Jerry Lewis Joseph Levitch (natural March 16, 1926), better known as Jerry Lewis, occurs as Jewish American comedian, actor, producer, and director, known for his slapstick humor and his charity fund-raising telethons for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Career
Jerry Lewis, boy of the music hall performing artist known as Danny Lewis, began withwithin burlesque in 1942, which means that if a birth month of 1926 is correct, he was merely 16 years old, & he married ii years late around 1944 at a caring age of Xviii. He gained initial fame by having singer Dean Martin, who served as a second banana to Lewis' frenzied, zany prank when a Martin and Lewis comedy team. It distinguished themselves from either a majority of comedy acts of the 1940s by relying on the interaction of the two comedian instead of pre-planned skits. In the late forties, it quickly rose to national prominence, foremost sustaining their popular nightclub act and then when film stars. Critics typically incurred it hard to describe their chaotic work beyond a austere "Martin sings and Lewis clowns". It continued to perform around film & in television until their partnership ended in 1956. Resulting their split, them became required inside the swell publicised & long-running off feud that never truly ended; the next period it were seen together publically would become the surprise appearance by Martin in Lewis's telethon around 1976, arranged by Frank Sinatra.

Lewis returned as a solo work by having his debut film The Delicate Delinquent in 1957. Teaming by having director Frank Tashlin, whose background as a cartoonist suited Lewis's br& of humor, he starred around 5 other films prior to he produced, directed, wrote, and starred in his have motion picture entitled The Bellboy in 1960. Using the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami as his setting, on a little budget, a super pinching shooting schedule & there is no script, Lewis shot the film by day and performed at the hotel in the evenings. When you took production, Lewis decided to have a fresh technology of videotape to record a scene at a equivalent period when he was filming it, allowing for him to view the performance instantly. Late, when other personal & low-cost devices became available, this system would turn into an industry standard referred to as video assist.

Lewis directed many thomas more of his have films including The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and a iconic film, The Nutty Professor. When you took this cycle he was systematically praised by a bit of highbrowed French critics in the influential Cahiers du Cinema for his absurd comedy, in section because he got gained respect as an auteur who had number control a lot over all aspects of his films, like to Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock. This is the belike origin of the commons however erroneous belief in the United States that Lewis is a superstar in France.

Lewis' pack professional appeal waned per mid 1960s. Around 1966, he began hosting an annual Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, a charity sustaining which he got been publicly associated since 1950.

Late, Lewis starred around & directed a unreleased The Day The Clown Cried in 1972. the film was the comedy placed within a Nazi concentration camp. Lewis has explained how come a film hasn't been freed by suggesting judicial proceeding above post-production fiscal difficulties. It hwhen been seen by super couple pick out souls, however people world health organization view it either praise it for even comedic genius or decry it when a level best within bad taste (as Spy Magazine did in 1992).

Fallowing an eight month absence from either film, Lewis returned in the early 1980s with Hardly Working, a film he two directed & starred inside. He followed this higher by using the critically acclaimed performance within Martin Scorsese's 1983 film The King of Comedy in which Lewis plays a late nighttime TV carrier plagued by an obsessional fan. He presently lives inside Las Vegas, Nevada.

Jerry & his popular picture show characters was animated in the cartoon Might The Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down? which premiered in ABC & lasted 1 year from either 1970 to 1972. A indicate was produced at Filmation Studios.Sole Xvii episodes were created. Jerry Lewis was a indicate's partner.

Charitable work

Lewis has organized the Labor Day telethon to help raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association since 1966. His efforts keep close at hand helped raise to a higher degree 2,000,000,000 (USD). Within 1977, he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and in 1985, he received a Usa Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Within September, 2005 Lewis is slated to receive the Governor's Award from either a Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, honoring his long-running telethons.

A telethons come occasionally star-studded: among Lewis's co-hosts through the years were Ed McMahon and Casey Kasem. The frequent performing artist in the 1970s and 1980s was the late Frank Sinatra, who reunited Lewis by owning Dean Martin on the telethon in 1976.

