martin had been taught to feel and to show. I knew I could sometimes be a bit much for him. I’d always worn my emotions on my sleeve, but as our career skyrocketed, the sleeve became a size extra large. I was constantly rewarded for showing my emotions. Did I feel bad that Dean was overshadowed? Sure I did. And so the more I got, the more I tried to give to Dean. But I recognize—now, fifty years later—that being at the receiving end of outrageous generosity isn’t the easiest thing in the world. —"Dean & Me" (2005) by Jerry Lewis

Although he had evolved, that other Jerry (the man-child) had stayed still and precious inside him. That Jerry meant "immortality," Lewis said. "He's forever. I have always said that I cannot allow the child within me to die. It's kept me alive." When his daughter Danielle came into the room, he bent down, and belted out: "Child! Beautiful baby. Come to Dad." It was this baby, he said, that had provided the essential balance in his life. After six sons, she was the miracle baby. He cried as he said: "She gives me a B-12 shot when she looks at me. She gives me worth, value. And now I'm frightened to death that I only have so much time. And I think, why didn't I do this when I could have had a long time with her." —"At Home with Jerry Lewis" (1993) by Craig Wolff

As The Women’s Room (1977) by feminist author Marilyn French makes clear, sex was seen as one of the most important things in life in fifties America. Certain publishing events suggest this: the two Kinsey reports (on men, 1948; on women, 1953), the first issues of Confidential magazine in 1951 and Playboy in 1953; best-selling novels such as From Here To Eternity 1951, A House is Not a Home 1953, Not As a Stranger 1955, Peyton Place 1956, Strangers When We Meet 1953, A Summer Place 1958, The Chapman Report 1960, etc. The Women's Room encompasses many ideas central to the Second-Wave Feminism movement that emerged in the 1960s.

Marilyn Monroe's lengthy beauty ritual was not about the makeup per se, said George Masters, Marilyn's make up assistant in 1962, but about getting into the mood to be "Marilyn" in public, and took time to "woo the sensual persona into being." When "Marilyn" suddenly appeared as he put on her lipstick or adjusted her dress, it was an incredible metamorphosis. Many years after her death, Masters said he still got goosebumps thinking about it. No stranger to Hollywood, John F. Kennedy had always been captivated by Marilyn Monroe. In October 1954, while undergoing spinal surgery in a New York hospital, visitors to his room were treated to a poster of Marilyn hung over his bed. The poster featured Marilyn in a tight white blouse and blue shorts, her legs spread wide apart. JFK and Marilyn were both charismatic and complex. Marilyn was particularly complicated and spent her entire life looking for a missing person: herself. The most constant male figure in Marilyn’s life had been Joe DiMaggio. Because he possessed a strong center and because he loved her, DiMaggio could cope with Marilyn’s frailties. But he just couldn’t cope with the movie racket or the Hollywood celebrity scene, which meant that they couldn’t be husband and wife. In 1967, five years after Monroe’s death, Arthur Miller confessed: “Marilyn’s addiction to pills and drugs ultimately defeated me.  If there was any key to her despair, I never found it.”

Comedian Joey Bishop, a sometime member of Sinatra’s Rat Pack, saw Marilyn at Frank Sinatra’s house in early June 1961. “I’d gone over there for our weekly poker game,” said Bishop. “Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and two other guys were there, and in the middle of the game, this tiny white puffball of a puppy waddled into the room. ‘New dog?’ Dino asked, and Sinatra said, ‘It’s Marilyn Monroe’s dog. She named it Maf, as in Mafia.’ And then Marilyn came into the room, evidently looking for the dog. And the thing is, she was completely nude except for a pair of emerald earrings that Sinatra had given her. We froze, and she stopped dead in her tracks. I could tell that Sinatra wasn’t too pleased about her not wearing any clothes. I’d heard she’d just recently undergone some minor gynecological surgery at Cedars of Lebanon, but she’d seemingly recuperated because she looked pretty damn good. After saying hello to everyone, she gathered up the mutt and went back into Sinatra’s bedroom. Marilyn was perhaps a bit afraid of losing her great sex appeal, and I couldn’t help but think that being with Sinatra confirmed for her that she still had it—in spades. I’d seen her with Sinatra at his home in Palm Springs and at the Palm Springs Racquet Club. Another place Sinatra brought Marilyn was the Cal-Neva Lodge at Lake Tahoe. But I can also tell you that the most important man in Marilyn’s life was Joe DiMaggio. His love for her knew no limits. And though their marriage ended in divorce, she loved him as well.” —"Joe and Marilyn" (2014) by C. David Heymann

