Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [47]
In July 1951, we played the Paramount Theater on Broadway for the first time. On an unseasonably cool and rainy Thursday morning, our taxicab crept through the traffic toward Times Square, as Dean and I gawked out the window at an amazing sight: our faces on a sign as large as the building, reading, “Martin and Lewis on Stage, in Person and on the Screen.”
Then we were stopped by an incredible spectacle: a huge mob of fans filling Times Square, waiting to get into the Paramount. Most of them, we later learned, had been there since six A.M. I knew there’d be pandemonium when we got out of the cab, but there was nothing to be done— we had to get as close to the backstage door as possible, as quickly as possible. The driver edged through the crowds, up to the curb, and we started to scramble. We were recognized before we even left the cab.
“It’s them!”
Dean’s prized Aquascutum trench coat sticks in the cab door as the screaming fans grab the side of his coat; the driver isn’t sure he’s going to get his fare....
“Leave the coat, for Christ’s sake!” I yell to Dean. “We’re making enough to buy the company!”
The coat frees itself into the hands of a happy fan—leaving Dean free to dash into the theater. We rush backstage and into the elevator, which runs us up to the sixth-floor dressing rooms—which, at the Paramount Theater, are shoe boxes instead of a nail.
Dean and I have one room on the sixth floor, and our bandleader, Dick Stabile, has another . . . and that’s it. All the rest of the company are on seven, eight, and nine; the band is on ten, and their horns and music stands are in the basement.
We get dressed as quickly as possible, because the movie is just about done. The audience is primed and ready for us. We finish getting into our tuxes (at 9:45 A.M.!) and hit the stairs. Why the stairs? Because the goddamn elevator always gets stuck. And we have four thousand people out there, waiting. . . .
The band hits the Dick Stabile theme song, “Blue Nocturne,” as the hydraulic platform they’re sitting on starts its mighty rise from the bowels of the orchestra pit to its triumphant high finish. They wind up the theme just as the platform stops moving. Then Dick steps downstage and introduces our opening act: “And here they are, Barr and Estes!”
Their official billing was Barr & Estes, Eccentric Dancers, and their official reason for being there was that Leonard Barr was Dean’s uncle. That was it, pure and simple: Leonard was Dean’s mother’s brother (Barra was the original family name). Barr & Estes were our insurance. Both Dean and I felt that if anyone was going to get rotten tomatoes, it might as well be the opening act!
Dean’s Uncle Leonard was a very big-nosed, funny-looking guy, skinny and crazy-limbed. His partner, Marie Estes, was a contortionist. They danced around the stage, twisting their bodies to the sound of “Song of India”—and light titters and coughing.
Well, Barr & Estes finished their twelve minutes, and Dick, as always, introduced me: “The first half of this great comedy team, please welcome Jerry Lewis!” The band played me on with a jazz riff, to enthusiastic screaming.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I finally said when the noise died down. “I’m the first half you’ll see tonight of the team of Dean and Jerry, and I have to clarify one thing—I’m Jerry.”
This got the reaction I was looking for, allowing me to peer around the theater with a hurt face. “Because a lot of people mistake me for Dean,” I insisted—and then I gave them the Idiot laugh, which got a big laugh from them.
“But,” I said at last, “but my partner will come out here, and, God willing, he will sing.” And then I had to wait another couple of minutes until the cheers died down before I finally introduced my partner.
You wanna talk loud? You wanna talk electric? You wanna talk pandemonium? It was all of that when he walked onto the stage. Then, when we finally got them back in their seats,