In his Fortieth Labor Day telethon in 2005, Lewis added Salvation Army fundraising (for Hurricane Katrina) to his usual MDA fundraising.

Criticisms
A MDA & Jerry Lewis own been criticized by a select few disability rights activists for their tendency to paint disabled people when "pitiable victims who want and need nothing more than a big charity to take care of or cure them."[http://thekidsareallright.org/] Critics argue that focusing a public's attentiin on medical therapeutic to "normalize" handicapped population fails to location issues rather providing accessible buildings, transport, employment chance & more civil rights for the disabled.

Jerry Lewis hwhen besides manufactured occasionally remarks that own been regarded as insensitive towards a handicapped: Around 1990, he wrote a number one-human essay entitled "If I Had Muscular Dystrophy" for PARADE magazine, in which he characterized people sustaining muscular dystrophy when "being half a person."[http://www.cripcommentary.com/parade.html] Several in the disabled community viewed his remarks when prejudicious, contributing to the idea that disabled humans come "childlike, helpless, hopeless, nonfunctioning and noncontributing members of society."[http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/archive/jerry92.htm] In May 20 2001, he responded to his critics in an locate in CBS News Sunday Morning: "If you don't want to be pitied for being a cripple in a wheelchair, don't come out of the house." Once more, disablement rights militant blasted him for characterizing disabled population when helpless & shut-in.

Trivia
Lewis has suffered years of back trouble due to the failing slapstick stunt that just about left him paralyzed. A continuing painful sensation from either a accident about drove him to commit suicide. An electronic device developed by Medtronic recently deep-seated inside his back has helped reduce a discomfort. He is okay, one of Medtronic's leading spokesmen. Lewis tried his hand at singing in the 1950s, having a chart hit sustaining the song Rock-The-Bye Your computers Tot by having the Dixie Melody, the song originated by Al Jolson and popularized by Judy Garland. The Simpsons' voice actor Hank Azaria based the voice of Professor Frink on Lewis. Lewis wwhen at length invited to guest as a character's father. Lewis' grand nephew, Nicholas McCarthy is guitarist by owning Scottish popular class action Franz Ferdinand In 1983, he was nominated for the Golden Raspberry for Worst Actor for his role in Slapstick of Another Kind.

Filmography
How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border (1949) (short subject) My Friend Irma (1949) My Friend Irma Goes West (1950) Screen Snapshots: Thirtieth Anniversary Special (1950) (short subject) The Milkman (1950) At War with the Army (1950) That's My Boy (1951) Sailor Beware (1952) Jumping Jacks (1952) Road to Bali (1952) (cameo) The Stooge (1953) Scared Stiff (1953) The Caddy (1953) Money from Home (1953) Living It Up (1954) 3 Ring Circus (1954) You're Never Too Young (1955) Artists and Models (1955) Pardners (1956) Hollywood or Bust (1956) The Delicate Deliquent (1957) The Sad Sack (1957) Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958) The Geisha Boy (1958) Don't Give Up the Ship (1959) Li'l Abner (1959) Visit to a Small Planet (1960) The Bellboy (1960) Cinderfella (1960) The Ladies Man (1961) The Errand Boy (1961) It's Only Money (1962) The Nutty Professor (1963) It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) (cameo) Who's Minding the Store? (1963) The Patsy (1964) The Disorderly Orderly (1964) The Family Jewels (1965) Red Line 7000 (1965) Boeing Boeing (1965) Three on a Couch (1966) Way... Way, Out (1966) Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1967) The Big Mouth (1967) Silent Treatment (1968) Hook, Line & Sinker (1969) One More Time (1970) (also director) Which Way to the Front? (1970) The Day The Clown Cried (1972) (unfinished) Rascal Dazzle (1980) (documentary) Hardly Working (1980) Slapstick (Of Another Kind) (1982) The King of Comedy (1983) Cracking Up (1983) How Did You Get In? We Didn't See You Leave (1984) Hold Me Back, or I'll Have an Accident (1984) Cookie (1989) Mr. Saturday Night (1992) Arizona Dream (1993) Funny Bones (1995) Miss Castaway and the Island Girls (2004)