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Joseph Levitch (born March 16, 1926), better known
as Jerry Lewis, is an American
comedian, actor, film producer|producer, and film
director|director known for his slapstick humor
and his charity fund-raising telethons for the
Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Jerry Lewis, son of a vaudeville performer named
Danny Lewis, gained initial fame with the singer
Dean Martin, who served as a straight man to
Lewis' manic, zany antics as The Martin and Lewis
comedy team.  They distinguished themselves for
the majority of comedy acts of the 1940's by
relying on the interaction of the two comics
instead of pre-planned skits. In the late forties,
they rose to national prominence, first with their
popular nightclub act and then as film stars.
Critics often found it difficult to describe their
chaotic act beyond the austere "Martin sings and
Lewis clowns". They continued to perform in film
and on television until their split in 1956.

Lewis returned as a solo act with his debut film
The Delicate Delinquent  in 1957.  Lewis went on
to star in five more films before he produced,
directed, wrote, and starred in his own movie
entitled The Bellboy in 1960. Legend has it that
he edited the film by day and performed in Las
Vegas at night. During production Lewis decided to
use a video camera to tape the scene while he was
filming it, allowing him to review the footage
instantly.  Later, this technique would become an
industry standard known as video assist.

Lewis directed several more of his own films
including The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and the
iconic film, The Nutty Professor. During this
period he was consistently praised by many
France|French critics for his comedy and was
awarded the Légion d'honneur, the highest
civilian honor in France. Lewis box office appeal
waned by the mid sixties. In 1966 he began hosting
an annual Labor Day Telethon For The Muscular
Dystrophy Association, a charity he had already
been publicly associated with for more than ten
years.

Later, Lewis  starred in and directed the
unreleased The Day The Clown Cried in 1972. The
film was a comedy taking place in a Nazi
concentration camp.  Lewis has explained why the
film hasn't been released by suggesting litigation
over post-production financial difficulties.  It
has been seen by very few select individuals, but
those who see it either praise it for comedic
genius or decry it as the utmost in bad taste.

After an eight year absence from movies, Lewis
returned in the early 1980s with Hardly Working, a
film he both directed and starred in.  He followed
this up with a critically acclaimed performance in
Martin Scorsese's 1983 film The King of Comedy
(1983)|The King of Comedy in which Lewis plays a
late night TV host plagued by an obsessive fan.

==Trivia==
*Lewis has suffered years of back pain due to a
failed slapstick stunt which almost left him
paralyzed. The continuing pain from the accident
almost drove him to commit suicide. An electronic
device recently implanted in his back has helped
reduce the discomfort.
*Lewis tried his hand at singing in the 1950s,
having a chart hit with the song Rock-A-Bye Your
Baby with a Dixie Melody, a song originated by Al
Jolson and popularized by Judy Garland .
*The Simpsons' voice actor Hank Azaria based the
voice of Professor Frink on Lewis. Lewis was
eventually invited to guest as the character's
father.
*In 1983 Golden Raspberry Awards|1983, he was
nominated for the Golden Raspberry for Worst Actor
for his role in Slapstick of Another Kind.  

==Filmography==

*How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border (1949)
(short subject)
*My Friend Irma (1949)
*My Friend Irma Goes West (1950)
*Screen Snapshots: Thirtieth Anniversary Special
(1950) (short subject)
*The Milkman (1950)
*At War with the Army (1950)
*That's My Boy (1951)
*Sailor Beware (1952)
*Jumping Jacks (1952)
*Road to Bali (1952) (cameo)
*The Stooge (1953)
*Scared Stiff (1953)
*The Caddy (1953)
*Money from Home (1953)
*Living It Up (1954)
*3 Ring Circus (1954)
*You're Never Too Young (1955)
*Artists and Models (1955)
*Pardners (1956)
*Hollywood or Bust (1956)
*The Delicate Deliquent (1957)
*The Sad Sack (1957)
*Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958)
*The Geisha Boy (1958)
*Don't Give Up the Ship (1959)
*Li'l Abner (1959)
*Visit to a Small Planet (1960)
*The Bellboy (1960)
*Cinderfella (1960)
*The Ladies Man (1961)
*The Errand Boy (1961)
*It's Only Money (1962)
*The Nutty Professor (1963)
*It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) (cameo)
*Who's Minding the Store? (1963)
*The Patsy (1964)
*The Disorderly Orderly (1964)
*The Family Jewels (movie)|The Family Jewels
(1965)
*Red Line 7000 (1965) 
*Boeing Boeing (1965)
*Three on a Couch (1966)
*Way... Way, Out (1966)
*Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1967)
*The Big Mouth (1967)
*Silent Treatment (1968)
*Hook, Line & Sinker (1969)
*One More Time (1970) (also director)
*Which Way to the Front? (1970)
*The Day the Clown Cried (1972) (unfinished)
*Rascal Dazzle (1980) (documentary)
*Hardly Working (1980)
*Slapstick (Of Another Kind) (1982)
*The King of Comedy (1983)|The King of Comedy
(1983)
*Cracking Up (1983)
*How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave
(1984)
*Hold Me Back, or I'll Have an Accident (1984)
*Cookie (1989)
*Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
*Arizona Dream (1993)
*Funny Bones (1995)
*Miss Castaway and the Island Girls (2004)

