Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [0]
Title Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE: BREAKING UP
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MARTIN & LEWIS BOOED AT PALLADIUM OPENING
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In Tonight’s Performance, Miss Carol Haney’s Role Will Be Played by Miss Shirley MacLaine
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AFTERWORD: GOOD-BYE, HELLO
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright Page
For Dani, the young lady who is the air in my lungs,
and her young mother, who is the beat in my heart,
thank you both for getting me to here.
PHILIPPE HALSMAN, LIFE, 1951
PROLOGUE: BREAKING UP
MOST OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD WASN’T AWARE OF THE GULF that had grown between us, and we were still making money like the U.S. Mint. But there was no getting around it: The time had come to call it a day. In the coolest, most practical way, Dean and I decided to go out on top.
On Tuesday night, July 24, 1956—ten years to the day after our first appearance together at Skinny D’Amato’s 500 Club in Atlantic City— we played our last three shows, ever, at the Copacabana, on East Sixtieth Street in Manhattan.
The evening quickly took on the magnitude of a great event. After all, for the past decade, Martin and Lewis had delighted America and the world. We’d been loved, idolized, sought after. And now we were shutting the party down.
The celebrity guest list for this night of nights grew and grew. With about a half hour before our first show, Dean and I had very little to say to each other. It was going to be a rough night, but we both knew we couldn’t allow ourselves to be sloppy or unprofessional. So our plan was to have fun, if possible, and to do the best show we knew how to do.
I walked across the hall to my partner’s suite at about 7:35 for absolutely no reason other than to announce that I needed ice. Dean always had ice. I walked over to the bar and put some in my glass. He gave me a knowing glance—he felt what I felt and we didn’t have to expound on it. I managed to get myself to the door and croaked out, “Have a good show, Paul.” (That was his middle name, what I always called him.) He said, “You too, kid.”
I walked out into the hallway and thought my heart would break. I was losing my best friend and I didn’t know why. And if I had known why, would that have made a difference? I now think that since it had to happen, at least it happened quickly. When husbands and wives break up, it can take years, or they stay together for all the wrong reasons.
Dean and I knew we had to get on with our lives, and being a team no longer worked. As sentimental as it sounds, we both had the hand of God on us until even He said, “Enough!”
I think for the most part we understood what was happening. We were just scared, and didn’t want anyone to know. Scared about where we were going and what we would be doing. We had become accustomed to our fabulous lifestyle. Would the autograph-seekers still seek? Could we do anything without each other? Would we be accepted as anything other than what we had been?
Dean had this uncanny way of making everything bad look like it wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t denial, it was that he never had sweaty palms. No matter how things turned out, Dean could make it seem as if that was the way he’d planned it.
One look at my face and you knew despair . . . joy . . . happiness . . . sorrow. My dad called me “Mr. Neon”—and he was right. I always had to let everyone know what I was feeling. Anything else and I felt like a liar. Truth was my greatest ally. Painful, yes, but I found it was the only way for me. Dean could lie if it would spare someone’s feelings. I had difficulty with that.
Well, however we felt, my partner and I still had three final shows to do at the Copa, and it was getting to be that time.
I always went on before Dean, did my shtick and introduced him. He would hang back on the top level of the Copa, greeting people and making nice