By 1965, Dean Martin’s career was still swinging, but Jerry Lewis was already done. Like Milton Berle, Lewis spent the rest of his life running on fumes from his past, but he had the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon every Labor Day to keep him in public view.
I don’t know if Jerry resented the success of his son Gary, whose career, let’s be honest, had been arranged by his dad. The thing is, like Dean Martin, Gary was what Jerry wasn’t — friendly, likeable and easy-going. Somewhere along the way, Jerry had become an attention-seeking jerk, in a world that was interested in watching him only in the way it couldn’t resist a car wreck on the highway.
The contrast between Lewis and Lewis was apparent from the start of Gary’s career, as seen in this remarkable video from 1965, with Jerry trying to find fans in his son’s audience. The show is an amazing artifact of a never-to-be-duplicated era. The entertainment is an uneasy balance of old school versus new. The fulfillment of what the Beatles had begun was a happening thing. It’s Hullabaloo, as seen in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood!
