As the years pile on, so do the honours bestowed on Jerry Lewis - and his irreverent responses to them. At a 2014 ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard, director Quentin Tarantino called Lewis a "treasure" and "one of the great actors/directors in the history of cinema" - this despite the fact that the wisecracking octogenarian had just bitten Tarantino on the hand.
Lewis turns 90 on March 16, and another round of tributes is in the works, including a film retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But the world-famous funnyman shows few signs of slowing down.
He starred in a new thriller, The Trust, set to premiere Sunday (March 13) and is rumoured to be at work on another film project, a comedy set at a showbiz retirement home.
"There are times when I wonder where I get all the goddamn energy," he told GQ magazine in 2014.
That Lewis has made it this far borders on the miraculous. The multitalented entertainer has suffered through prostate cancer, diabetes, two heart attacks, chronic lung disease. Decades of pratfalls led to chronic pain, which led to a years-long addiction to pain pills. For 17 seconds in 1982, he was clinically dead.
"I've worked under the most painful conditions any man has ever felt in his life," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "But when I walk out on that stage, the pain goes away."
Born Joseph Levitch in 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, outside of New York, Lewis inherited a taste for the stage from his vaudeville-performer parents.
As Jerry Lewis, he stepped into the spotlight at an early age and by 18 was already working the club circuit, taking on odd jobs to get by.
His big break came in 1945, when he met the Italian-American crooner Paul Dino Crocetti, nine years his elder. The singer better known as Dean Martin was "the big brother I never had," Lewis told GQ.
They were the perfect pair: the good-looking Martin in the role of charming straight man, Lewis as the goofball and clumsy clown.
"They were like rock stars before rock stars existed," the New York Times wrote. The two catapulted to the top of the entertainment industry, where Lewis picked up filmmaking tips from Charlie Chaplin, and an aging Stan Laurel of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy spent long evenings telling him stories about his exploits with women.
But after 10 years on stage together, Martin and Lewis split and didn't speak again for 20 years.
As a solo artist, however, Lewis came into his own. His off-the-wall brand of slapstick was box-office gold around the world. His hits included The Bellboy, The Errand Boy, as well as his most famous early film, The Nutty Professor, all of which he directed.
France, in particular, embraced him as a zany auteur, dubbing him "le roi du crazy" - "the king of crazy" - and awarding him the Legion d'Honneur in 2006.
Later in his career he had success in dramatic roles, including opposite Robert DeNiro in The King of Comedy (1981). He has appeared in more than 80 movies for film and TV and has credits for directing more than a dozen more.
Amid all the successes, Lewis is also known for one legendary misfire: his 1972 Holocaust comedy The Day the Clown Cried.
The film, never released, was the story of a German circus clown sentenced to a concentration camp, where he is used to entertain Jewish children as he escorts them to the gas chamber. Though few have ever seen it, it has acquired cult status as one of the worst films every made.
Lewis spoke about the film for the first time in 40 years in a recent documentary made by German television broadcaster ARD, saying he was ashamed of his work.
But a quarter-century later, Italian comic Roberto Benigni won an Oscar for Life is Beautiful, a Holocaust film in a similar vein.
Lewis remains ahead of his time, said star director Martin Scorsese. In a 2011 documentary, fellow comedian Jerry Seinfeld called him the "essence" of comedy, saying "if you don't get Jerry Lewis, you don't understand comedy."
Alongside his film work Lewis has played a leading role as a philanthropist, having hosted for more than 40 years an annual telethon to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the afflicted children are known as Jerry's Kids.
His philanthropic work earned him an honorary Oscar in 2009. According to media reports, it is installed in his Las Vegas home above a television where it rotates at the touch of a button - a sight gag for slapstick comedy's king.
Comments
Comments are closed.