How did you meet Stan Laurel?
It was after Ollie died. Dick Van Dyke was at a party with me and he told me about Stan hearing over the telephone that Ollie died. And the arm that he was holding the phone with just went paralyzed. They had to pull the phone out of his hand and then work his arm to get it down. Paralyzed—stroke—at the thought of Ollie’s death. I said, “I’d love to meet him.” He said, “He’d love to meet you.” So Dick arranged for me to meet him at his apartment. And I flew that Sunday morning—did I get there! And for the last five years of his life I was there like twice a month, three times a month.
What did you talk about?
Work. We talked about his five wives. One he married twice. We talked about the film process. He taught me to thread the BMC and the Panaflex [cameras]. I learned to load. Then all through my first ten or twelve pictures, when I was just the actor, the crews and the people who worked on the lot—I mean, I was their kid. The first day I loaded a BMC was the thrill of my life.
Why did you want to learn that part?
Because I had to know everything. I had to know it all.
Did you do a lot of European gigs?
Yeah. I did the Berlin Film Festival. I did the Opera House in Rome. Stockholm was a big gig. Oslo.
Which audiences were the best? Which country?
They were all incredible.
And you spoke only English? Or you did shtick in …
Cracked. [Performing voice:] Swedish people, they sing when they talk—[sings]—they would love it. You know, when I am in France [doing French accent]: “I would like to do zis number—I hope you like eet.” But in Germany [Prussian accent]: “I VILL DO ZIS NUMBER! YOU VILL LOVE IT! SIT DOWN!” They loved that shit—loved it. And, of course, everything I did was primarily visual. They understood everything they saw. And then when I bend the language a little bit, I’d pick up words that worked for me.
Words that sounded funny to you?
Yeah. Like “schnapptelefoncouplingbox”—you know what that is? A schnapptelefoncouplingbox is an extension from this phone to that one. “JERRY! YOU GIVE ME YOUR AUTOGRAM!” “My autograph? Who the fuck you yelling at?” It was great.
It must have been an amazing thing to go to Europe and have the kind of reaction that maybe you’d expect in Florida.
I mean, you should see what happened in Cannes—I thought I was going to get swallowed up. The first time I went to Cannes, which was probably around ’78: pandemonium. They sent runners to tell them where I was located at the time. I made speeches from the Carlton Hotel. I had all the people down the street. [French accent:] “STOPPING THEM! WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS! THE FRENCH DON’T GIVE YOU BUTTER IN THE MORNING!” And I would carry on and mobs would congregate, laughing and carrying on.
That reminds me of the story about when you and Dean had to do a free performance on 44th Street because they wouldn’t leave the Paramount theater.
And we were doing eight a day. Each show was an hour and some. At one point, Bob Weitman [of Paramount] came up to the dressing room to see me. He said, “We got a problem, Jerry. Jesus Christ, I need ten minutes.” I said, “Ten minutes?” He said, “Yeah, with eight shows, that totals eighty minutes. Can you give me ten minutes?” I said, “What do you want me to do?” He said, “Make a cut in the movie.” I said, “I’ll do that for you.” I made a cut—I eliminated a thousand feet [equals 10 minutes].
Which picture?
My Friend Irma [1949]. That was on the screen and we were on the stage. I gave him the eighty minutes he needed. We then, on a Saturday, did NINE! This was 1950 and Dean and I took out $299,000 for the week. The Paramount did good, too. But that was our cut in 1950: three hundred grand! In a week. Fifty-six shows. Then we went to the Chicago Theater, did the same thing.
Did you realize at the time this was a phenomenon? Or were you too much a part of the whirlwind?
It was hard to tell. I think your perspective changes. It’s not really all “on the money.” You’re being torn from every which way—there’s so much going on. So much. The extensions at the Copacabana: two weeks, four weeks, three months. It’s like principal and interest—the principal creates so much interest—and then there’s no time. There’s really no time to think about what’s happening.
Was there a moment when you stopped and said, “What the hell happened?!”
