The industry had become very different.
Fortunately for me, I had so many other things to fall back on, so many other things that I was doing. I feel badly for someone whose only area of revenue is their work as an actor. They don’t get work, they do nothing. I do everything. I mean, I’ve been doing lectures for the last four, five years: I get $75,000 for a night. I did ten in the fall. It’s nothing: I get my book [The Total Filmmaker], I get on a plane, I go, they pay for everything. And this year I’m doing fifteen. It’s wonderful fun. It’s great for your mind. You know, when you speak, you walk away with more information than when you came. It’s a learning process. And remember something else. A lot of people would discuss this with you and give you a variety of terms as to what was happening. I’m going to tell you exactly what it is: it’s a young boy—basically still nine years old—standing before an audience that is treating him as someone special. And that’s all that’s about. All of the guys and women out there whose parents told you you’ll amount to shit, are having to listen to you because you’re the qualified speaker that night. That’s how it starts—that’s where it’s coming from. Now, when you take pride in accomplishment … I mean, I’ve spoken to everyone—from the United States Glass Association to the United States Marine Corps Association to the AMA [American Medical Association] community. I talk on subjects and on things that, at one point, I get into the lecture and I say, “I want you ladies and gentlemen to know that I could ask you all to leave, all you caregivers, you people in medicine, and then bring in here the entire airline corporate syndrome as we know it, and I wouldn’t change a lot. When we get rid of them, I would bring in probably the most important CEOs in the country, representing some of the biggest corporations, and I would change nothing I’m saying.”
It’s basically the same speech?
No.
It changes each time?
Oh, yeah.
You do shtick?
Oh, God, yes—absolutely. I get very serious and they get into it pretty good. I run the gamut: I talk about everything from my daughter to nuclear physics. And I miss nothing. They want to do Q&A, I say, “Let me tell you something, I’ll stay here with you as long as you want to do this, as long as I feel not insulted by someone yelling, ‘Was Marilyn Monroe a good piece?’ So if you’re gonna go there, don’t go there. Here’s what I’m gonna do with you: Ask me about my racket, ask me about my friends, ask me about things that truly create a curiosity within you, and I’ll bust my ass for you.” Well, I did it at Northwestern on the tenth of November two years ago, and I stood before that audience for seven hours. Seven hours, after I had talked for two. Four hundred and seventy-five people stayed seven hours. Hey, the questions kept coming. I said, “You keep coming,” and I sent out for sandwiches. And I say to them, “Remember this, any subject you want to talk about—go! If I’m not clear on it, I’ll make something up. But you’ll never hear me say, ‘I don’t know.’” They loved it—they love the truth.
Then I went to Texas A&M [University] to talk to the medical community there, and there’s like 700 of the top researchers, psychiatrists, clinicians, pathologists—mostly white coats. And at one point I said, “How many of you people here tonight, I’m just curious, came here thinking—because it’s called ‘Laughter and Healing’—you came here tonight assuming I was going to help you to create laughter in your work?” All the hands went up. I said, “Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, the patients are fine. You’re the people that need to lighten up. You’re the problem in this country. You take your work too seriously. Everyone knows we live and die and you people are carrying on like we shouldn’t. We’re going to. Lighten up!” I said, “Don’t you know that a terminally ill woman knowing that she’s going to die in three months is better than you and me? We don’t know when we’re gonna get it. She’s been blessed. She’s got a game plan. She’s fine with it. You’re the problem. You’re tiptoeing in her life. You’re reminding her she’s gonna die because you’re allowing it to affect you. It’s serious business, but it doesn’t mean you have to be serious about it. Lighten up.” I really reprimand them.
And they like it?
Oh, they love it. I said, “One of you nurses, why don’t you go up to the head man of this administration and just walk up to him tomorrow and go—[makes a rude sound]—you won’t be working here Wednesday but at least …”
How did The King of Comedy come about?
