Rise and Pratfall

Jerry Lewis meets his Audience

It's not every day you meet an icon. For me it was last Thursday. The icon? Jerry Lewis.

Jerry Lewis has been a rather large comedy icon for fifty years. From the early days as one half of the most successful comedy teams of all time to maturity as a solo act which saw him become the most popular film comedian in the English speaking world Jerry Lewis casts a giant shadow. More than one critic has observed that love him or hate him (and for most it's a case of one or the other) he's impossible to ignore.

At 74 he's enjoying what he calls his "Chevalier" years, performing to his fourth generation of fans. "It's phenomenal", he says, citing a recent experience in Las Vegas " I had a grandmother who saw me when she was a kid who brought her daughter, who brought her daughter, who brought her daughter of 14 years. It's very stirring". The show he puts on for this new legion of fans reaches across his whole career. Way back to the "record act" (lip-synching to Mario Lanza) which he did as a struggling stand-up in the Catskills in the early forties, through tap dancing, cane routines, a magic act, to conducting the orchestra (a perennial Martin and Lewis bit). He sings too. "That Old Black Magic" from The Nutty Professor (1963), a Jolson medley which is a much a tribute to his father Danny as to Jolson himself, and Rock-A-Bye Your Baby, which was a Number One hit for Lewis in 1957. "That was a fluke. That was wierd" he says of the records success (it in fact outsold Al Jolson's original). He recreates some classic moments from his films (The Typewriter Song from Who's Minding The Store (1963) and shows clips of others. Of course he mugs, tells jokes, and does schtick. And of course the crowd love it.

Tellingly, the film clips he shows are only from those movies he wrote, directed, and produced himself. He's especially proud of them. Not, one suspects, just for the comedy they contain but for the film making processes that created them. Looking at a photo-spread of the huge open dolls house set he had built over two sound stages for The Ladies Man (1961) Lewis pointed out to me the monitors he used as part of a video-assist system he developed to enable him to direct a scene he was appearing in. Essentially it is the video-split systemde rigeur on all film sets today but back in the late fifties, when Lewis decided he wanted to direct himself, no such thing existed.

Ironically though, despite being such an innovator himself, Lewis is not a great fan of the way film comedy is made today. "There's too much technology now." he says "The film maker doesn't need to know anything anymore. He sits with an electrician...there's no more sitting at the moviola with the film in your hands, marking it with a white crayon, 'cut it on that frame', 'God damn it that's wrong', 'it's gotta be two frames later'. That's gone." Nor does Lewis like the trend in modern comedy film to allow the stuntman to take the fall, or for the physical comedy to be helped in any way by computer graphics. Part of his Chevalier years involve putting together deals to re-make his films. The Nutty Professor with Eddie Murphy was heavy with special effects and Lewis is keen to avoid this happening again. Of the proposed remakes now on the drawing board (The Bellboy (1960), Cinderfella (1960), The Errand Boy (1961) and The Family Jewels (1965)) Lewis vows "There will no special effects." He warms to the topic. "I show a clip in the show which taught me a great deal. We did the barbells in The Nutty Professor (where the professors arms are stretched to the floor by the weight) and when it was over I said 'I think I would be remiss if I didn't tell you Ladies and Gentlemen that there were no special effects in those arms. We did that. And they cheered. And I said 'Holy Shit they're smarter than we thought.' I worked my heart out eleven hours to get that joke to work".

Even assuming Lewis can convince the studios to avoid the CGI work in these remakes, who would he get to play the Jerry Lewis role?

Jim Carrey?

He would seem to many to be an obvious choice, but not as far as Lewis himself is concerned. While conceding that Carrey is a fine physical comedian there is something he doesn't connect with in the younger comic. He prefers Mike Meyers. And in fact is talking to him at the moment about doing "The Errand Boy". I rather suspect that Jim Carrey would be able to do any number of the remakes extraordinarily well - Liar Liar (1998) was basically a Jerry Lewis film - but the big risk would be that the public would view them as simple re-enactments of the original films rather than re-interpretations. It would be as pointless as Gus Van Saint's version of Psycho. And despite the surface similarities between Lewis and Carrey, it is Mike Myers who is closer in spirit to Lewis when it comes to screen performance. Carrey is certainly very funny but there's a slight menace about him whne he's playing his overtly comic roles. Something which makes it hard to warm to him or care about what happens to the character. Meyers might not necessarily be as manic as Carrey, or as good an actor, or even as funny - but one can see in Austin Powers (1997) something of the throw-away quality and spontaneity of Lewis's self directed work. Plus he shares Lewis' penchant for multiple roles. Says Lewis, "Most of the people that wrote (about Austin Powers) accused him of being influenced by my work, and he gave an interview to the New York Times and he said 'I don't have to apologise for being influenced by Jerry Lewis. I wish the hell I had more of it'. He was very nice about it." Older comics like Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short, and Robin Williams also happily admit being influenced.

