Jerry Lewis

About Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis (born March 16, 1926) is an American comedian, award-winning actor, film producer, writer and director, known for his slapstick humor and his charity fund-raising telethons for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). Lewis has won several awards for lifetime achievements from The American Comedy Awards, The Golden Camera, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, The Venice Film Festival and he has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Governors Award of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors, the highest Emmy Award presented.

Lewis was originally paired up in 1946 with Dean Martin, and formed the comedy team of Martin and Lewis. In addition to the team's popular nightclub work, they starred in a successful series of comedy films for Paramount. The act broke up ten years later.

Lewis was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Jewish parents Rachel "Rae", who played the piano for the radio station WOR and performed musical arrangements, and Danny Levitch, a master of ceremonies and vaudeville performer. His birth name is usually reported as Joseph Levitch, though Shawn Levy's biography, "King of Comedy", claims this is untrue and that Lewis' name at birth was Jerome Levitch,although Jerry Lewis has stated that it was Joseph, named after his grandfather. His father, however, didn't like the name so he called him Jerry. Lewis started performing at the age of five and by the age of fifteen developed his Record Act, in which he mimed lyrics of operatic and popular songs to a phonograph.