Folks on the 'net are still talking about that Jerry Lewis interview and taking sides. A lot are cheering Jerry, saying that the interviewer was unprepared, disrespectful, whatever…and that it was great that Jerry put that rude punk in his place. Typical of some comments is the lady on Facebook who wrote, "Imagine that you have a session with one of the world's great filmmakers and you don't come armed with well-researched questions to tap into his history and knowledge."
I would like to defend the interviewer, who I think but am not certain was a writer named Andy Lewis — no relation, one presumes. I do not know this person but I think he's getting a bad rap here.
First off, let me say as a longtime Jerry watcher who even worked with the man once, Jerry has a long history of occasional trainwreck interviews. Some days, he's great. In others, the interviewer can do no right.
The last time I saw him in person, he was being interviewed by Leonard Maltin at the Paley Center…and no one is more prepared and respectful than Leonard Maltin. I wrote about that event and here's a little of that report…
A few years ago at a Paley Center event, I watched him being interviewed by Leonard Maltin and it was a strange, surreal evening. Leonard asked very good questions without a trace of hostility or challenge. Jerry gave long, rambling answers that didn't remotely match up with the questions and he bounced back and forth between being philosophical in a professorial way and being on the defensive as if under some kind of implied attack.
The audience was full of celebrities who rose to tell Jerry and the world how much they loved him and worshiped him and thought he was the greatest comedian ever…and you'd think a man would be humbled and happy. But then one little imagined slight set him off and he began screaming at the folks who'd arranged the event, furious over essentially nothing. Lewis's emotional excesses were always kind of fascinating and funny on the telethons, especially at 3 AM when he'd shift into self-pity mode and start rambling on about how hurtful people could be towards his efforts. I think his tirade at the Paley event caused me to stop viewing his outbursts as amusing.
But getting back to the Hollywood Reporter fiasco: I don't think those now faulting the interrogator understand that the interview was part of a series of real short interviews with folks in show biz who were over ninety about why they hadn't retired, why they were still working, what special challenges they face, etc. The questioner was not there to ask Jerry in depth about his career and films. He was just there to get 2-3 minutes on why and how Jerry was still working at his age.
Jerry was asked essentially the same questions that were asked of the others — Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, Carl Reiner, Cloris Leachman, et al — and none of them had any problem answering them. I believe the same interviewer did the one with Norman Lear, which went fine. Everyone else who agreed to sit for an interview about working at age 90+ had a good answer for the question, "Have you ever thought of retiring?" At that age, you kind of have to.
Only Jerry tried to turn the session into a dialogue with the interviewer — which was a problem since the format of these videos was to have the interviewer unheard in the final edit. I'm sure if you've ever been interviewed on camera more than a few times, you've done these. They always tell you up front that they need answers in complete sentences since the questions will be edited out.
The interviewer's detractors say that he was ill-prepared to interview Jerry and that he didn't know what he was doing. I think he was prepared with all the same questions that everyone else was asked and that what he wasn't prepared for was the subject trying to turn the interview into a dialogue and not answering in sentences that would make sense once the questions were cut out.
What I hear from the off-camera voice is a flustered, unsuccessful attempt to get something usable out of Mr. Lewis. He never got it so when they got back to assembling their video feature, the folks at the Hollywood Reporter didn't have the footage they needed to make Jerry's interview a piece with all the others. They had a lot of one word answers so they decided to put up seven minutes of raw footage and I'm guessing someone said, "Hey, if this is how he wants to come off, fine."
I would question whether that was the best decision but the alternative was probably to cut Jerry, who'd given them an hour or three of his time, down to one of folks in the piece who got a brief paragraph and no video. That probably would have made him angrier.
In Jerry's defense, a lot of his time was apparently wasted by a crew that took way too long to set up in his office. That might explain his cranky mood but I don't think it excuses it. He's done hundreds of interviews and he knew this one was going to ask him, as practically every interviewer has for the last decade or so, why he was still working, if he'd ever considered retiring, if there was anything he hadn't done in show business that he still hoped to do, etc. (That last question might have gotten him to talking about having his musical of The Nutty Professor perhaps someday open on Broadway.)
In February of 2013, Jerry appeared on a panel at the TV Academy called "Retire From Show Biz? No Chance!" He spoke charmingly and in polysyllabic sentences on the same topic that the Hollywood Reporter asked him about. He was proud that he was still working. He could have said the same things for this new interview but he didn't.
There are rude, unprepared interviewers out there who ask stupid questions and maybe some of them deserve to not get what they came to get. This doesn't seem to me to be an example of one.