Dean and Me

by Jerry Lewis

  The next time I glance up at a street sign, I see Broadway and 112th Street. Christ, only another twenty-five blocks to go! Half the sole of my shoe has come unglued, and the faster I walk, the louder the flapping. I stop... it stops. I start, it starts. What am I doing? Just playing, but I really did feel Dean had no one but me, and I couldn’t let him down. . . .

  It was four hours later when I returned to Dean’s room. He was watching television, smoking a Lucky, and totally relaxed! I scraped off the remnants of the soggy paper bag and proudly showed him the big jar of cold soup.

  “No matzo balls?” was all he said.

  I remembered the chicken-soup fiasco a couple of years later, when I tried to come up with an original present for Dean’s thirty-fifth birthday—Saturday, June 7, 1952. A big landmark, it seemed to me, but also a big challenge: What do you get for someone who has everything?

  The answer to this particular riddle flashed into my aspiring director’s brain like a comic setup from one of our movies. It involved spectacle, excess, absurdity—my favorite elements!—along with a warm personal nod to my partner’s greatest passion.

  I saw, in my mind’s eye, hundreds of bags of golf clubs.

  Great. Now, how to make my vision real?

  I drove out to the Riviera Country Club in Brentwood and told the pro at the driving range about Dean’s big birthday and my big idea. His face lit up as I talked: One of the major perks of fame is that not only does everybody know you, but they all want to do things for you, too. And as it turned out, the driving-range pro at the Riviera Country Club had more than 150 bags of clubs to rent. Now, we’re not talking fancy equipment here—this stuff was the equivalent of bowling-alley or bike-shop rentals. But the point was the big picture, not the details.

  I next went to the transportation department at Paramount and talked with the head man, a nice guy who loved Dean. I told him of my plan—and another face lit up. He arranged for a studio truck and five guys to go the Riviera Country Club, pick up a hundred bags of golf clubs, and deliver them to Dean’s house right smack in the middle of his birthday party!

  Patti and I were to arrive promptly at seven P.M., so I told the transportation head to have his truck and handlers arrive at 9:45—just about (I calculated) when Dean would be opening his presents.

  The party was great, and Dean was his most outgoing. In later years, I’ve heard, he would often leave a dinner party at his house and go to the den to watch a Western on TV. Sometimes he’d call the cops to complain about the noise at his house! This wasn’t one of those nights. He was excited, alive, funny—delighted to be the center of attention. He was always incredible when he performed off the top of his head, and everyone there, including the guest of honor, was half bombed, to boot. Christ, did we laugh. . . .

  Dean started to unwrap his gifts. Typical for him would be to open a box, throw the contents in the garbage, and thank the giver for the lovely wrapping paper. You had to be there to get it, but nobody could bring off a joke the way Dean could. His performance was effortless, pure grace and charm—not to mention that he was acting a wee bit drunker than he actually was.

  Just as he was getting to the bottom of the pile, the doorbell rang. Jeannie (whom I’d let in on the gag) went to answer it. She swung the door open wide, allowing five men to enter the living room, each of them packing about four golf bags apiece.

  “This is just for openers,” one of them announced.

  They went back and forth from the driveway to the living room, setting bag upon bag upon bag against the wall for nearly thirty minutes. Dean’s eyes were bugging out of his head. He had absolutely no idea where all this was coming from, and, just as he was about to collapse with laughter, one of the guys took out a card and read: “To Dean, my partner and best friend. Here’s to never having to be without these. Love, Jerry.”

  We hugged. The crowd cheered. And the five guys proceeded to take all the bags of clubs back outside, which took another half hour—while Dean kept asking, “How’d you do that? Where’d they come from?”

  I just smiled.

  What brought these two stories to mind? It just occurred to me, as I sat here writing, that never once in our ten years together did Dean give me a present. Not once, amid the scores of gifts I gave him—the gold-link watch, from Billy Ruser’s jewelry store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, that he always treasured (check out our old Colgate Comedy Hours, and you’ll find a sketch where water was spurting from a pipe in a wall and Dean was trying, in all seriousness, to protect that watch); the cigarette lighters; the golf clubs; the gorgeous diamond studs for his tux, with diamond cuff links to match; the solid-gold flask, et cetera.

