Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [40]
I’ve seen the other side of that so many times in my career. When Jackie Gleason wanted to marry Marilyn Taylor, his wife, a devout Catholic, didn’t want to give him a divorce. For a while, Jackie’s work in The Honeymooners became stilted and uneven—but then, when his wife finally agreed to the split, he was a new man on and off the screen.
I needed—the act needed—Dean’s best work. From day one, I understood that even though I’d been born funny, my partner’s magic was to bring it out of me in a way that looked effortless. I knew, selfishly, that if Dean wasn’t there, I’d be in trouble.
Dean agonized about leaving Betty, and—freely admitting my personal stake in it—I advised him to follow his heart. He did. He moved Jeannie to a rented house in West Hollywood in early 1949, and Betty, back east with the kids but up on all the developments, served him with divorce papers.
When a lot happens to you all at once, you learn fast. In the months after Dean and I first hit Hollywood, we learned plenty about the town, its workings, and its players. The two greenhorn kids who didn’t even know where Ciro’s was quickly became pals with its owner, Herman Hover.
Ciro’s was the ritziest nightclub on Sunset Strip, and Herman was quite a power in the Hollywood of the late forties. Short, gruff, always impeccably tailored, he was the same height and build as Edward G. Robinson, with the same hairline—except that instead of looking like a gangster, Herman resembled a textile salesman. He wore expensive hand-painted ties and custom-made shirts: Whenever he extended an arm, you saw his monogram, “H.H.,” right there on the cuff. The first time I got a load of that, I said, “Wow! Harry Horseshit!” Dean made an Oliver Hardy face at me, and I never did it again.
Herman Hover spent money exactly the way you’d think a guy who looked like Herman Hover would spend money. He lived in a mansion on North Bedford in Beverly Hills that had once belonged to Mary Pick-ford: Howard Hughes, another pal of Hover’s, conducted most of his business there. Herman’s home had a $40,000 supply of liquor on hand at all times—he skimmed pretty good from Ciro’s. Oh, he was a piece of work. (I’m sorry to say he wound up broke.)
It was in Herman’s mansion, on September 1, 1949, that Dean married Jeannie. It was quite an affair, small and private but lavish. Herman footed the bill (of course), including ten grand worth of white gardenias. I was best man. Patti was present, under protest—she still felt bad for Betty. And Dean, in a separate room from Jeannie so they wouldn’t have the bad luck of seeing each other before the ceremony, was nervous as a cat. My partner and I were alone together, as he paced and lit cigarette after cigarette. You’d have thought he was going to the chair! Soon all the pacing and smoking began to get to me. When he said, “Christ, I need a drink!” I was thrilled.
“You’re gonna be all right if I leave for a minute, right?” I asked him.
“Of course!” he bellowed. “Get the drink!”
I dashed out to the pantry, swung open the door, and got my first eyeful of Herman’s fabulous liquor collection. Jesus, there was enough booze in there to get all of Pasadena loaded. I took out a bottle of Dean’s favorite (at the time), Johnnie Walker Black Label, and filled a huge tumbler—at least sixteen ounces’ worth. There were smaller glasses, but whenever there was a chance for a laugh, I always went for it. Then I strolled back into the room and handed the tumbler—it had to be at least nine inches tall—to Dean. He took one look at it and fell apart, just thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. It really wasn’t, it just happened to be the perfect time for that kind of a sight gag. He sipped some of it, put it on the table, and lit another cigarette.