I guess I thought about it all the time—on some level—because I needed to justify the kind of work I was putting in.
You were working all the time.
But at this kind of money, that’s enough to justify this kind of work, this kind of input. We’re at NBC, we’re at Paramount, we’re at the concert venue, we’re at the goddamn supermarket opening! All that stuff had to be examined and calculated and you’re in the foreground of all of that. I think there were nights when I’d lay down and say, “I don’t fucking believe this is happening.” I didn’t have a car payment, you know.
You weren’t just a hit—you guys were a phenomenon. Then when you went on your own, it was the same, actually.
Yeah. You see, there was an interesting thing, Peter. When we split, the people took umbrage. This country was very upset with us and our conduct. We took something away from them that they loved. And all they questioned was, “Why couldn’t you just continue? You didn’t hurt anybody.”
So they felt as if they were penalized in some way—did you feel that from the audience?
No, you never felt it. But when you get into intellectual discussions about the growth of the career and so forth and so on, you ultimately get to that place where, Jesus Christ, we made so many enemies by quitting—quitting one another—and it was tough for them to re-acclimate. But they did. Once others said we’re OK, then they fell into line and it was OK. But I had people come up to me in the airport and say, “Do you know what you did to my life in July of 1956?” I said, “No, I don’t really know, but I know where you’re coming from.” “Everything was perfect. And then you two guys had to break up and then, I didn’t have that Sunday night anymore.” Our problem is, we don’t take the word “fan” too seriously—the word comes from fanatic. And it’s a time and a place where you are made to recognize—this is not a fucking joke—fan. Like, for example, the other day security came back to my dressing room and said, “There’s a bunch of stuff at the box office for you. Someone sent a baseball—please sign your name. A photograph—please sign your name.” And so forth and so on. And I looked at the security guy and I said, “No, I’m not signing anything. Take it back.” He said, “Yeah, I thought you’d say that.” I said, “Yeah, but you don’t know why I say it.” He said, “No, why?” I said, “Because I cannot allow them to believe that since they bought a ticket I am now locked into them as a commitment to do more. No. I’m gonna give them my heart and my soul and sweat for the ticket they bought, but they can’t have anything else.” I don’t know how to put it except that it feels like you’re like a fuckin’ whore. It offends me.
Of the pictures you directed, which was the most successful?
Bellboy, I think—a lot of goddamn money.
You also made it for nothing.
Nine hundred thousand dollars is not nothing. And then when Paramount decided they don’t want to be my partner, I said, “OK, I’ll do it alone.” I did.
You funded the picture?
Uh-huh.
Why? Didn’t they want to do it?
They were afraid of a silent movie. I said, “If you look at it, you’ll see it’s not a silent movie.” So, to this day, the word “bellboy” is verboten at Paramount. ’Cause to today I made a fortune on it.
During that period when you were directing the pictures, would you say that was your happiest time?
Creatively, uh-huh. ’60, ’63, ’65, ’67, up through ’70, it was a great time—a great time.
Of that period, what would you say was the high point, The Nutty Professor or The Bellboy?
The Bellboy was the first high point becaus
e I found out I knew more than I thought I did. So it was a very exhilarating period, which only helped me then go to Nutty and write it and finish it. And I trusted myself then. I think I had written five versions and shot the first.
Went back to the first one.
First one. I tried to look it over and edit and—why’d I go to two? What the fuck do I need three for? I was scared, that’s why. I didn’t like what I felt. I was feeling uncertainty and yet I knew if it was going to be right it would be big. And I think that kind of kept me at bay.
It was such a departure—you hadn’t done anything like that. You really went far out playing Buddy Love.
And the terrible thing is that the cunts in the newspaper racket would write, “Oh, he did a homage to Dean.” Oh, hell, they didn’t know. They didn’t get it.
You weren’t thinking of Dean on that picture?
Oh, God, no.
What would you say the two sides—Professor Kelp and Buddy Love—were?