==External links==
* http://www.jerrylewiscomedy.com/ Official Jerry
Lewis Website
* * http://www.geocities.com/jeromelewis/
UnAuthorized Jerry Lewis Website
* imdb name|id=0001471|name=Jerry Lewis
*http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/
03/lewis.html Senses of Cinema: Great Directors
Critical Database
*
http://www.jerrylewiscomedy.com/film_clown_cried.h
tm The Day The Clown Cried
*http://martinlewis.comedyclassics.org/ Martin and
Lewis Forum

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

This article is about the comedian and telethon
host; Jerry Lewis is also the Jerry Lewis
(politician)|name of a U.S. politician.  There is
also a musician named Jerry Lee Lewis.

Joseph Levitch (born March 16, 1926), better known
as Jerry Lewis, is an Jewish American comedian,
actor, film producer|producer, and film
director|director known for his slapstick humor
and his charity fund-raising telethons for the
Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Jerry Lewis, son of a vaudeville performer named
Danny Lewis, gained initial fame with the singer
Dean Martin, who served as a straight man to
Lewis' manic, zany antics as The Martin and Lewis
comedy team.  They distinguished themselves for
the majority of comedy acts of the 1940's by
relying on the interaction of the two comics
instead of pre-planned skits. In the late forties,
they rose to national prominence, first with their
popular nightclub act and then as film stars.
Critics often found it difficult to describe their
chaotic act beyond the austere "Martin sings and
Lewis clowns". They continued to perform in film
and on television until their split in 1956.

Lewis returned as a solo act with his debut film
The Delicate Delinquent  in 1957.  Lewis went on
to star in five more films before he produced,
directed, wrote, and starred in his own movie
entitled The Bellboy in 1960. Legend has it that
he edited the film by day and performed in Las
Vegas at night. During production Lewis decided to
use a video camera to tape the scene while he was
filming it, allowing him to review the footage
instantly.  Later, this technique would become an
industry standard known as video assist.

Lewis directed several more of his own films
including The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and the
iconic film, The Nutty Professor. During this
period he was consistently praised by many
France|French critics for his comedy and was
awarded the Légion d'honneur, the highest
civilian honor in France. Lewis box office appeal
waned by the mid sixties. In 1966 he began hosting
an annual Labor Day Telethon For The Muscular
Dystrophy Association, a charity he had already
been publicly associated with for more than ten
years.

Later, Lewis  starred in and directed the
unreleased The Day The Clown Cried in 1972. The
film was a comedy taking place in a Nazi
concentration camp.  Lewis has explained why the
film hasn't been released by suggesting litigation
over post-production financial difficulties.  It
has been seen by very few select individuals, but
those who see it either praise it for comedic
genius or decry it as the utmost in bad taste.

After an eight year absence from movies, Lewis
returned in the early 1980s with Hardly Working, a
film he both directed and starred in.  He followed
this up with a critically acclaimed performance in
Martin Scorsese's 1983 film The King of Comedy
(1983)|The King of Comedy in which Lewis plays a
late night TV host plagued by an obsessive fan.

==Charitable work==

Lewis has organized an annual telethon to help
raise money for research into muscular dystrophy
since 1966.  His efforts has helped raise more
than US Dollar|US$2 Billion.  In 1977 he was
nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and in 1985 he
received a US Department of Defense Medal for
Distinguished Public Service.  In September, 2005
Lewis is slated to receive the Governors Award
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
honoring his long running telethons.

==Trivia==
*Lewis has suffered years of back pain due to a
failed slapstick stunt which almost left him
paralyzed. The continuing pain from the accident
almost drove him to commit suicide. An electronic
device recently implanted in his back has helped
reduce the discomfort.
*Lewis tried his hand at singing in the 1950s,
having a chart hit with the song Rock-A-Bye Your
Baby with a Dixie Melody, a song originated by Al
Jolson and popularized by Judy Garland .
*The Simpsons' voice actor Hank Azaria based the
voice of Professor Frink on Lewis. Lewis was
eventually invited to guest as the character's
father.
*In 1983 Golden Raspberry Awards|1983, he was
nominated for the Golden Raspberry for Worst Actor
for his role in Slapstick of Another Kind.  

