Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [90]
Dean and I have no idea what has hit us. All you hear is a cricket when there should be applause. Dean sings his little heart out, and they talk through his songs. They watch me a little because I remind them of their grandkids, but they hardly laugh. For about an hour and a quarter we struggle. This isn’t worth twenty-five thousand, let alone twenty-five hundred.
As we’re sitting in our dressing room after the first show, a lightbulb goes on over my head. “There’s nothing in our agreement that stipulates how much time we do,” the Jew tells the Italian. “Let’s get even, and they’ll never know the difference.”
We go out there, Dean does two songs, I start our bits rolling back and forth, and before you know it—we’ve been on about thirty-five minutes—we close the show with a song and get off.
And the audience is ecstatic, because they’re so old, they can’t wait to go home and go to sleep. And the big boys are even happier, because while the show is on, nobody gambles!
The saddest thing in life is that the good times, no matter how good and no matter how long they last, always come to an end. And so my thoughts return to the winter of 1955–56, when Dean and I shot Pardners, in Phoenix, where the weather was almost as miserable as our relationship.
Silence. Coldness. And the worst thing for me: dishonesty. When things were good with my partner, what we had was Truth. When we were clicking on all cylinders, the joy and the wildness—the very things that really got to people—came straight from our hearts. People knew it and could feel it, which sent them to our movies—where, even in the best of conditions, the joy and wildness got freeze-dried. Between the script, makeup, setups, lighting, and multiple takes, the spontaneity (which was the essence of our work) tended to wither.
In the worst of conditions—like Phoenix in the winter of ’55–’56— not only was the spontaneity missing, so was any semblance of fun or joy. Both Dean and I had become cynical and tough. Unpleasant to be around. Unpleasant even to ourselves. My memories of shooting Pardners are of a seemingly endless parade of cold and rainy days, only occasionally relieved by the sun that allowed us to shoot. And then of doing my best to make funny faces under my ten-gallon hat. When I’d catch my partner’s eye—or try to—he would be staring over my shoulder.
The best thing about Pardners, for Dean, was—after having been in love with Westerns all his life—he was actually starring in one. If he could have known then that in only four years he’d be making Rio Bravo with John Wayne, he would have been in heaven.
The best thing for me was learning, from a man named Arvo Ojala, to quick-draw and twirl a pistol, two skills I would eventually develop to world-class levels. (In fact, I don’t mind telling you that I was the fastest draw in Hollywood—no small distinction when you’re talking about the likes of Clint Eastwood, Jim Arness, and Duke Wayne. And the second fastest was... are you ready? Sammy Davis Jr.)
The hardest thing about the picture was the crushing irony of Dean and me singing the film’s title number, written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn:
You and me, we’ll always be pardners,
You and me, we’ll always be friends....
But there was worse to come. Despite Jack Keller’s best efforts, and those of the Paramount publicity department, rumors still abounded that Martin and Lewis were about to break up. And so the studio prevailed upon us to slap on a little coda, after “THE END” came up on the screen. I yelled, “We’re not ready for ‘The End’ yet!” Then Dean and I drew our pistols and fired, shattering each letter as if it were glass. When we were done, we stepped out of character and spoke directly to the audience.
Dean and me and two Star Search losers.
“We have something to say to you, right, Dean?” I said.
“We sure do, Jer. We want you folks to know we sure enjoyed workin’ for ya, and we hope you enjoyed the picture.”
“Yeah, and we hope you’ll keep coming to see us, because we like seeing you.”
I