RIP Jerry

[rowan]

Jeez, there going down like flies. Though this one certainly had a decent innings...

[cashead]

I wonder if the full existing footage of The Day the Clown Cried will see the light of day.

[rowan]

I only remember watching the old Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movies when I was a kid and thinking the latter was more weird than funny. But as an adult I can look back at the Youtube clips and see that he really was a genuinely talented comedian; the Jim Carrey of his time, you might say...

Trivia you probably knew already: Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin were actually a Jewish/Italian-American act. Their real names were Joseph Levitch and Dino Martini.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Even as a 6-year old plonked in front of the telly on a Sunday afternoon I could tell that Jerry Lewis was about as funny as polio. You're right that Lewis was Carrey's precursor; sure they're both as funny as a communicable disease. His Norman Pitkinesque character alongside the piss-head Martin wouldn't have made an Albanian laugh.

[rowan]

Well, millions of Americans (and non-Americans) might have disagreed with you there, Sarge. That kind of humor may long since have gone out of fashion, but it obviously had a place in a less cynical age when people just acting plain stupid on screen was still considered amusing.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Agreed. And I suppose it appealed to an audience who had been through some pretty grim times - but as with Brucie they outlived their appeal by several decades. At least in Lewis' case he had the good grace to realise that this was so and put his feet up away from the movie cameras.

[kk67]

I can remember watching the Danny Kaye 'chalice from the palace' skit as a youngster and laughing. Ditto the Hope+Crosby road movies.
Jerry and Dean..?. Meh.

[kk67]

At least in Lewis' case he had the good grace to realise that this was so and put his feet up away from the movie cameras.

Given that he managed to hang on to his Hollywood mansion for so many years......that was probably a very shrewd business decision. Loads of them sink their savings into trying to restart their careers and it goes badly wrong.

Bit harsh on Brucie though,...who clearly just loved to be working. It burned in his very being.
Not unlike rugby and some of us.

[rowan]

Everyone has a skeleton in the closet, and it seems there was a darker side to Jerry's private life, not too surprisingly: http://www.thedailybeast.com/jerry-lewi ... ly-ignored