People are writing me to ask how to learn more about the 1963 Jerry Lewis Show. Well, one good way would be to seek out a long out-o'-print paperback by Richard Gehman called That Kid: The Story of Jerry Lewis. At least, I think it was only a paperback. I've never seen a hardcover and I gather that even the paperback didn't get a lot of attention when it came out. But it's a pretty good bio of Jerry, including contemporaneous coverage of his TV debacle.
Richard Gehman was a prominent author of his day, specializing in celebrity profiles. He often got access to follow stars around for a few weeks so he could interview them extensively and report on what he observed...and then they wouldn't like the resulting book or article because he'd (gasp, choke) quoted what they said and reported on what he observed. I have the feeling Jerry regretted letting Gehman hang around when they were assembling that Jerry Lewis Show.
Gehman's book on Sinatra — Sinatra and His Rat Pack — is also hard-to-find but worth the effort. Many who've written since about Frank, Dino, Sammy and the rest have obviously secured copies and borrowed liberally. In any case, though Mr. Gehman is long gone, the family tradition lives on. One his daughters, Pleasant Gehman, is an actress-dancer-musician but also an important writer covering the current music scene.
Here's an amazing TV relic...one you might actually want to watch all or most of, even though it's a two-hour show, albeit with most of the commercials removed...
In 1963, back when it was the "try anything" network, ABC offered Jerry Lewis what was at the time, one of the richest deals in the history of television. The result was The Jerry Lewis Show, a live (LIVE!) two-hour Saturday night series that was founded on the following premise: Jerry, being so talented, could work all week on his movies for Paramount...then Saturday evening, he could show up at a theater in Hollywood and host a two-hour talk/variety show with almost no prep, ad-libbing his way through the program.
It was a "firm" two-year committment but it wound up lasting thirteen very painful weeks. The above premise proved to be faulty but there were other problems. ABC bought and completely refurbished a theater for the project but by opening night (September 21, 1963), the building wasn't ready and there were tech problems galore. Years later, I got to know John Dorsey, who directed it. Mr. Dorsey was a fine, experienced pro who still had nightmares of the broadcast you'll see if you click below.
Cameras went out. Cues were missed. Radio communication between the director and the crew went out. A big screen TV that was supposed to act as a monitor for the audience went out...and half the audience left because the sound system failed and they couldn't hear the show. Steve Allen, who was a "surprise" guest, went home that night and wrote a parody of the program and did it on his own show the following week...a whole sketch of every conceivable thing that could go wrong going wrong.
I previously linked to a video of a later episode and wrote about all this to introduce it. Now, if you're yearning to see almost two hours of Jerry Lewis Flop Sweat, you can witness it for yourself. It's in ten parts which should play sequentially in the viewer I've skillfully embedded below. As you'll see, in the early part of the show, they thought it would be funny to make intentional mistakes...getting Jerry's name wrong in the opening announce, having the crew (which he insisted all be in tuxedos) crowd around him, etc. At some point, the unintentional mistakes crowded out the planned ones...
August 3, 2009
