Jerry Lewis (born on March 16, 1926, according to most sources), is a comedian, actor, film producer, writer and film director known for his slapstick humor and his charity fund-raising telethons for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Lewis has won many prestigious Lifetime Achievement Awards from The American Comedy Awards, The Golden Camera, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, The Venice Film Festival and he has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Lewis currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lewis was originally paired up in 1946 with Dean Martin, and formed the comedy team of Martin and Lewis. In addition to the team's popular nightclub work, they starred in a successful series of comedy films for Paramount. The act broke up ten years later.

Career

Lewis was born in Newark, New Jersey, to a Jewish family. His parents were Rae and Danny Lewis. His mother played piano at the New York City radio station, WOR, and his father was an entertainer. His birth name was Joseph Levitch, though some sources claim this is untrue and that Lewis' name at birth was Jerome Levitch. His father was a vaudeville performer. He started performing at the age of five and by the age of fifteen developed his Record Act, in which he mimed lyrics of operatic and popular songs to a phonograph.

Martin and Lewis

Lewis gained initial fame with singer Dean Martin, who served as a straight man to Lewis's manic, zany antics as the Martin and Lewis comedy team. They distinguished themselves from 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 1940s, they quickly rose to national prominence, first with their popular nightclub act and then as film stars in a string of movies for Paramount Pictures . They also appeared on live television, particularly The Colgate Comedy Hour.

The partnership strained as Martin's roles in their films became less important. Martin's diminished participation became an embarrassment in 1954, when Look magazine used a publicity photo of the team for the magazine cover, but cropped Martin out of the photo. The partnership finally ended in 1956.

Both Martin and Lewis went on to successful solo careers, but for years neither would comment on the split, nor consider a reunion. The next time they were seen together in public was a surprise appearance by Martin on Lewis's telethon in 1976, arranged by Frank Sinatra. Lewis wrote of his kinship with Martin (who died in 1995) in the 2005 book Dean and Me (A Love Story). Although the pair eventually reconciled in the late-1980s after the death of Martin's son, the two men never held another public reunion.

Jerry Lewis, comedy star

After the split, Lewis remained at Paramount and became a major comedy star with his debut film The Delicate Delinquent in 1957. Teaming with director Frank Tashlin, whose background as a Looney Tunes director suited Lewis's brand of humor, he starred in five more films, and even appeared uncredited as Itchy McRabbitt in Li'l Abner (1959).

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) as well as the song, "It All Depends On You" in 1958. He released his own album right after the split titled, Jerry Lewis Just Sings.

In 1960 Paramount needed a quickie feature film to fill its release schedule, and asked Lewis to produce it. Lewis came up with The Bellboy. Using the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami as his setting, on a small budget, a very tight shooting schedule, and no script, Lewis shot the film by day and performed at the hotel in the evenings. Bill Richmond collaborated with him on the many sight gags. During production, Lewis developed the technique of using video cameras and multiple closed circuit monitors, allowing him to view scenes while he was filming them. This allowed him to review his performance instantly. Later, he incorporated videotape, and as more portable and affordable equipment became available, this technique would become an industry standard known as video assist.

Lewis directed several more films which he co-wrote with Richmond including The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and the iconic film, The Nutty Professor.

By 1966 Lewis, now 40, was no longer an angular juvenile and his routines seemed slower and more labored. His box office appeal waned, to the point where Paramount Pictures' new executive suite felt no further need for the Lewis comedies. Undaunted, Lewis simply packed up and went to Columbia Pictures, where he made several more comedies.

Lewis taught a film directing class at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles for a number of years, mentoring such students as George Lucas. In 1968, he screened Steven Spielberg's early film Amblin' and told his students, "That's what filmmaking is all about.

Later, Lewis pursued several personal movie projects. He starred in and directed the unreleased The Day The Clown Cried in 1972. The film was a drama set in a Nazi concentration camp. Lewis has explained why the film has not been released by suggesting litigation over post-production financial difficulties. More importantly, however, he recently admitted during his book tour for Dean and Me that a major factor for the film's burial is that he is not proud of the effort.

Lewis returned to the screen in 1981 with Hardly Working, a film he both directed and starred in. Despite being panned by the critics, the film did eventually earn $50 million. He followed this up with a critically acclaimed performance in Martin Scorsese's 1983 film The King of Comedy in which Lewis plays a late night TV host plagued by obsessive fans (played by Robert De Niro and Sandra Bernhard). The role had been based on and originally offered to Johnny Carson. Lewis continued doing work in small films in the 1990s, most notably his supporting role in Arizona Dream (1994), and his last picture Funny Bones (1995).