"At first I was hesitant to go into modeling because I didn’t think I was pretty enough. But they kept bugging me until my boredom finally enticed me to go see an agent that had been recommended to me. Her name was Pat Allen and she turned out to be a great lady. She raved on about how beautiful I was and signed me up on the spot. She soon became a wonderful friend and a trusted confidante. I posed for numerous magazine covers and ads and quickly received a lot of attention from the New York Press. Famous journalists such as Walter Winchell, Earl Wilson, Dorothy Kilgallen, Hyman Goldberg, Hal Boyle and Carl Gaston were soon keeping tabs on me and writing about my latest escapades in the press. I’ll never forget the first time I met Marilyn Monroe. It was at a bar near the Actors Studio in New York City. She was dressed up in her usual disguise of black wig, scarf, and dark sunglasses. The early 1950’s was a great time to be living in America. I don’t think that era will ever be captured again. I was wearing my body hugging Lana Turner sweater, tight slacks and a light fur coat. I loved the way the fur was caressing my body. It made me feel all warm and cozy. A fur coat had been my dream since childhood so with my first paycheck from modeling, I bought one."

"As I strolled up 5th Avenue towards my acting class, I once again was amazed by the energy and vibrancy of New York City. In just a few short years I had gone from being a little country girl from the hills of Arkansas to being a famous model, a trick shot golf artist and an actress. I had appeared on Broadway, been featured on the covers of numerous magazines and played golf with the likes of Bob Hope, President Eisenhower and the Duke of Windsor. I thought I’d done pretty much everything there was to do. Little did I know, I was about to engage in the biggest thrill of my life: Meeting and becoming friends with Marilyn Monroe. She thought I was crazy for turning down a lot of the offers that I got. She told me many times, “Jeanne, you have to take anything that comes your way in the beginning. You have to keep your name and face out there or else the public will forget you.” I knew she was right but I was lazy and scared most of the time. Marilyn used to call me at all hours of the night because she had problems sleeping. I had the same problem. She felt she could relate to me as I had been married to a hot tempered Italian as well. After Marilyn broke up with Arthur Miller she moved back to Hollywood. That was our wild period together. We engaged in such outrageous and audacious behavior that it still shocks me when I think back on it." —"My Wild, Wild Life as a New York Pin Up Queen" (2006) by Jeanne Carmen & Brandon James

John F. Kennedy was confident that Americans—“whose basic good sense has always prevailed”—would reject those “counsels of fear and suspicion.” Theodore Sorensen (adviser and speechwriter for President John F. Kennedy) was weighted down with the melancholy burden of history. He knows that John F. Kennedy lived for a purpose; he just can’t bring himself to believe he died for one. “It’s terribly painful. If I can know that my friend of eleven years died as a martyr to a cause, that there was some reason, some purpose why he was killed then I think the whole world would feel better.” Sorensen makes it known when the subject arises in conversation that it is still too painful for him. President Kennedy had instructed the CIA to immediately stop all raids against Cuba, to make sure that no flying sparks from the agency’s secret operations set off a nuclear conflagration. But, once again, the agency asserted its right to determine its own Cuba policy, independent of the president’s will. In defiance of Kennedy’s order, Bill Harvey mobilized sixty commandos—“every single team and asset that we could scrape together”—and dropped them into Cuba, in anticipation of the U.S. invasion that the CIA hoped was soon to follow. The 1962 Havana conference, observed Sorensen, “brought to my mind and Arthur’s and Bob McNamara’s as never before, how close the world came to stumbling into a nuclear exchange that would have escalated very quickly on both sides to a nuclear holocaust that would have left both countries in ruins, and soon most of the world as well.” The Kennedy brothers, Sorensen continued, “were certain that no nuclear warheads were in Cuba at the time. They were wrong.” If Kennedy had bowed to their pressure, Sorensen grimly concluded, the world would have been reduced to smoking rubble. —"The Hidden Story of the Kennedy Years" (2007) by David Talbot