Jerry Lewis
1926-2017
So I am at the ball game the other night and my pal, Jim Haller, asks me "Aren't you going to do an Absent Friends write up about Jerry Lewis?"
I was forced to ask myself why I was delaying doing such a write up about someone who was obviously one of the biggest stars of the mid-twentieth century. After all, when the landmark comedy team of Martin and Lewis broke up, it was Lewis who got the big deal from the movies and television, and people would say that it would be poor Dean Martin who would never be heard from again.
Truth is, I was never that great fan of Jerry Lewis. Yeah, I would watch some of his movies, and yeah, I would laugh at them, but his was a type of humor that got old for me quickly. And I never could figure out why the French hailed him as a genius. I can remember once hearing someone say, "I'm in the mood to watch a good Jerry Lewis movie", whereupon he was told "There aren't any." A little too harsh perhaps, but a good line.
Still, who among us, and I plead guilty to this, hasn't gone into a non-sensical Jerry Lewis shriek in their lives in order to get a cheap laugh?
Lewis deserves his Absent Friends post, regardless of my own thoughts. I ran across this appreciation of Lewis while perusing the website of Max Allen Collins, one of my favorite mystery writers. He sums it up pretty well, I think, so it might be worth your time to click on this link and read it.
And how can we write about Lewis without hearing one "Laaaaadyyyyyy" from him.
RIP Jerry Lewis.
No comments:
Post a Comment