Dean and Me: (A Love Story)
by James Kaplan, Jerry Lewis
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Book Summary Information
Author: James Kaplan, Jerry LewisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-10
ISBN: 0767920872
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Book Reviews of Dean and Me: (A Love Story)
Book Review: A Generous Valentine
Summary: 4 Stars
The title says it all--Jerry really, really loved Dean. They teamed up while still very young; Martin was 29 and Lewis only 19 when they got together. Dean was devastatingly handsome and debonair, while Lewis played the goofus to perfection. Jerry admired his partner enormously, but knew that he could not emulate him. So instead he adopted Dean as his honorary big brother and then show-business partner, playing characters that he alternately described as a monkey, a nine-year-old, and an idiot. Dean remained in his persona of the suave crooner and straight man, while Jerry careened around the stage (and sometimes the room) like a "bat out of hell." Long story short, they had chemistry. Jerry gives Dean big credit for his comedic talent, impeccable timing, and ability to ad lib. With so much liking for each other and such complementary skills, they were able to have fun and to play off of each other rather than the audience, never relying on canned skits. Their sense of fun and spontaneity set them apart from all other performers in an otherwise stuffy era (1946-56), and they invited their fans to join in the party. Their shenanigans led to better gigs, fists full of money, and eventually a movie career.
But with success came thorns. During their decade as America's top act, Lewis was considered the real talent, to the extent that a cover story in Look magazine cropped Dean out of their joint photo leaving Jerry with some actress. They did a majority of their films under director Hal Wallis, whose formulaic approach to their act shortchanged Martin. Dean escaped to some extent by playing golf and drinking, although he was never the alcoholic that he portrayed. But under his calm exterior a building anger simmered, and soon he kept standing Jerry up on important engagements and becoming less and less available to him.
What makes this memoir special is Jerry's honesty. He admits that sometimes his ego took advantage of the situation, he was openly and enthusiastically promiscuous, he often hurt his wife and children by not being available to them, and he was addicted to Percodan after a back injury. While an addict, there were whole blocks of time that he lost to memory including some of his telethons. Dean eventually got fed up even before all of this unfolded and he opted out, at which point Jerry wanted out as well. But this book makes abundantly clear that Lewis still carried a torch until Martin's death in 1995, and they had a couple of well-publicized reunions that fed his hopes of a reconciliation. He would call Dean on the phone or approach him in a restaurant, getting a polite response without much reciprocity. But Jerry tells their story in loving and laudatory terms, and you finish the book with a new respect for both men. They had an amazing talent that they shared generously, first together and then in successful solo careers. The entertainment world is better off for having its nod to this unlikely pair.
Summary of Dean and Me: (A Love Story)
They were the unlikeliest of pairs?a handsome crooner and a skinny monkey, an Italian from Steubenville, Ohio, and a Jew from Newark, N.J.. Before they teamed up, Dean Martin seemed destined for a mediocre career as a nightclub singer, and Jerry Lewis was dressing up as Carmen Miranda and miming records on stage. But the moment they got together, something clicked?something miraculous?and audiences saw it at once.Before long, they were as big as Elvis or the Beatles would be after them, creating hysteria wherever they went and grabbing an unprecedented hold over every entertainment outlet of the era: radio, television, movies, stage shows, and nightclubs. Martin and Lewis were a national craze, an American institution. The millions (and the women) flowed in, seemingly without end?and then, on July 24, 1956, ten years from the day when the two men joined forces, it all ended.
After that traumatic day, the two wouldn?t speak again for twenty years. And while both went on to forge triumphant individual careers?Martin as a movie and television star, recording artist, and nightclub luminary (and charter member of the Rat Pack); Lewis as the groundbreaking writer, producer, director, and star of a series of hugely successful movie comedies?their parting left a hole in the national psyche, as well as in each man?s heart.
In a memoir by turns moving, tragic, and hilarious, Jerry Lewis recounts with crystal clarity every step of a fifty-year friendship, from the springtime, 1945 afternoon when the two vibrant young performers destined to conquer the world together met on Broadway and Fifty-fourth Street, to their tragic final encounter in the 1990s, when Lewis and his wife ran into Dean Martin, a broken and haunted old man.
In Dean & Me, Jerry Lewis makes a convincing case for Dean Martin as one of the great?and most underrated?comic talents of our era. But what comes across most powerfully in this definitive memoir is the depth of love Lewis felt, and still feels, for his partner, and which his partner felt for him: truly a love to last for all time.
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