Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [95]
The audience rose to its feet, yelling: “No! No! No!”
“Shouldn’t they think about us—who love them?”
“Yes!” the people roared.
Dean was as embarrassed as I was. I quieted the crowd and took the mike from Joey. “Thank you all very much,” I said. “Thank you for your support, your love, and your loyalty. We both appreciate all you’ve done for us for these past ten years. But—” And I stared out at the audience for a long moment.
“But,” I continued, “just as Dean and I would not go to your home and try to talk you back into a marriage that wasn’t working, we cannot allow anyone to alter what we have decided is best for us. Thank you and good night!”
The audience heard us. They knew Joey Adams’s heart might have been in the right place, but even Mother Teresa can screw up if she lets her feelings get the better of her judgment.
When we reached the car that was waiting to take us back to the Copa, Dean actually spoke to me for the first time in weeks. “You did that good, pal,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, and then we were quiet. Very quiet.
Tuesday, July 24, 1956, was a mostly ordinary summer day in New York City. The Yanks were out of town, but the Brooklyn Dodgers beat Cincinnati 10–5 at Ebbets Field, and the New York Giants lost a squeaker to Milwaukee at the Polo Grounds. The morning dawned warm, gray, and muggy; a late-afternoon thundershower briefly broke the heat. If you were anywhere in the vicinity of the Plaza Hotel in the early evening—maybe taking a cooling-off stroll near the southern end of Central Park—you would have noticed a crowd starting to form at Fifth Avenue and Sixtieth Street. Several mounted policemen were on hand. The focus of the activity was the red awning of the Copacabana Club, at 10 East Sixtieth. By 7:30, the crowd was thick and pushy and excited, and the flashbulbs started to pop....
Nine hours later, I was lying in my hotel bed, my heart racing. I had just hung up the phone after speaking to my partner for the last time.
“We had some good times, didn’t we, Paul?”
“We sure did, kid.”
“I don’t know where either of us is going from here, but I’ll be carrying you in my heart wherever I go, because I love you.”
“I know. I love you too, Jer.”
It was the first time he had ever said those words to me.
When I awoke on Wednesday afternoon, I understood how an amputee must feel.
About ten days later, Elvis Presley started shooting his first movie, Love Me Tender, at Paramount Studios. In April, he’d signed a seven-year deal with Hal Wallis, who knew as much about rock and roll as he did about comedy. Much like Martin and Lewis, Elvis—whom I later got to know when we were making movies on the same lot, and who was one of the nicest young men I ever met—would have a career that boomed because of—and in spite of—the lousy but very popular movies he made with Wallis.
America had someone new to scream over.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHEN DEAN AND I SPLIT UP, THERE REALLY WERE SOME VERY angry people in this country. It was as though we’d broken into their homes and disrupted a pleasurable routine. Well, the public didn’t own us, so we had little or no feeling about what our pain was about to do to them. In truth, neither of us gave a shit.
As I said before, most of the people who had contracts with us worked things out—except Julie Podell, Mr. Tough Guy of the Copacabana.
Julie maintained he had a deal with Martin and Lewis, and they would play his place, either together or individually. He only cared about the Copa, probably because that’s the way the Mob wanted it. He was just a gofer, but I never realized that until much later.
About a week after I got home from our last show, Podell sent a— let’s call him a messenger—to my home in Bel Air.
It was early on a Sunday morning when I heard my front doorbell ring. Through the window, I could see my family, who had just piled into the car to go to church, driving out our gate. I opened the door to find a very well-dressed gentleman standing