Remembering Jerry Lewis with a Classic Appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show

Writing a short tribute to Jerry Lewis is a challenge because the comedian, actor, singer, producer, director, screenwriter, and humanitarian who died on Sunday at the age of 91 left behind so many and varied forms of entertainment on so many media that it's hard to pick one that demonstrates the range of his talent.

Lewis left his mark on motion pictures, nightclubs, television shows, concerts, album recordings, and musicals. He achieved greatness in show business, but his career got off to a modest start.

As Gary Susman wrote in Vanity Fair, 

Lewis was born Joseph Levitch on March 16, 1926 in Newark, the only child of two Borscht Belt performers—his father was a Catskills emcee, his mother a piano player. Young Joey was an occasional part of the act from age five. Still, his parents were often away on the road. They even missed his bar mitzvah. By 15, he’d taken a stage name and developed his own comedy routine, lip-synching to records played offstage.

Lewis’s big break came in 1946 in Atlantic City, where one of the singers on his bill dropped out at the last minute. As a replacement, Lewis suggested Dean Martin, a singer he’d met a couple of years earlier. When they’d shared a bill at a Manhattan nightclub, the two would playfully disrupt each other’s act, but in Atlantic City, they turned those ad-libbed disruptions into a planned routine, and the result shot them both to stardom as the most successful comedy duo of all time.

Throughout his entire adult life and career, Lewis was a world-renowned humanitarian who supported fundraising for research into muscular dystrophy. Over nearly half a century, he raised over $2.6 billion in donations for the cause.

As an example of Lewis' comedy, we selected a video clip from an appearance with Ed Sullivan in 1961, when he engaged in some comedic banter with the impresario and ended with a medley of Al Jolson songs.

Enjoy!

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