Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [73]
“Listen, Paul—I may play one, but I’m not a fool,” I told him. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get better. You know how much I want to get back to work.”
“Good,” he said. He slapped me on the knee. “Now I’m gonna go play some golf.” And he started to walk out of the room.
“What? You’re about to do a single for the first time in eight years and you’re not planning a strategy so you don’t step on your balls?”
He stopped and looked at me, genuinely puzzled. “Strategy?” he said. Then he smiled. “Hey, as long as the seats are facing the stage, I’ll be fine!”
“You’re not going to rehearse?” I asked him.
“Rehearse what?” Dean said. “All’s I need is our music books. I pick a couple of tunes, throw in a couple of ideas that feel right, and have some fun. What are they gonna do? Kill me?”
“Would you like to share those ideas with me?” I said. “Maybe I can help.”
He was still smiling, but I thought I detected a long-suffering look in his eyes. “Help what?” he said. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise.” And with that, he blew me a kiss and left.
On opening night, I sent the following to Dean’s dressing room at Ciro’s: a case of Scotch, a case of Jack Daniel’s, two cases of Schweppes club soda, ten cartons of Camels, a case of his favorite red wine ... and bottle openers, tall glasses (the ones he liked that no one carried), and Old-Fashioned glasses. I had Paramount print a thousand cocktail napkins reading “DEAN MARTIN AND JERRY LEWIS,” with a big black X through my name.
I lay in bed as nervous as a cat, wondering, hoping, and praying a little. I expected not to hear anything until morning, since the show at Ciro’s didn’t break before midnight. But I was wrong. At 12:15, Jack Keller called me and said, “Can I come out to see you?”
“When?” I asked.
“Now!”
I figured if Jack Keller, who hated to drive, was ready to make the forty-minute trip out to my house in Pacific Palisades, it had to be important. I told him to come on out.
He walked into my bedroom at one A.M.—where, of course, I was ready for him in my Japanese outfit. Barely cracking a smile, Jack sat down on the opposite side of the room. If God Himself had told Jack that I wasn’t contagious (which I wasn’t), he’d still have sat across that room: Jack was a world-class hypochondriac.
“Was everything okay?” I asked him.
“Okay?” he said. “It was unbelievable! It was fantastic!”
I sat up straight in the bed. “Tell me!”
Keller says: “They introduce him, and the audience, who were in his corner from the get-go, all stand up as he walks on stage.... But instead of opening with a song, he signaled for quiet. You could’ve heard a pin drop. And Dean said, soft and serious, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming tonight, because it’s a very special night. A night I’ve been praying for, for the last eight years ... to be alone on stage without that goddamn noisy Jew.’
“The house came down,” Keller said. “Then, as the uproar died, Dean called to a stagehand. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘bring me that other item.’ The stagehand comes out with a mike stand and a mike, exactly like the one Dean has in front of him. ‘I can’t really feel comfortable,’ Dean says, ‘if he isn’t here next to me. So, all kidding aside, I’d like everyone here to say a silent prayer that my partner gets better very soon.’
“That audience applauded and whistled and stamped their feet,” Keller said. “It was electric! Then Dean did a song and broke it up with some silliness. Jack Benny stood up and asked him if he needed any help. And Dean says, ‘Sure, Jack, but no money!’ Jack looks around as only Jack can, then walks back to his seat with his head down, and the crowd screamed. Dean then went into a Martin and Lewis routine, breaking up his own song in your voice, and playing to the mike stand as if it was you.
“So help me God, Jerry, it was just like you