By: Mike Hughes
Source: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com
Category: Film School Online
There are show business careers that flash and fade. Then there's Jerry Lewis, a pro for 80 years.
Lewis was 5 when he joined his dad's vaudeville show. At 85, he talks eagerly about the past (a documentary debuts today on cable) and future - producing, directing, acting and more.
He is, he said, "the happiest old man you ever saw." Or not: "Old people get crotchety, I'm told."
Lewis said both of those while talking to reporters about the documentary. They sort of fit together.
He's happy about a career that let him make movies unfettered. But he's crotchety about the changes in modern show business. "The spirit of child has been sucked out of the industry," he said.
For Lewis, that spirit was immense. The characters he presented on screen were childish, naive and likable - a logical persona for someone who prematurely left his own childhood.
The British sight-gag comics - from Charlie Chaplin to Peter Sellers to Rowan Atkinson - have tended to be straight-faced. Lewis' characters would bounce in with excessive enthusiasm, then bungle badly.
He found the ideal counterweight in Dean Martin - slow and droll and nine years his senior. Lewis talks about "all the good stuff he made of me in the 10 years that he was my teacher."
But in 1956, they broke up as a duo. Lewis, then 30, wanted to craft his own movies.
By the 1960 "The Bellboy," he was directing, with the help of "video assist," which shows the director or actors what the camera is capturing. "I invented the process ... and I've used it ever since," he said. "And there is not a production in the world today that begins without the video assist."
He needed to run things, but kept it light. The documentary says Lewis had open sets, kept the laughter going - and knew the names of every co-worker.
The idea for the film began almost a decade ago. Phyllis Diller was doing her farewell Las Vegas show in 2002; Gregg Barson, who was filming her for a documentary, met Lewis there.
"The next day he called me," Barson said, "and said he was a great fan of Phyllis Diller's. ... I basically fainted (and) we spoke every few weeks over the summer."
It would take years before Lewis said he had time to be in the documentary. Barson filmed him on stage and in conversation. He interviewed Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Eddie Murphy, Alec Baldwin, Chevy Chase and Quentin Tarantino.
The film describes someone who kept control: Paramount gave him the money and left him alone.
As Lewis sees it, such creative freedom is needed now. "This town has great, great product in their brains and they've got to be let out and let them work."
They need to care, he said. "You can't just go and make a film without passion, because then you have nothing but emulsion."
For Lewis, the passion still seems to burn. This year, he took his stage act to Australia, agreed to star in an independent movie and planned several adaptations - a Broadway musical of "Nutty Professor," movie remakes of "Cinderfella," "The Bellboy" and "The Family Jewels."
He would direct the musical and executive produce the movies - just as he produced Murphy's "Nutty Professor" films. That's not just a token title, he said. "I don't take credits unless I earn them."
There are catches, of course. The indie movie is pending, the musical (with songs by Marvin Hamlisch and Rupert Holmes) was supposed to open a year ago; Lewis was hospitalized during the Australian tour. Also, the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon ousted him after a 45-year run.
Still, Lewis keeps going. He's not someone to quit after just 80 years of work.
Source: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20111217/ENTERTAINMENT08/112170305/Film-explores-Madness-Jerry-Lewis?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s
Source: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com
Category: Film School Online
There are show business careers that flash and fade. Then there's Jerry Lewis, a pro for 80 years.
Lewis was 5 when he joined his dad's vaudeville show. At 85, he talks eagerly about the past (a documentary debuts today on cable) and future - producing, directing, acting and more.
He is, he said, "the happiest old man you ever saw." Or not: "Old people get crotchety, I'm told."
Lewis said both of those while talking to reporters about the documentary. They sort of fit together.
He's happy about a career that let him make movies unfettered. But he's crotchety about the changes in modern show business. "The spirit of child has been sucked out of the industry," he said.
For Lewis, that spirit was immense. The characters he presented on screen were childish, naive and likable - a logical persona for someone who prematurely left his own childhood.
The British sight-gag comics - from Charlie Chaplin to Peter Sellers to Rowan Atkinson - have tended to be straight-faced. Lewis' characters would bounce in with excessive enthusiasm, then bungle badly.
He found the ideal counterweight in Dean Martin - slow and droll and nine years his senior. Lewis talks about "all the good stuff he made of me in the 10 years that he was my teacher."
But in 1956, they broke up as a duo. Lewis, then 30, wanted to craft his own movies.
By the 1960 "The Bellboy," he was directing, with the help of "video assist," which shows the director or actors what the camera is capturing. "I invented the process ... and I've used it ever since," he said. "And there is not a production in the world today that begins without the video assist."
He needed to run things, but kept it light. The documentary says Lewis had open sets, kept the laughter going - and knew the names of every co-worker.
The idea for the film began almost a decade ago. Phyllis Diller was doing her farewell Las Vegas show in 2002; Gregg Barson, who was filming her for a documentary, met Lewis there.
"The next day he called me," Barson said, "and said he was a great fan of Phyllis Diller's. ... I basically fainted (and) we spoke every few weeks over the summer."
It would take years before Lewis said he had time to be in the documentary. Barson filmed him on stage and in conversation. He interviewed Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Eddie Murphy, Alec Baldwin, Chevy Chase and Quentin Tarantino.
The film describes someone who kept control: Paramount gave him the money and left him alone.
As Lewis sees it, such creative freedom is needed now. "This town has great, great product in their brains and they've got to be let out and let them work."
They need to care, he said. "You can't just go and make a film without passion, because then you have nothing but emulsion."
For Lewis, the passion still seems to burn. This year, he took his stage act to Australia, agreed to star in an independent movie and planned several adaptations - a Broadway musical of "Nutty Professor," movie remakes of "Cinderfella," "The Bellboy" and "The Family Jewels."
He would direct the musical and executive produce the movies - just as he produced Murphy's "Nutty Professor" films. That's not just a token title, he said. "I don't take credits unless I earn them."
There are catches, of course. The indie movie is pending, the musical (with songs by Marvin Hamlisch and Rupert Holmes) was supposed to open a year ago; Lewis was hospitalized during the Australian tour. Also, the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon ousted him after a 45-year run.
Still, Lewis keeps going. He's not someone to quit after just 80 years of work.
Source: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20111217/ENTERTAINMENT08/112170305/Film-explores-Madness-Jerry-Lewis?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s