  Why was that?

  I don’t think it was because he thought, He doesn’t deserve it . I think it was because he was taught that you didn’t do that. Men did not give other men presents, period.

  I have been charged, now and then, with being a tad lavish in my gift-giving. Cross, Tiffany, Cartier, and Dunhill have done very well by me over the years—as has almost everybody who ever worked with me in television and the movies. But I also recognize that there is a certain selfishness to my gifts.

  Here’s how it works: I get pleasure from giving to those I love. That’s my pleasure. But I’m perceptive enough to realize that there are those who have felt oppressed by my generosity. It’s not always easy to get when you can’t give back to the same degree. Once, after I’d given television sets to two of our Colgate Comedy Hour writers, Ed Simmons and Norman Lear, they retaliated by presenting me with a gift-wrapped old man—an actual living person whom they’d imprisoned inside a giant box for six hours. The card read, “For the Man Who Has Everything.”

  Dean always used to take me to task for what he called flag-waving . In his book, that could mean any number of things. It could mean giving money to the needy. We would walk down the street together, and I literally couldn’t pass a man with his hat out. If there was one on every block, I’d hit each and every one. If we walked back the same way and the same guy was still there, I’d hit him again. Dean would say, “That fucker can get a job! What the fuck are you givin’ him money for?”

  At the same time, I think he was happy to see me do what he couldn’t, even when he wanted to.

  Flag-waving was tipping your mitt emotionally, showing your colors. It was loving parades, thinking Sophie Tucker was great, Al Jolson was a genius.

  It was, of course, the exact opposite of everything Dean Martin had been taught to feel and—God knows—to show.

  Putting it mildly, I knew I could sometimes be a bit much for him. I’d always worn my emotions on my sleeve, but as our career skyrocketed, the sleeve became a size extra large. I was constantly rewarded for showing my emotions. Everybody in the country—the critics included— jumped up and down for me. Did I feel bad that Dean was overshadowed? Sure I did. But did I also feel excited at what was happening? You bet your ass I did.

  And so the more I got, the more I tried to give to Dean. But I recognize—now, fifty years later—that being at the receiving end of outrageous generosity isn’t the easiest thing in the world.

  To make matters worse, Dean had claustrophobia. Literally. I mean, he wouldn’t ride in elevators if he could possibly avoid it. (He especially hated the backstage elevator at the Paramount, which was the size of a coffin and unreliable, to boot. Whenever we played there, he would walk the six flights from the stage to the dressing room, then back down, seven times a day—a round-trip for each of our shows! And the last time he lived in New York City, in 1948, he and Betty rented a lovely third-floor apartment on Riverside Drive and 106th Street. Dean would walk up the stairs.) We always had to get him two seats on planes, so he wouldn’t feel boxed in by another passenger. There were times when our dressing rooms were tight and he would dress at the hotel, then wait in the lobby of the club till showtime. It didn’t happen a lot, but enough for me to remember. I also recall that back at the beginning, when we’d dance with our wives in a club or
a hotel ballroom, if the dance floor got even a little crowded, he was gone—sometimes leaving his wife stranded on the floor alone.

  Dean’s worst moments were in the summer of 1951, when he learned we were going to have to work in a submarine.

  We were just beginning preproduction on Sailor Beware for Hal Wallis. Preproduction involves a lot of things, but for the two of us it mainly meant reading the script and finding out what we’d be doing in the film! We knew there had been rumblings around the studio for months about Wallis’s plan to do a Martin and Lewis film in the Navy. When we heard the talk, we didn’t much care. We had a contract, and we would do the work we were told to do. (Does it sound joyless? It wasn’t always. But Hal Wallis did a lot to make it feel that way.)

  Then we found out that Sailor Beware wasn’t just about the Navy—it was about the Silent Service, submarines.

  Holy Christ!

  I spoke with Wallis about Dean’s phobia, and he assured me that we would be working in mock-ups. No fourth wall, plenty of space when it was needed. I explained to Dean that he wouldn’t have to be in a real live submarine, and he was relieved—until we got to the location, the Naval Training Station at San Diego, aka the West Coast Main Facility of Submarine Warfare and Strategic Information of the United States Navy. Very, very impressive. And, to my partner, very unnerving.

