Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [27]
“Herb, could we possibly arrange for the shoot to be later in the day, so I can make an appointment to meet with Mr. Wallis?”
Herb, a nice man, agreed to postpone the session to three-thirty in the afternoon.
I wrote Dean a note. “Paul, couldn’t sleep,” it read. “Going to Beverly Hills to shop a little. Photo shoot has been moved to 3:30 this afternoon. Just relax till I get back. Love, the Jew.”
Then I went down to the lobby and called Abby Greshler on the house phone.
I told our agent I needed to meet with Wallis, alone, that morning if at all possible, and I told him why. I asked if he could set it up. Greshler said he’d do his best. I told him to call me back in the lobby, explaining that I didn’t want Dean to know about any of this yet.
Then I hung up and counted the seconds.
Imagine you’ve gone in for root canal, and the doctor is delayed, and you’re sitting in the waiting room, not wanting him to show up but desperately wanting the torment to be over. That’s about how I felt.
After six long minutes, Greshler called back. Wallis would see me at eleven A.M.
“Sit down, Jerry,” Mr. Wallis said kindly. We were in his big office at Paramount, and my heart was pounding. He gave me a look, and I gave him a look back. It was a tense moment, and we both knew why.
He pushed a button on his intercom. “Evelyn, hold my calls,” he said. “Thank you.” Then he looked at me again. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“Mr. Wallis,” I said, “this Martin and Lewis thing is my baby. I put it together, and I’ll be damned if I let it go down in defeat without trying to correct the situation. I know what went wrong here.” I actually hadn’t the slightest idea of what I was about to say—except that my feelings were so strong, I knew they’d take me in the right direction.
“I’d love to know that myself,” Wallis said.
“Okay, then. If you loved what you saw Dean and me do on the stage at the Copa, why not film the essence of what you loved?”
“Which is what, precisely?”
“The handsome guy with the monkey.”
“Go on,” he said, looking intrigued but puzzled.
“Dean, as the straight man, can be any straight character,” I said. “But Jerry cannot be anyone or anything other than Jerry. If you take that away, or separate the two of them, you’ve lost the essence of the act.”
All at once, Wallis seemed excited. “Will you sit down with Cy Howard and try to get a handle on this?” he asked.
And that was how Seymour was born. After I told Dean some terrible lie about the terrific chick I’d met shopping in Beverly Hills, I spent the evening—and then the rest of the night—at Cy Howard’s house, hammering out the idea for a less-than-bright pal for Dean’s character Steve. (Dean managed to entertain himself while I was away—believe me, he was not lonely.)
“Why Seymour?” Cy asked, making a face. It was his real name, and he hated it.
“Because that’s what Jerry is,” I told him. “He is Seymour, Marvin, Melvin, Norman, and Bernie, and so on. He’s Mr. Everyone in the World That Gets Shit On. He is not Al. Al needs an actor. Jerry needs to be Seymour. Make him Steve’s pal and we hit pay dirt!”
Cy and I met with Wallis first thing the next morning, while Dean slept off a wonderful hangover. The producer glanced back and forth at the two of us while we bubbled over with excitement. We went on and on about the need to have the team be just that—a team. Dean could still sing, be the leading man, the romantic interest, but with a sidekick—the busboy, the waiter, the parking attendant, the usher, the American Everyman.
We had him. Wallis was sold. He called the Paramount production department and ordered another screen test.
I ran into our