==Filmography==

*How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border (1949)
(short subject)
*My Friend Irma (1949)
*My Friend Irma Goes West (1950)
*Screen Snapshots: Thirtieth Anniversary Special
(1950) (short subject)
*The Milkman (1950)
*At War with the Army (1950)
*That's My Boy (1951)
*Sailor Beware (1952)
*Jumping Jacks (1952)
*Road to Bali (1952) (cameo)
*The Stooge (1953)
*Scared Stiff (1953)
*The Caddy (1953)
*Money from Home (1953)
*Living It Up (1954)
*3 Ring Circus (1954)
*You're Never Too Young (1955)
*Artists and Models (1955)
*Pardners (1956)
*Hollywood or Bust (1956)
*The Delicate Deliquent (1957)
*The Sad Sack (1957)
*Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958)
*The Geisha Boy (1958)
*Don't Give Up the Ship (1959)
*Li'l Abner (1959)
*Visit to a Small Planet (1960)
*The Bellboy (1960)
*Cinderfella (1960)
*The Ladies Man (1961)
*The Errand Boy (1961)
*It's Only Money (1962)
*The Nutty Professor (1963)
*It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) (cameo)
*Who's Minding the Store? (1963)
*The Patsy (1964)
*The Disorderly Orderly (1964)
*The Family Jewels (movie)|The Family Jewels
(1965)
*Red Line 7000 (1965)
*Boeing Boeing (1965)
*Three on a Couch (1966)
*Way... Way, Out (1966)
*Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1967)
*The Big Mouth (1967)
*Silent Treatment (1968)
*Hook, Line & Sinker (1969)
*One More Time (1970) (also director)
*Which Way to the Front? (1970)
*The Day the Clown Cried (1972) (unfinished)
*Rascal Dazzle (1980) (documentary)
*Hardly Working (1980)
*Slapstick (Of Another Kind) (1982)
*The King of Comedy (1983)|The King of Comedy
(1983)
*Cracking Up (1983)
*How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave
(1984)
*Hold Me Back, or I'll Have an Accident (1984)
*Cookie (1989)
*Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
*Arizona Dream (1993)
*Funny Bones (1995)
*Miss Castaway and the Island Girls (2004)

==External links==
* http://www.jerrylewiscomedy.com/ Official Jerry
Lewis Website
* * http://www.geocities.com/jeromelewis/
UnAuthorized Jerry Lewis Website
* imdb name|id=0001471|name=Jerry Lewis
*http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/
03/lewis.html Senses of Cinema: Great Directors
Critical Database
*
http://www.jerrylewiscomedy.com/film_clown_cried.h
tm The Day The Clown Cried
*http://martinlewis.comedyclassics.org/ Martin and
Lewis Forum

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Joseph Levitch (born March 16, 1926), better known
as Jerry Lewis, is a Jewish American comedian,
actor, film producer|producer, and film
director|director known for his slapstick humor
and his charity fund-raising telethons for the
Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Jerry Lewis, son of a vaudeville performer named
Danny Lewis, gained initial fame with the singer
Dean Martin, who served as a straight man to
Lewis' manic, zany antics as the Martin and Lewis
comedy team.  They distinguished themselves for
the majority of comedy acts of the 1940s by
relying on the interaction of the two comics
instead of pre-planned skits.  In the late
forties, they rose to national prominence, first
with their popular nightclub act and then as film
stars.  Critics often found it difficult to
describe their chaotic act beyond the austere
"Martin sings and Lewis clowns".  They continued
to perform in film and on television until their
split in 1956.

Lewis returned as a solo act with his debut film
The Delicate Delinquent in 1957.  Lewis went on to
star in five more films before he produced,
directed, wrote, and starred in his own movie
entitled The Bellboy in 1960. Legend has it that
he edited the film by day and performed in Las
Vegas at night.  During production, Lewis decided
to use a video camera to tape the scene while he
was filming it, allowing him to review the footage
instantly.  Later, this technique would become an
industry standard known as video assist.

Lewis directed several more of his own films
including The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and the
iconic film, The Nutty Professor.  During this
period he was consistently praised by many
France|French critics for his comedy and was
awarded the Légion d'honneur, the highest
civilian honor in France; this is the likely
origin of the common but inaccurate belief in the
United States that Lewis is a superstar in France.
 Lewis' box office appeal waned by the mid 1960s. 
In 1966, he began hosting an annual Labor Day
Telethon For The Muscular Dystrophy Association, a
charity with which he had been publicly associated
since 1950.

