Jerry Lewis, 1926-2017, and Dick Gregory, 1932-2017, R.I.P.

Today's post is obviously not the post I meant when I said in my last post that "my next post is even stranger!" That post is going to be postponed indefinitely.

I'm going to attempt to keep this dual tribute article brief, because I've been doing a lot of different internet chores today, and I'm not done yet! I've been here at the library since 9:30 a.m., and as I began writing the text portion of this post, two p.m. passed by me!

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1. Jerry Lewis, 1926-2017, R.I.P.

Jerry Lewis, who died Sunday at the age of ninety-one, evoked a number of different reactions from everyone who knew of him. He was considered a genius, abrasive, hilarious, insulting, humanitarian, and more adjectives than I can include here and be true to my promise to keep this post "brief." I was a huge fan of his when I was a kid, and I've found it rather discouraging over the years as I learned unfortunate personal things about his words and actions  -- I once had a co-worker who said Lewis insulted both himself and his elderly mother -- but I've always been able to separate his personal quirks from his various performances.

 

Lewis (fifth from left), Ed Sullivan (ninth from left), and Lewis' then-partner
Dean Martin (tenth from left) on the premiere episode of Ed Sullivan's CBS-TV
variety show, Toast of the Town (later renamed The Ed Sullivan Show), in 1948.

Another shot of the team of Martin and Lewis, before their 1956 break-up.

Dean and Jerry were enormously popular, and even got their own comic book series.

After their 1956 split, DC Comics went with the comic half of the former
team and retitled the book with issue #41 to shift its focus to Jerry alone.

One of my favorite issues of The Adventures of Jerry Lewis,
which parodied the story of The Wizard of Oz.

Jerry's first solo film outing, 1957's The Delicate Delinquent. This remains one of my favorites

of his.  Lewis is flanked by Martha Hyer and Darren McGavin in this lobby card photo.

  

I absolutely loved 1958's The Geisha Boy when I
first saw it on television sometime in the early 1960s.

Probably Lewis' most-loved and critically acclaimed film, The Nutty Professor (1963) re-worked the
Jekyll and Hyde story to hilarious effect. It also inspired the 1996 remake starring Eddie Murphy.

Ed Sullivan, Lewis, and Jerry's son Gary. Gary was a mid-1960s pop sensation,
with Top 40 hits like "This Diamond Ring," "Count Me In," and "Green Grass."

Lewis, of course, hosted the annual telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association
from 1966-2010. He helped to raise many millions of dollars over the years, although
facing controversy over portraying people with disabilities as subjects of pity.

A scene from the never-released The Day the Clown Cried, a World War II-era film.

 

Frank Sinatra, a mutual friend of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, arranged a live, on-the-air reconciliation
between the two former partners on the 1976 MDA Labor Day telethon. The two hadn't spoken in twenty
years. I can proudly say that I was watching this historic moment as it happened.

Lewis delivered a critically-acclaimed turn as a dramatic actor in Martin Scorsese's 1982
masterpiece, The King of Comedy. He is pictured here with the film's star, Robert De Niro.

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2. Dick Gregory, 1932-2017, R.I.P.

Comedian and activist Dick Gregory has died at the age of eighty-four. I don't have a lot to say about him. I saw him on television a few times as I was growing up, and I read his autobiography, nigger [sic], sometime well after its 1964 publication, probably in the early 1970s. At a time when most African-American comedians (such as Red Foxx, Moms Mabley, and Slappy White) played to mostly black audiences, comedians like Dick Gregory and Godfrey Cambridge appealed to white audiences as well and more or less paved the way for later acts such as Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson, and Richard Pryor. Starting in the early 1960s, Gregory became more and more involved in political activism. He died of heart failure on August 19th.

An early shot of Mr. Gregory performing stand-up comedy.

With Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dick Gregory's autobiography, nigger. I love the inscription to his mother at the bottom of the cover.

With sports legend Muhammad Ali, known for a bit of "political activism" himself.

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Thanks for your time.