Buddy Love was a conglomeration of mean-spirited people. The man who pushes inside of an elevator—a lady and a child be damned—he’ll push. The ill-mannered people that we come in contact with every day. The mean-spirited people that really are the ugliness on the planet and they think everything else is. I watched guys in bars, I watched people function.
He was very much a show-biz type.
Well, I made him a show-business type only because I had a glamour thing going that way. But I could have easily made him the president of the bank. I literally sat for days trying to think of what he would look like. And I ran the gamut from the grotesque …
Because you were doing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde …
So I’m writing and thinking, “What does he look like? What’s at the end of that long walk where people are doing that kind of thing?” So I’m thinking about Julie Podell [owner of the Stork Club], Joe Bananas [gangster], I know goddamn well I was thinking of Alexander Cohen [theatrical producer] throughout. Alexander Cohen was a house number: he was a clone of all of the bad fuckin’ people in show business. He was beneath contempt. Hal Wallis was in that mix. The dichotomy of that man who could be so wonderful personally, socially. And such a motherfucker when it meant fifty cents. So when I put all of these people together—if I were to do this in a cauldron—what’s gonna come out? Well, what has to come out is someone who can get through on the planet, either not noticed at all, or noticed terrifically. And as I kept going, I kept seeing the manifestation of the fluid—the ugliness, the terrible last cut of that fucking transformation. It was diabolically terrible. And so I made Buddy anything but what you think is coming up.
It was interesting that you went with a very attractive-looking guy for the monster.
He was one of the people that was out there, with bad manners. Anyhow, we were named [by the American Film Institute] one of the one hundred best comedies of the century.
How did the character of the professor evolve?
I had met him on a train from L.A. to New York. Dean and I were gonna play the Copa and this: “Are you show people?” In the parlor car. I thought, Oh, dear God, let me just keep him for a few minutes. “Yes, we are, sir.” “Well that’s good—good. We need it, we need it. This world is a terrible fog without laughter.” And I said, “I fucking got him.”
And you stored him away for all those years.
For a long time. I called on him because I had his face—he wore the glasses I wore and I got him down perfectly. On the train, I spent the next two days feeding off him—buying him drinks, talking to him. He was going to New York, too. And then for fifteen years I stashed it. Then, that summer I was writing Nutty, I took my boat and dropped the hook—I just wanted to relax—I was by myself sitting at the typewriter. “What should I name the professor?” And I was sitting topside on my boat and other boats are passing by pretty closely and they’re watching me: “He’s fucking talking to himself.” “Julius. Yes. Julius.” And I’m looking in the water and there’s all that kelp. “Julius Sumner Kelp.”
Where did the Sumner come from?
Summertime.
What about the Eddie Murphy remake and the sequel—you get a piece of that, too?
Oh, God, yes.
So if they do it again …
They’re doing it right now. I got a check this morning would blow your head off.
You get a piece of the gross?
Oh, God, yes, of course.
That’s because you got the rights back to all your pictures after thirty years.
Also, I wouldn’t let them have Nutty Professor unless they guaranteed me we’d get either Eddie Murphy or Robin Williams. And Eddie was wonderful. I don’t particularly care for what they did with it because they took it so far afield there’s nothing to connect it—why’d you buy this?
Why did you leave Paramount in ’65—what happened?
Well, the suits arrived with contracts and papers.
You had no contract up till that time?
I said, “I’m not signing anything. I don’t want to stay here.” Frank Freeman had died, and a bunch of others died, and I felt like there was nothing to keep me there anymore. They were very sad about it—they were very unhappy. I said, “I don’t know this new company, Gulf & Fuckman.” [The conglomerate Gulf & Western had bought Paramount.] Bob Evans came over, fucked a cookie, then whatever happened, I don’t know. The studio was off its foundation … I’m now shooting up Lavoris—it’s safer.
Did you have a spinal break?
March 20, 1965.
From what?
