Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [59]
Dean started to unwrap his gifts. Typical for him would be to open a box, throw the contents in the garbage, and thank the giver for the lovely wrapping paper. You had to be there to get it, but nobody could bring off a joke the way Dean could. His performance was effortless, pure grace and charm—not to mention that he was acting a wee bit drunker than he actually was.
Just as he was getting to the bottom of the pile, the doorbell rang. Jeannie (whom I’d let in on the gag) went to answer it. She swung the door open wide, allowing five men to enter the living room, each of them packing about four golf bags apiece.
“This is just for openers,” one of them announced.
They went back and forth from the driveway to the living room, setting bag upon bag upon bag against the wall for nearly thirty minutes. Dean’s eyes were bugging out of his head. He had absolutely no idea where all this was coming from, and, just as he was about to collapse with laughter, one of the guys took out a card and read: “To Dean, my partner and best friend. Here’s to never having to be without these. Love, Jerry.”
We hugged. The crowd cheered. And the five guys proceeded to take all the bags of clubs back outside, which took another half hour—while Dean kept asking, “How’d you do that? Where’d they come from?”
I just smiled.
What brought these two stories to mind? It just occurred to me, as I sat here writing, that never once in our ten years together did Dean give me a present. Not once, amid the scores of gifts I gave him—the gold-link watch, from Billy Ruser’s jewelry store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, that he always treasured (check out our old Colgate Comedy Hours, and you’ll find a sketch where water was spurting from a pipe in a wall and Dean was trying, in all seriousness, to protect that watch); the cigarette lighters; the golf clubs; the gorgeous diamond studs for his tux, with diamond cuff links to match; the solid-gold flask, et cetera.
Why was that?
I don’t think it was because he thought, He doesn’t deserve it . I think it was because he was taught that you didn’t do that. Men did not give other men presents, period.
I have been charged, now and then, with being a tad lavish in my gift-giving. Cross, Tiffany, Cartier, and Dunhill have done very well by me over the years—as has almost everybody who ever worked with me in television and the movies. But I also recognize that there is a certain selfishness to my gifts.
Here’s how it works: I get pleasure from giving to those I love. That’s my pleasure. But I’m perceptive enough to realize that there are those who have felt oppressed by my generosity. It’s not always easy to get when you can’t give back to the same degree. Once, after I’d given television sets to two of our Colgate Comedy Hour writers, Ed Simmons and Norman Lear, they retaliated by presenting me with a gift-wrapped old man—an actual living person whom they’d imprisoned inside a giant box for six hours. The card read, “For the Man Who Has Everything.”
Dean always used to take me to task for what he called flag-waving . In his book, that could mean any number of things. It could mean giving money to the needy. We would walk down the street together, and I literally couldn’t pass a man with his hat out. If there was one on every block, I’d hit each and every one. If we walked back the same way and the same guy was still there, I’d hit him again. Dean would say, “That fucker can get a job! What the fuck are you givin’ him money for?”
At the same time, I think he was happy to see me do what he couldn’t, even when he wanted to.
Flag-waving was tipping your mitt emotionally, showing your colors. It was loving parades, thinking Sophie Tucker was great, Al