Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [31]
Did the four of us have any concerns about what effect this conduct might have on our careers, not to mention our marriages? Professionally, the girls had much more to lose than we did. In effect, they were the property of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio giant that could snatch your stardom back as easily as they’d conferred it and send you straight back to where you’d come from. Dean and I were independent contractors, with only Hal Wallis to answer to—and how I loved giving him all the wrong answers! (Another story, for later.)
Professionally, we would all recover. How our little playtime would affect the four of us personally was another question.
Stars have always played around, but in those days most were a bit more discreet than they are now—as was the press. Even Frank Sinatra kept up his reputation as a family man until the end of the forties, when his P.R. people could no longer keep the lid on his affair with Ava Gardner. But in April 1946, Frank’s image was still relatively unsullied, and his fame at its zenith. And that month, not long after Dean and I had first met, Sinatra was about to open at the Paramount— in person, for Christ’s sake! Dean and I had just begun hanging around together, and one thing we discovered we had in common was a huge admiration—and believe me, that’s not putting it quite strongly enough—for Sinatra.
We thought we might get in and see the best singer around do his thing, but the crowds of fans were so great we couldn’t get near that theater, much less get tickets.
Then the proverbial lightbulb flashed on over my head.
Stella Ardis, a nice lady who worked in the administration office at the Belmont Plaza, was my very first all-out fan. She would come down to the Glass Hat to see my show at least three times a week; she told me she thought I could be a big star one day. I would smile and nod, thinking: Mouthing to records? I don’t think so, honey.... Still, it was nice to hear.
When you’re on the lower rungs of show business, you’re constantly around people who aspire upward—hangers-on, wannabes, and (sad but true) mostly never-will-bes. But everybody seems to have an angle, a connection. So when Stella, the nice lady in the administration office, said, “You know, Jerry, I’m kind of in show business myself,” I responded politely.
“Oh, really, Stella?” I said. “How so?”
“Well,” Stella said proudly, “my cousin, Mark Leon, is the head usher at the Paramount Theater.”
Needless to say, this conversation came back to me in full force when Dean and I found we couldn’t get near the Sinatra show.
Did I want to see Sinatra? You bet. Did I want to impress the hell out of Dean? You bet. I made a beeline for the administration office at the Belmont Plaza and told Stella I had a little favor—oh, hell, a big favor—to ask her.
She smiled. “For my brilliant Jerry? Anything.”
Two hours later, Dean and I were standing at the employees’ entrance of the Paramount with a watchman who told us to stay right where we were, since Mr. Leon had to come back from a meeting through the very door we were standing by. Long minutes afterward, the door opened and an important-looking fellow emerged. “Mr. Leon,” the watchman said, “these two young fellows were looking for you.”
I was worried for a second, but as soon as I mentioned Stella, the head usher beamed. “My cousin says you’re a very talented young man.”
Pay dirt! We were not only going to get in, we were going to get in for free. We were like little kids being given a treat. A very big treat.
Soon Mr. Leon was whisking us to a spot—standing room, of course—in an alcove on the first mezzanine. Naturally, there wasn’t a seat in the house, since most of the audience had been there all day anyway.
And so we waited. Through the coming attractions, some announcements about social events of the season to be held at the Paramount, and then, of course, the newsreel. MacArthur