Later, Lewis starred in and directed the
unreleased The Day The Clown Cried in 1972.  The
film was a comedy set in a Nazi concentration
camp.  Lewis has explained why the film hasn't
been released by suggesting litigation over
post-production financial difficulties.  It has
been seen by very few select individuals, but
those who see it either praise it for comedic
genius or decry it as the utmost in bad taste (as
Spy Magazine did in 1992).

After an eight year absence from movies, Lewis
returned in the early 1980s with Hardly Working, a
film he both directed and starred in.  He followed
this up with a critically acclaimed performance in
Martin Scorsese's 1983 film The King of Comedy
(1983)|The King of Comedy in which Lewis plays a
late night TV host plagued by an obsessive fan.

==Charitable work==
Lewis has organized an annual telethon to help
raise money for research into muscular dystrophy
since 1966.  His efforts have helped raise more
than US Dollar|US$2 Billion.  In 1977, he was
nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and in 1985, he
received a US Department of Defense Medal for
Distinguished Public Service.  In September, 2005
Lewis is slated to receive the Governor's Award
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences,
honoring his long-running telethons.

==Trivia==
*Lewis has suffered years of back pain due to a
failed slapstick stunt that almost left him
paralyzed.  The continuing pain from the accident
nearly drove him to commit suicide.  An electronic
device developed by Medtronic recently implanted
in his back has helped reduce the discomfort.  He
is now one of Medtronic's leading spokesmen.
*Lewis tried his hand at singing in the 1950s,
having a chart hit with the song Rock-A-Bye Your
Baby with a Dixie Melody, a song originated by Al
Jolson and popularized by Judy Garland.
*The Simpsons' voice actor Hank Azaria based the
voice of Professor Frink on Lewis.  Lewis was
eventually invited to guest as the character's
father.
*Lewis' grand nephew, Nicholas McCarthy is
guitarist with Scottish pop group Franz Ferdinand
(band)|Franz Ferdinand
*In 1983, he was nominated for the 1983 Golden
Raspberry Awards|Golden Raspberry for Worst Actor
for his role in Slapstick of Another Kind.

==Filmography==
*How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border (1949)
(short subject)
*My Friend Irma (1949)
*My Friend Irma Goes West (1950)
*Screen Snapshots: Thirtieth Anniversary Special
(1950) (short subject)
*The Milkman (1950)
*At War with the Army (1950)
*That's My Boy (1951)
*Sailor Beware (1952)
*Jumping Jacks (1952)
*Road to Bali (1952) (cameo)
*The Stooge (1953)
*Scared Stiff (1953)
*The Caddy (1953)
*Money from Home (1953)
*Living It Up (1954)
*3 Ring Circus (1954)
*You're Never Too Young (1955)
*Artists and Models (1955)
*Pardners (1956)
*Hollywood or Bust (1956)
*The Delicate Deliquent (1957)
*The Sad Sack (1957)
*Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958)
*The Geisha Boy (1958)
*Don't Give Up the Ship (1959)
*Li'l Abner (1959)
*Visit to a Small Planet (1960)
*The Bellboy (1960)
*Cinderfella (1960)
*The Ladies Man (1961)
*The Errand Boy (1961)
*It's Only Money (1962)
*The Nutty Professor (1963)
*It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) (cameo)
*Who's Minding the Store? (1963)
*The Patsy (1964)
*The Disorderly Orderly (1964)
*The Family Jewels (movie)|The Family Jewels
(1965)
*Red Line 7000 (1965)
*Boeing Boeing (1965)
*Three on a Couch (1966)
*Way... Way, Out (1966)
*Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1967)
*The Big Mouth (1967)
*Silent Treatment (1968)
*Hook, Line & Sinker (1969)
*One More Time (movie)|One More Time (1970) (also
director)
*Which Way to the Front? (1970)
*The Day the Clown Cried (1972) (unfinished)
*Rascal Dazzle (1980) (documentary)
*Hardly Working (1980)
*Slapstick (Of Another Kind) (1982)
*The King of Comedy (1983)|The King of Comedy
(1983)
*Cracking Up (1983)
*How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave
(1984)
*Hold Me Back, or I'll Have an Accident (1984)
*Cookie (1989)
*Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
*Arizona Dream (1993)
*Funny Bones (1995)
*Miss Castaway and the Island Girls (2004)

==External links==
*http://www.jerrylewiscomedy.com/ Official Jerry
Lewis Website
*http://www.geocities.com/jeromelewis/
UnAuthorized Jerry Lewis Website
*imdb name|id=0001471|name=Jerry Lewis
*http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/
03/lewis.html Senses of Cinema: Great Directors
Critical Database
*http://www.jerrylewiscomedy.com/film_clown_cried.
htm The Day The Clown Cried
*http://martinlewis.comedyclassics.org/ Martin and
Lewis Forum