Williams is another comic Lewis says he is keen to work with. Certainly his recent crop of film roles fit into the clown-with-a-heart range of Lewis' work.

But this isn't the first time Lewis has looked for someone to take on the chore of playing the Jerry Lewis role in his films. As far back as 1966 he told Cahiers De Cinema that he was looking forward to moving behind the camera. - “My ass is sore from years of taking pratfalls” - and finding a new kid to put in front of it.

In fact Woody Allen came to him in 1965 and asked him to direct a film script he’d just written. Allen considered Lewis to be the “greatest comedian’s director around”. Whether Lewis could have adapted his approach to suit the Woody Allen persona is another thing. In One More Time (1969), Lewis’ only directorial effort in which he doesn’t appear, the films star, Sammy Davis Jnr appears, at certain times, to be doing a Jerry Lewis impression. In any event Lewis advised Allen to direct it himself (and indeed later, Allen would have to contend with his actors doing impressions of him).

Lewis has always been generous with comedy advice and encouraging of younger performers. At Paramount in the 60’s he ran comedy workshops for potential comedians, comedy writers, and "anyone who was interested in comedy". He lectured at the University Of Southern California’s Film School about his films and film making in general. He recalls showing a young student's film to his class and saying “that's what film making is all about”. The film was Amblin and the young student was Steven Spielberg. He had an open set policy on his own films. A young Francis Ford Coppola would come down and sit in the studio bleachers day after day and watch Lewis shooting The Ladies Man. A generation of new comedians have directly and indirectly benefited from his work. It’s unlikely that Woody Allen and Mel Brooks would have been as easily able to produce and direct their own work had Lewis not paved the way. Lewis was the first American comic in the sound era to do it. And only the second in the history of film making after Charlie Chaplin.

As a younger man Lewis himself received advice from an older film comedian which he says was invaluable. 'Stan Laurel says to me one day, 'Never ever ever fool with the rule of three'. I said 'I know what you're talking about'. He said 'No you don't. Listen to my three. (1) Tell the audience you're going to do something. (2) Then do it. (3) Then let them know it's been done.' The most brilliant information I ever got".

It's significant that Laurel's advice was more about the audience than it was about the gag itself, for at the end of the day it is ultimately all about the audience, according to Lewis. It's about the laughs. The veteran comic says he no longer cares what the critics have to say. He doesn't even have too much time for what film scholars might read into his work either - even if it's positive. "If you're getting into the work I've done you're getting into low brow. The critic is obsessed with snobbery. He'd like to go to the theatre and critique John Gielgud because look at the assignment he's got - John Gielgud! But you take this fop who now has to write about Jerry Lewis and he's demeaned by that. Therefore he can't like it." He prefers the critic who simply reports that the crowd is laughing. "They (the audience) give me all the information I need" he says.

Probably the most important audience Jerry Lewis ever played to was at the Olympia in Paris in about 1970. Jean Luc Goddard was there. Francois Trauffaut was there. Maria Callas, Catherine Denueve, "the first 400 seats was the cream of show business, theatre music, film" says Lewis. But these people weren't as important to him as the small white haired man watching him from the lighting box. Charlie Chaplin. Lewis wasn't even aware he was up there at the time. He found out later. "And it was the most glorious triumph of my life" says Lewis.

Later, when the two men met, the older comic asked the younger one to name a gift. Lewis demurred but Chaplin insisted. And after thinking long and hard Lewis asked for a mint condition copy of his favorite Chaplin film, Modern Times. Chaplin agreed, but only on the condition that Lewis send him a copy of The Bellboy. He shakes his head at the memory of it all. "Jesus, I couldn't catch my breath." Over thirty years later he still can't quite believe it. "First of all I now know I'm getting Modern Times, right? But, he wants mine? The gooseflesh on my body..."

We get the wind up and I realise that the Chaplin story is the last one I'll hear. I also realise that I've been speaking to a very happy man, rather than an icon.

As we rise to say goodbye I also notice that I'm actually about four inches taller than Jerry Lewis. I don't know why but I always thought we'd be the same height. I shake hands with the man and say goodbye. Of course as soon as he's out of the room he became an icon again. And taller. Go figure.

Published in the Sunday Age July 2000