Lewis and his popular movie characters were animated in the cartoon series, Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down which premiered on ABC in 1970 and then ended in 1972. The show was produced at Filmation Studios in partnership with Lewis, and starred David Lander (later of Laverne and Shirley fame) as the voice of the animated Jerry Lewis character.

Lewis remained popular in Europe: he was consistently praised by some highbrow French critics in the influential Cahiers du Cinéma for his absurd comedy, in part because he had gained respect as an auteur who had total control over all aspects of his films, comparable to Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock. In March 2006 the French Minister of Culture awarded Lewis the 'Legion of Honor' calling him the 'French people's favorite clown.' Liking Lewis has long been a common stereotype about the French in the minds of many Americans, and is often the object of jokes in U.S. pop culture.

Charitable work

Lewis helped establish the Muscular Dystrophy Association in 1952, and has organized a Labor Day telethon to help raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) since 1966. His efforts have helped raise approximately US$2 billion for neuromuscular patient care and research. In the early years it was Martin and Lewis raising money for MDA, and then Lewis continued on when he went solo. The International Association of Fire Fighters is the largest single sponsor of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, starting in 1954, and has donated over $250 million dollars to date. Lewis has served as National Chairman of the association since 1952. Lewis is one of few fundraisers who brings in more than is actually pledged. This is because many donors as they write a check add extra money to help "Jerry's Kids" given his generosity and no-pressure appeal. In 1985, he received a US Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. In September 2005 Lewis was slated to receive the Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, honoring his long-running telethons.

The telethons are typically star-studded: among Lewis's co-hosts through the years were Ed McMahon and Casey Kasem. A frequent performer in the 1970s and 1980s was Frank Sinatra, who surprised Lewis by reuniting him with Dean Martin on the telethon in 1976.

On his 40th Labor Day telethon in 2005, Lewis added Salvation Army fundraising (for Hurricane Katrina) to his usual MDA fundraising, though he also encouraged viewers to give to the American Red Cross. He has also hosted the 1987 and 1991 editions of the French Muscular Dystrophy Téléthon, where he is known for his work against this disease.

Honorary Ambassador of Peace for the Harvey Ball Foundation along with Jackie Chan, Brooke Shields, A. V. T. Shankardass, Prince Albert of Monaco, Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Phil Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Heather Mills, Yoko Ono, Patch Adams, Sergei Khrushchev and Winnie Mandela.

Health concerns

Lewis has suffered years of back pain due to a failed slapstick stunt on an Andy Williams television special in 1966 that almost left him paralyzed. 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 has battled prostate cancer, diabetes, pulmonary fibrosis, and has had two heart attacks. Medical treatment for the fibrosis using prednisone in the early 2000s caused the comedian to experience weight gain and bloating that noticeably changed his appearance. Lewis suffered a serious heart attack in the 1980s, and second minor heart attack on June 11, 2006 at the end of a cross-country commercial airline flight en route home from New York City. It was later found that he had pneumonia. Lewis had two stents inserted into an artery in his heart that was 90% blocked, and it restored full blood flow to his heart. This has allowed him to continue his rebound from the lung issues he suffered from 2001-2005 and his health has improved. While it meant cancelling several major events for Lewis, he recuperated in a matter of weeks.

Controversy

Jerry Lewis has been criticized by members of the disability rights community. In 1990, he wrote a first-person essay entitled "If I Had Muscular Dystrophy" for Parade magazine, in which he characterized those with muscular dystrophy as "being half a person."  Many in the disabled community viewed his remarks as prejudicial, contributing to the idea that disabled people are "childlike, helpless, hopeless, non functioning and noncontributing members of society." 

In February of 2000, Jerry Lewis stunned an audience gathered to honor his work at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival by saying he doesn't like female comics. Lewis said, "I don't like any female comedians. A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world."

On May 20, 2001, he responded to his critics in an interview on CBS News Sunday Morning: "If you don't want to be pitied for being a cripple in a wheelchair, don't come out of the house." Again, disability rights activists blasted him for characterizing disabled people as helpless and homebound. As recently as 2006, he has continued to ignore the criticism, characterizing them as "inconsequential troublemakers" whose numbers are tiny in comparison to the millions of people his charity has supported. 

During the 2007 Labor Day Telethon, Lewis used an offensive slur for a homosexual male while live on air. While talking to a cameraman, he joked: "Oh, your family has come to see you. You remember Bart, your oldest son, Jesse, the illiterate fag--no..." He apparently caught himself and ceased the gag in mid-sentence, turning on his heel away from the camera.   He later apologized. 

Family

Lewis is the father of 1960s pop musician Gary Lewis, who had several hits during the mid-1960s with his group Gary Lewis and the Playboys. He has six other sons: Joseph, Ronald, Scott, Christopher, Anthony and Joseph and an adopted daughter Danielle (b. Mar-1992).