  After we checked into the Grant Hotel in San Diego, we were summoned by our assistant director to meet at the dock at San Diego Naval Pier and to board the U.S.S. Bashaw, a war submarine that would take us for a trial run from the pier to the outer ocean beyond Point Loma. Dean was fine until the sub’s commander, Captain Bob Froude, told us, in the kindest possible way, that no one could stand topside during a sub’s movement, particularly in the bay area.

  So we boarded the submarine, and were invited to the captain’s wardroom, some thirty feet below deck. That’s when I saw Dean waver. He didn’t just waver. He bent, looking like a Slinky trying to find a place to hide. But down the conning-tower stairs we went—Dean, me, the captain, our assistant director, and some of the cast.

  The padded walls of the wardroom were covered with plaques and photographs of the Bashaw in action—diving, trimming, sitting in port, under way. I stared, fascinated, until I noticed Dean getting really uncomfortable.

  I asked the captain if we could talk. We walked to one side of the room, and as Dean stood with a bunch of fellow cast members, pretending to have a good time, I explained the problem to Captain Froude.

  The captain nodded, understanding, then asked Dean and me to accompany him back to the conning tower and up the steps to the deck. Once we were up top, Captain Froude explained to us that since the sub would not be diving we could stay on deck the whole time. My partner looked at me with real gratitude.

  The funny thing is, Frank was claustrophobic, too. Except that Frank never had to work with a partner.

  Meaning what? That I crowded Dean? Smothered him with attention and affection? I suppose I did sometimes. Did I suck all the air out of the room? Sure, sometimes. I never claimed to be a shrinking violet.

  Did Dean ever do anything for me?

  The answer to that is a most definite yes. He might not have been a gift-giver, but for ten years he gave me the huge gift of his presence. And there were other important perks, as well.

  For one thing, he protected me.

  After all, that’s what a big brother does, right? Maybe part of our problem, as I got older and stronger and surer of myself, was that I needed his protection less. But early on I needed it plenty.

  The first time we played the Flamingo, in Vegas, was in 1947, just six months or so into our act. Bugsy Siegel, who’d taken on the ownership of the Flamingo from its original founder, Billy Wilkerson, and made the casino his personal obsession, was still alive (but not for long: He would be rubbed out that June). I had the chance to meet the handsome gangster himself when I got myself into a little bit of a jam—$158,000 worth—as a newcomer to the craps and blackjack tables. As I said, I talked my way out of that problem, but there was another problem at the Flamingo that I talked my way into.

  There was a convention of Tall Cedars of Lebanon members staying at the hotel, and they were all easily identifiable by their unique headgear: A green, pyramid-shaped fez with a long tassel, it looked like nothing so much as a dunce cap.

  One night at our dinner show, I spotted that hat on one of the guests. Being as nuts as I was at that age (twenty years and change), I saw him as the defining moment of our act. “If ever a man needed a hat job,” I said. “Come on. Don’t feel bad, I’ll get you a number for Stetson.”

  Everyone laughed but him.

  We finished our show, changed our clothes, and went out front to hear that we’d done a good job. We strolled over to the bar and sat down. Dean ordered for both of us: very dry martinis. He loved olives, and I loved onions. As I ate them, he’d say, “It’s a good thing they’re pickled, or you’d be alone on stage later.”

  As we sipped our drinks, I felt the presence of someone standing very close to my back. Then a hand grabbed my jacket and slowly turned me around. (I was lucky that the stool swiveled.) There he was, old Dunce-head himself. “If I don’t get an apology, I might knock you into next week.”

  Dean rose and, without saying a word, took the man’s hand off my jacket, put one big hand between the man’s legs and the other hand around his neck, picked him up as though he weighed nothing (he was at least 190 pounds), and hurled him into a shelf of glasses behind the bar.

