Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [18]
And one unintended side benefit: I suddenly looked two inches shorter! Another little-known fact is that (once my adolescent growth had topped out) Dean and I were the exact same height, six feet tall on the button. The fact is little-known because we didn’t play that way. If Dean was the older brother and I was the kid, it had to look like that on stage. The crew cut helped, and so did the fact that I went into a kind of crouch when I was standing next to him. But I decided to give nature a helping hand (and return the favor for the haircut). I took Dean’s show shoes to a shoemaker and had a quarter-inch added to the heels.
Suddenly, he was towering over me on stage. The effect was perfect.
But there was still something missing.
It came to me as we were about to open at the Chez Paree in Chicago—a place that would come to have a big part in our professional lives, and in Dean’s after we broke up. “We’ve got to work in tuxes,” I told my partner.
I might as well have told him we had to work naked. “Tuxes??” he said. “Why?”
Up to that point, we’d been performing in gray street suits with matching four-in-hand ties. We could have been borrowed from Florsheim and no one would have noticed. “Because,” I said, “if we don’t, then we’ll look like the act that opened in Atlantic City—two stumble-bums getting paid a load of cash. We’re getting a bundle, and we have to look like we deserve it. An audience can see anybody on the Bowery wearing a gray suit—and lying in the gutter, yet. But when a comic takes a fall in a thousand-dollar tux... that’s funny! Don’t ask me why, but I know what I’m talking about.”
I’d said the magic words: Dean knew I knew. When Mike Fritzel and Joey Jacobsen, Chez Paree’s owners and two great guys, heard what we had planned, they called us into their office. Joey said, “I’ve just made arrangements for both of you to be fitted for high-class tuxes made by Pucci on Michigan Boulevard—only the top-of-the-line tailor in the country!”
When the fittings were done, we were convinced that when these tuxes were finished, we were going to see work like we had never seen before. And since we were booked into the Chez Paree for twelve weeks, it was certain the great Pucci would take his time getting the tuxes made. Meanwhile, Dean and I continued to work in our gray street suits, at the same time reporting back to Pucci every week for further fittings.
This went on for seven weeks, and—not wanting to insult Mike and Joey, who were paying the $2,000-plus for each tux (big bucks in those days)—neither Dean nor I ever uttered a peep of protest. When we finally got the tuxes, we decided to wear them the same night.
We did, and we were awful.
Not only did our work feel stiff and strained, but we both felt like we were appearing at a funny farm and we were two of the inmates. The only good part was that everyone that saw us that night said, “Now the act has class.” So Mike and Joey were right! Gradually, we started to get comfortable—but not as comfortable as we would be when we eventually had our tuxes made by our tailor, Sy Devore, in Hollywood. When that happened, we really looked great, and we felt as strong as we looked.
From that night at Chez Paree, and not only for the rest of the ten years that we were together, but for the thirty years thereafter, Dean would never work without a tux. It became part of his persona, and he always looked smashing in it, as well. There were dates when my wardrobe didn’t show on time, and I would rather rent a cheap tux than work in a $1,500 suit. Dean and I both recognized that looking like big-time brought big-time.
That venue of venues I mentioned a moment ago was,