Jerry Lewis - ©Theda Bara

The actor I present in this post is Jerry Lewis, an excellent comedian who gained fame in the 1950s as a performer of comedy nightclubs, being the forerunner of stand-up.

In television and film, he has starred in more than 45 films in a five-decade career of blockbuster comedies. Lewis was also an American screenwriter, producer, director, amateur singer, and philanthropist.

But Jerry Lewis achieved stardom with singer and actor Dean Martin (1917-1995), with whom he worked from 1946 onwards, forming one of the most memorable duos in American humor. Martin was the elegant one of the pair, especially when he sang, while Lewis was the unpredictable partner. The shows were totally open to improvisation.

After ten very successful years in theater and cinema, thanks to shows, but mainly to films, the friendship was shaken, and like everything in life, it came to an end, and the duo separated on July 24, 1956, when Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in one last show, at the Copacabana Club, in New York, United States, they didn’t even greet each other anymore, because in the last movie they made together: “Hollywood or Bust”, the two fought throwing punches, kicks and slaps during the footage.

Lewis was 87 years old when he acted in his last film: “Max Rose”, released in (2013), in which he played the eponymous protagonist: “Max Rose”, an old jazz pianist who becomes a widower and discovers that his wife “Eva”, played by: Claire Bloom (1931-), may have been unfaithful to him.

Jerry Lewis also spearheaded humanitarian causes, such as his annual benefit program entitled: “Labor Day for the Muscular Dystrophy Association”, which he began presenting in (1952). Lewis retired from the event in the year (2011).

Throughout his career, Lewis has won numerous awards for his performances: American Comedy Awards; Golden Chamber; Los Angeles Film Critics Association and Venice Film Festival. In 2005, he received the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

The actor’s only Oscar didn’t come because of the movies he acted in. Lewis was remembered by the Film Academy in 2009 when he received a statuette for his humanitarian work, a sort of consolation prize.

The actor has two stars on the Los Angeles Walk of Fame, at 6150, in the Television category and 6821, in the Cinema category, both on Hollywood Boulevard.

Jerry Lewis, stage name: Joseph Levitch, was born in Newark, New Jersey, United States, on March 16, 1926 and died in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States on August 20, 2017, aged 91.

Jerry Lewis was married twice. The first with singer Patti Palmer (1921-2021), from 1944 to 1980, with whom he had six children; his second marriage was to dancer and actress SanDee Pitnick (1950-) from 1983 to 2017, with whom he adopted Danielle Sarah Lewis (1992-), his only heirs, as the actor left out of his will (for reasons not clearly revealed ), the six children he had with Patti Palmer: his eldest son, Gary Lewis, a musician like his mother (1946-); Ronald Lewis, actor (1949-); Scott Anthony Lewis, boxer (1956-); Christopher Joseph Lewis, businessman (1957-); Anthony Joseph Lewis, comedian (1959-) and Joseph Christopher Lewis (1964 -2009), youngest son, overdose victim. His grandchildren also did not receive a penny of his fortune, estimated at 50 million dollars.