RIP Jerry Lewis

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Jerry Lewis earlier today. Not just a Hollywood legend, but an award-winning actor, writer, director, producer, author, philanthropist, and film innovator. He was the whole package, and he will be missed.

My first memories of Jerry Lewis were of someone who was just there, a Hollywood legend as I said, who would sometimes pop up on talk shows and variety shows. I remember having him pointed out by my brother when he made his cameo in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but I never really got a good look at the man until I started watching his Labor Day telethons for muscular dystrophy(which he did for over four decades), there I saw what kind of man he was and how respected and gracious he was. The telethons were always big ratings blockbusters, so when a rival local channel started running Jerry Lewis movies opposite it one weekend, that's when I really saw what he was about.

My eyes were opened that weekend with Way… Way Out, Hook, Line, & Sinker, Who's Minding the Store?, The Ladies Man (a tour de force in which he not only starred, wrote, produced, and directed, but innovated new cinematography that still boggle the mind), and a film that remains a favorite, in my top ten of all time even, Boeing Boeing. I wonder if WCAU Channel 10 knows that in the name of money they introduced me and probably hundreds of others to the genius of Jerry Lewis that weekend.

As the years went by, I would appreciate his work more and more. While I never found him very funny in his original incarnation as half of Martin and Lewis with Dean Martin, I loved his other films as I discovered them on television, and later when I managed a video store. Other favorites include The Big Mouth, The Bellboy, Cinderfella, and The King of Comedy. Perhaps now, we might also finally see a complete version of the infamous The Day the Clown Cried, a film about a clown in the Nazi concentration camps, that while controversial, Lewis locked away because he felt it was not his best work.

Although he has proven himself difficult and a perfectionist in the field, Lewis' genius behind the camera remains, and his films are a legacy to that. There's an old joke that he was a genius in France, but let's face facts, in this, the French are not wrong. He changed, and improved how Hollywood makes films, and how we see them.

Jerry Lewis was one of the greats, and I was glad to have seen him one last time while he was alive on the most recent TCM Classic Cruise when he introduced and fielded questions about The Nutty Professor. He was a legend of stage, screen, and radio, and will be missed by all, whether they liked him or not.