Jerry Lewis interview: 'Am I nuts for not liking modern Hollywood? Okay, I'll stay nuts'

The legendary comedian Jerry Lewis has died at the age of 91. This article, originally published in September 2016, detailed his hopes for an unlikely late comeback.

Throughout the Fifties and Sixties Jerry Lewis played the clown prince of Hollywood. In a succession of hit comedy films, first, with Dean Martin, and then as a lead man in his own right, Lewis displayed a combination of slapstick, silly voices and rubber-faced gurning the like of which had never been seen before on screen.

The hyperkinetic act, normally embodied in a squalling man-child, made Lewis into one of the most iconic performers in Hollywood – and rich. In 1959 he signed a multipicture deal with Paramount for $10 million – $80 million in today’s money.

In the years since then, he has stepped into the limelight only occasionally; for Martin Scorsese’s 1983 satire The King of Comedy, alongside Robert De Niro; for a memoir about his partnership with Martin in 2006. But now, to many people’s surprise, the 90-year-old comic is enjoying a career renaissance. 

His occasional one-man shows sell out, he teaches a film class near his home in Las Vegas and he has a new film about to be released – his first starring role in more than 20 years.

“Being 90 is not simple, but it’s interesting, very interesting,” he says, talking in a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. “Before I was 90, I could walk, I could see well, I could hear terrific, and now, I can’t hear, or see, or walk. But I am thrilled to be 90.”

That last declaration is hard to believe. Lewis always took pride in his frenetic energy. He considered himself a comedy pioneer and was lauded as such by the French who christened him “le roi du crazy”.

Today he uses a wheelchair (although he walks into the suite to meet me, leaning heavily on a cane) and is living with the debilitating results of two heart attacks, pulmonary fibrosis, prostate cancer and type 1 diabetes. Nevertheless, some things haven’t changed. He still pulls faces and cracks (bad) jokes and displays a vulgar side to his humour that was never far from the surface (and repulsed as many people as it amused).

“It was my pleasure financially to do it,” Lewis says when I ask him about his new film, Max Rose, in which he plays a retired jazz musician who discovers his recently departed wife might have had an affair.

“Seriously, I got the script and I couldn’t put it down. I fell in love with the material and felt it was a perfect time in my life to do it. And I had a wonderful time.”

Possibly Daniel Noah, the first-time director who also wrote it, did not have such an enjoyable time. “Being a first time director, we watched him tremble every morning – tremble,” says Lewis. “And it was such fun because he was a big fan of mine and loved the fact that I loved the script.

“It’s a hell of a movie and nice that there aren’t anti-tank guns coming from the left and .38 revolvers from the right. I think the movie industry has to pay attention that we need to make good quality films or we are never going to get the business back. You can't continue to kill people and stab them in the chest and rip their vaginas out.

"I don't think it makes any sense. If there aren't enough angry people in the business to change it, it's never going to change. And television has caught the disease. I mean, I have got children I won't allow near the set, for Christ's sake.”

Lewis, whose favourite films include The Sting, Dr. Zhivago, Oklahoma! and Lawrence of Arabia, is not a fan of modern cinema. “There are things I see in the picture business today that upset me. But if it’s making money they will tell you you’re nuts for not liking it. That’s OK, I’ll stay nuts.”

Lewis was born Joseph Levitch in New Jersey and spent much of his childhood in the care of relatives while his parents, vaudeville entertainers, played the Borscht Belt. Following in their footsteps, he made his stage debut at the age of five and by 15 he had his own comedy routine.

But his fortunes changed forever in 1945 when he met singer and fellow comic Martin. The following year they made their debut as a duo, with Martin as the dry-witted straight man and Lewis, bursting with energy and unable to control his mouth or limbs.

“We had magic,” Lewis recalls. “We were getting $250 a night in March of 1946 and by December we were getting $50,000. It happened so fast. In three years we earned $4 million.”

They appeared regularly on television and made a series of films, becoming one of the top box-office draws of the Fifties. But they began feuding, finally splitting in 1956. They did not reunite for nearly two decades.

But now Lewis becomes mawkishly sentimental when speaking of his ex-partner, who died on Christmas Day 1995.

“Audiences all over the world knew that we loved one another,” he says. “There was nothing make-believe with Dean and myself; I would see him walk in the room and my eyes would fill with tears. I’m talking about the love and the affection that was so deep I couldn’t control it, nor could he.”

But why, then, didn’t they talk to each other for almost 20 years?

“It was stupid,” he says. “There was so much more that I wanted to do [in comedy]. And Dean had the same thing, but he wanted to sing more; and that was fine but when we got to that point we just didn’t talk. It was awful.”

Lewis went his own way and made a string of highly successful solo films, beginning with the Delicate Delinquent and including The Sad Sack, The Geisha Boy, Cinderfella,  The Bellboy, The Ladies Man and The Errand Boy. The Nutty Professor in 1963 was one of his last big hits and his popularity wanted. So after several unsuccessful films he focused his energies on other projects, including a film director class at the University of Southern California, where he mentored, among others, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

In 1972 he attempted to resuscitate his image with The Day the Clown Cried, a European-produced melodrama about a circus clown forced by the Nazis to lead children into the death chambers. The project horrified almost everyone who heard about it and the few people who viewed an unfinished version at early screenings reported the experience as baffling, bizarre and unsettling.

Because of the reaction to it and litigation over production fees the film was never released. Lewis later described it as an embarrassingly "poor work" he was ashamed of.   

Although he remained popular in Europe, most notably in France, his career was dead in the water in the U.S. so he concentrated on his fund-raising telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association which he began hosting in 1966 and which resulted in a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 1977.

He made a well-received film comeback in 1981, playing a late night talk show host kidnapped by an obsessive fan in The King of Comedy, followed by Mr. Saturday Night and Funny Bones, which traded on his long and storied showbusiness career. In 1994 he had a successful run on Broadway as the Devil in a production of Damn Yankees and two years later he served as a producer on a remake of The Nutty Professor which starred Eddie Murphy.

Health issues and a series of controversial statements and homophobic jokes forced him into semi-retirement during the early part of this century but he has bounced back and as well as Max Rose he has another movie The Trust, in which he appears with Nicolas Cage, awaiting release. He is working on a script for a fellow comic he will not name and still teaches an acting and comedy class.

Lewis was married to singer Patti Palmer in 1944 and they had six sons (their youngest, Joseph, died of a drug overdose aged 45) before divorcing in 1982, after which, he says, "I banged anyone I could meet."  

He has been married for 33 years to his second wife SanDee Pitnick, a former Las Vegas dancer 25 years his junior who, he says, is "the greatest audience I have ever had."     

The mention of his wife leads to a lyrical speech on love: "I say to everybody, love is what wakes you up in the morning, love is what makes you walk and love is what makes you hope," he says. "Love is what makes you dream and love is what makes you want to get up in the morning, love is something that you want to be a part of, because it makes you better."

How would Jerry Lewis, known to the French as "Le Roi du Crazy," like to be remembered? "I don't care," he says. "I'm not interested in what people will think after I've gone. I want to hear all the good stuff while I'm here."

After more than eight decades he must have some regrets? "Regrets? You don't think about regrets," he says. "You regret something and then move on. You don't think about them and you don't carry them with you. You have to look at things that are negative and figure out why they happened and make sure they don't happen again. I keep negative out of my life."

Then he can't resist a last bad joke. "Except for film negative."

Max Rose is in US cinemas now and will be available in the UK later this year