  The noise of shattering glass shook up the casino and management. One of the Flamingo’s owners, Gus Greenbaum, strolled over to us and saw the Tall Cedars of Lebanon man plucking pieces of glass from the seat of his pants. (Gus was a Mob torpedo out of Chicago, but he was always a lovely man to me, and we would remain friends until his untimely demise in the late fifties, when he and his wife were both hit for an infraction I never understood.) Gus was calm, but serious. “Look,” he told us. “You guys need to go to your suite and let me deal with this.”

  And deal with it he did. A little while later, the phone in our dressing room rang. It was Gus Greenbaum. “Tell Dean that his punching bag got an urgent call and had to leave town tonight,” he said. I started to thank him, but he interrupted me: “Case closed!”

  A little while later, Dean gently reminded me: “Look, Jer, before you shpritz someone ringside, just keep in mind who gets those ringside tables!”

  “How am I supposed to know if it’s a wiseguy?” I asked him.

  “Oh, you’ll develop a sixth sense about these things,” he assured me.

  And I did. Dean’s advice was sound, and I mostly remembered it.

  There were times Dean protected me from others, but there were more times he had to protect me from myself. In 1952, Purdue University decided it wanted us to entertain at its homecoming festivities. Now, Purdue happened to be somewhere in northern Indiana, but since we happened to have just finished an engagement at the Copa and were on our way home to L.A., we agreed.

  But—West Lafayette, Indiana? Deep in the cornfields of the Hoosier State? We asked for a very large sum of money (I mean very large) for the one evening, thinking we could get out of it that way. But Purdue promptly agreed. We were stuck, but good.

  The whole crowd of us—Dean and I, Dick Stabile and our entire twenty-six-man band, our security guys, and our press agent Jack Keller—all flew to Chicago, then got on a bus and into a couple of limos for the three-hour drive south to West Lafayette.

  One thing the planners hadn’t counted on, though, was that the light snow that was falling as our convoy pulled out of O’Hare Airport would turn into a full-fledged blizzard. It looked like a grip on a sound stage had been cued to let the white stuff come full force!

  The longer we drove, the darker it got and the more heavily it snowed. This was before the Interstate Highway System; we were slogging along on two-lane blacktop, making very slow headway into deepest Indiana. After five hours, it beca
me apparent that we weren’t going to reach the nice hotel in West Lafayette anytime soon.

  Dean and I were in the head limo, along with Dick, Keller, our pianist, Louie, and our drummer, Ray Toland. The six of us started peering into the darkness for someplace to stay—six guys in a limo in the dark ain’t the tunnel of love, folks! Tempers were beginning to rise when Dick, who was in the front seat alongside the driver and Louie, lit a cigarette. Which wasn’t unusual in itself (we all smoked)—but after the match blew out, the four of us in the back (two in jump seats) began to smell an odd aroma.

  Dean smiled. I wasn’t sure what was going on until I heard Ray tell Dick, “Gimme a hit!” Now I knew....Dick passed the reefer back, and Ray sucked in the smoke like it was his last day on earth. Then he passed it to Keller, who inhaled, and passed it to Dean—who puffed on it like a pro, then passed it back up to Dick.

  “Hey!” I called. “What is this shit? I’m twenty-five, going on twenty-six years old, for Christ’s sake! Give me that thing!”

  “Okay, kid, go slow,” Dick said, handing me the joint.

  I inhaled deeply, as I would with one of my cigarettes—and Dean yelled, “Let the coughing begin!” And did it begin. I must’ve coughed for five solid minutes.

  Then I asked to do it again.

  “Here’s a new one, guys,” Dick said, and Dean handed it to me. We went around again, and pretty soon I was feeling exactly like Errol Flynn. How easy it would be, I thought, to step outside and leap over the limo....

  After a while, none of us cared about the gig, the storm, or the hotel. We just kept riding into the night, as the windshield wipers slapped at the heavy flakes. Soon a chorus of snores echoed from the back seat. Dick was still awake up front, and I asked, “What was that I smoked?”

  “It’s called Emerald Feet,” Dick told me. “Comes from an island in the Indian Ocean. Very expensive—about a buck-fifty a joint.”

  “Can we get more?” I asked.

  Around two in the morning—eleven hours after landing at O’Hare— we rolled into West Lafayette. The night clerk at the hotel gaped at the sight of Martin and Lewis and a dozen other guys stomping in out of the snow-storm.