Jerry Lewis in the Dr. Jekyll role of Professor Julius Sumner Kelp, with Stella Stevens as a tantalizing coed, in Lewis’ original The Nutty Professor (1963), probably his most personal film. There were apparently no photos released of Jerry in his Mr. Hyde character, Buddy Love, the evil Las Vegas hipster lounge performer–seducer. Lewis also directed, co-wrote, and produced. He was extremely proud of the film’s inclusion in an American Film Institute poll of the top one hundred comedies of all time.
I did a flip off the piano. At the Sands [in Las Vegas]. I went on with the band, and came off with 911. It was terrific. And they did an MRI of my spine last month and the doctor put it up and said, “Take a look—it’s the funniest picture I ever saw.” It’s like gnarled—unbelievable. He said, “What did you expect? You know what you did for sixty-eight years? The falls you’ve taken?”
Do you have a tape of all the falls you’ve done?
Yeah. We call it “The Combined Oops.” I’ll show you falls, incredible. I came off a two-story building into corrugated boxes. I did all my own stunts.
Didn’t you know you would injure yourself?
Nah. You’re immortal at thirty years old. I raced a horse in Pardners that was doing forty miles an hour and I couldn’t get him to ease up—he was going. And I had no recourse, I had to jump because he was fucking nuts, he lost it. We were riding up in this canyon and fortunately for me the canyon growth at the base of the mountain was all of this fern kind of foliage that grows at the base of the rock. And I threw myself into it.
At forty miles an hour?
Yeah—you can miss, you know. I could have gone into the rocks. But I had to get off. I was riding sidesaddle for a while before I took my body off the horse to eliminate any stress. So I’m riding on the right side, looking for where I can dump. When I saw that stuff coming up, I said it’s like God planted it—very soft material.
But at that speed you could have easily misjudged it.
And I went down in a sub, four hundred feet, for Sailor Beware. I was on the deck and I rehearsed with the captain a couple of times so that he could take her down while I’m on the top of the deck. So he threw ballast to take the sub just to break the water for me, and they over-ballasted it so that it swirled. It’s supposed to just sit, but the ballast was wrong and it swirled like that [gesturing], and I went whoosh with a fuckin’ whiplash. I’m in the middle of the ocean now, and the sub is trying to find its way back to me … I
was on an Air India, and the captain knew I’d flown and he said, “You want to ride shotgun?” and I said, “Yeah, I’d love it.” So I’m sitting there—375 people on this 747 should only know Jerry Lewis is flying this fucking airplane. I said, “Captain, could I announce to the audience that I’m flying?” He said, “I don’t think that would be wise.” Flying a 747.
You’ve flown before?
Oh, yeah, sure. I had a ticket [license to fly]. I was flying until they stopped me. So I’m at the outer marker of Heathrow [London], and he says, “Take it down to 18,000,” and we’re at 32,000. So I just proceeded to move it down and I was halfway and he said, “Move it to 132 degrees.” I’m still declining, and I move it, and you feel this fucking moose just like it was a piece of paper on a table. I moved it to the new heading, took it down to 18,000, locked it off, hit the automatic. I said, “Thank you, God bless you, I’m leaving,” I’m so fucking nervous. But getting off that flight, there was an overzealous fan that wanted my autograph so he pushed into me and I went down the steps with my spine hitting most all of them…. I sprained my back doing basic training for Jumping Jacks [1952]. Then, when I made my jump and I got my wings—I made an actual jump out of a plane—it’s a wonderful feeling. I went up the next day, they let me jump again.
What pushed you in that daredevil direction?
I love to challenge things. Playing ball with the major-leaguers is a much bigger challenge. It’s much more dangerous than anything I’m talking about. I went to Phoenix in ’54 and stayed the whole ten weeks spring training with the Giants. Played first base in all the exhibition games. It was incredible. I walked, I hit a single, I made ten unassisted plays at first base, four double plays. It was great.
I didn’t know you had prostate cancer.
It was rough. There’s so much mental involved. I mean, I came around in twelve days after the surgery—I didn’t need any diapers anymore. I’m a quick recoverer. And I was having sex with Sam like four weeks later.
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