Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [82]
“Whatever you think is best,” my brave wife said.
The clichés about show people are true: We do smile when we’re low. And the lower you feel, the bigger and broader a grin you need. We arrived on Friday afternoon, and from the moment I stepped out of the car until the premiere on Saturday night, I was completely in character as the kid half of Martin and Lewis, impersonating a bellhop, a busboy, a waiter; kibitzing with the guests. After the screening of You’re Never Too Young, there was a two-hour show: Alan King performed, and my wife the former band singer directed a number, “He’s Funny That Way,” right to me. And then another King showed up—Sonny King, the guy who first introduced me to Dean! Sonny and I did a little shtick together. It all felt like a weird episode of This Is Your Life.
By the time the big show was over, I simply couldn’t take any more. The facade cracked. Another gang of reporters was waiting for me at the foot of the stage, and I could no longer hold back the tears. The theater went dead quiet. “Maybe I’m using the wrong words,” I said, and then my voice broke for a moment. “But I don’t know the right ones. Maybe the lawyers wouldn’t want me to say anything at all. But you’ve been wonderful. I want to thank you all for saving me embarrassment by not asking questions I couldn’t answer.”
Everyone in the place stood and clapped, and my tears weren’t the only ones flowing. But when the applause stopped, the questions started. Lawyers? Did he say lawyers? And the word started to rocket across America: Martin and Lewis are having a feud.
It’s hard to explain to a 999-channel, Internet-connected, all-entertainment-all-the-time world what it felt like to be a big act in a much simpler time, having very public trouble. Then imagine the commercial implications of a rift between Dean and me. We had commitments out there worth literally tens of millions of dollars. We owed Hal Wallis five more movies, for starters. We had TV and radio contracts, theater bookings, and commercial endorsements. And we had some very big shots—most notably, Wallis and our mega-agent at MCA, Lew Wasserman—very, very concerned.
Still, I’d come to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. The day after I got back to L.A., I marched into Lew’s office and said, “Please do something, anything, because I can’t continue working this way.”
“What about Dean?” Lew asked. He was, after all, agent to both of us.
He just wouldn’t shut his mouth ...
“How do I know?” I said. “We don’t talk to each other. Just get me out of my commitments and I’ll be happy.”
“But, Jer— ”
I cut him off. And I didn’t let up until Lew promised to hold a meeting with Paramount, and to tell Dean what I’d decided.
In the meantime, my partner (who was getting more press-savvy by the minute) answered me in the newspapers. On August 3, he told a UPI reporter, “To me, this isn’t a love affair. This is big business. I think it’s ridiculous for the boy to brush aside such beautiful contracts.”
Again with “the boy.” I was going to be thirty in a few months, for Christ’s sake! Anyway, I got my meeting, all right, and I didn’t have to wait for Lew Wasserman to tell Dean what I’d decided—Dean was right there. The parley took place on Monday morning, August 8, in Y. Frank Freeman’s office at Paramount, and besides Y. Frank and Martin and Lewis, Lew, Wallis, and our lawyer, Joe Ross, were all present. Another heavy sit-down at Paramount, and, once again, very serious business.
It was the first time Dean and I had seen each other in over two months, since before our separate trips to Hawaii and the Catskills. There was no hugging. I eyed him warily, but he was all smiles and cool assurance. I knew there was something cooking under there, but I also knew my partner well enough to realize that he’d be damned if he was going to show any weakness to me.
We sat around a big conference table, and while Y. Frank’s secretary, Sydney, filled our water glasses—for some reason, my mouth was very dry—Y. Frank and Lew and Wallis and Joe proceeded, one after another, to