I did that just before my open-heart surgery. Marty [Scorsese] sent me the script, asked me what I thought. I said, “It’s great, I love it.” He said, “Will you do it?” I said, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” He said, “But there’s a provision that I have to mention to you.” I said, “Wait a minute, I’m not doing it yet—how am I getting a provision?” He said, “When you read the script I’m sure you saw what it was about.” I said, “Yes, of course.” He said, “Well, you see, Bobby [De Niro] and I—we don’t understand that kind of celebrity.” And then he went on to tell me, you know, Bobby walks in the street, nobody recognizes him. But this is the time he had just made Taxi Driver [1976], he made Raging Bull [1980], and no one knew him. Bobby had complete anonymity at that time, and so did Marty. So the provision was that I come to New York for six weeks before we shoot to tell them about celebrity and to talk about it. I did: for six weeks we had a wonderful time. Then we did a couple of rewrites, injected a couple of things that I told them. Paul Zimmerman [the screenwriter] was very good, very helpful. And it was a wonderful movie. It would have been better if they had a finish.
They didn’t have one?
No, and I gave them one. I wrote a finish. Bobby was nervous about it.
What was it?
The finish was that Rupert [De Niro] escapes, Jerry returns to the program, and Rupert gets him, kills him.
Kills Jerry?
Yeah, kills Jerry. Bobby was concerned that Taxi Driver was rough, Raging Bull was rough—and he was seriously thinking that people would think of him as the people he portrays. Well, that’s childlike. But they passed on the idea. I said, “It’s a very exciting, dramatic finish.” I said, “He’s got to kill him. You’ve got to make it clear that these are the people that are out there.” No, they weren’t looking for statements and messages, and that was OK. In the shooting process, Marty came to me about the fourth week in, he said, “You know, I have to do this whole internal television sequence—I don’t know a fucking thing about television. Will you direct it for me?” I said, “Yeah, am I going to get a credit? Martin Scorsese and the Jew?” He begged me. I said, “Marty, of course I’ll do it.” So we went into the studio for three days, I gave him all of his background material, I shot everything necessary that was scripted. He was sitting up in the bleachers watching me and at one point I walked over to him, I said, “Marty, both cameras do the same thing here. The electronic camera takes the stuff and sticks it in someone’s house. The other one is film and we go to the lab. But they both point the same way. They both must be sharp and you pan this way if the person’s walking! What’s the fucking problem?” He said, “Meanwhile, I just got out of three days—just continue.” It was a very quality time.
Was any of it ad-libbed? Improvised?
Yeah. The last scene when he comes to my house and I’m so pissed at him, we ad-libbed that whole thing. We did like a ten-minute spontaneous screaming at one another.
Was that a difficult period for you, from ’70 on?
I don’t know that it was difficult—I was pretty active and busy, I was working. I think I was in flux from ’70 to ’78: “Yeah, I’ll do that, OK.” Go to Europe, do ten concerts, get a lot of money, and it’s terrific and wonderful. And I’m like royalty when I go to Europe—it’s just incredible—Germany, Italy, France.
But it always comes back to Sam [Lewis’ second wife]. When I met her, she brought a spirit into my soul that made everything important from that point on. It was February ’79. And because of her presence, I had to reevaluate everything that had
gone by. And I’m sitting there wondering: Why am I reevaluating? It’s gone, it’s done—that’s the past. I just have to remember it so I don’t repeat it, that’s all. And, of course, Sam and I, we were like two lovebirds. I mean, people got nauseous: “Get a room!” And I’m twenty-four years Sam’s senior. Now she’s pushing twenty-nine years old, and one day I said to her, “Would you like to think about a family?” She said, “Well, every woman thinks about a family. I didn’t know how you felt.” I said, “I’ll do anything you want. A woman needs to feel fulfilled. And that’s the way that gets done.” “OK.” We go for it. We’re up now, three years later, in vitro fertilization. We get her pregnant and she loses the baby. Get her pregnant again, she loses the baby. The third time she was pregnant, they find out that she had an enzyme in her body that didn’t allow foreign matter. It killed the baby, this enzyme. Now she’s shattered—it’s five years later. She sits me down upstairs and she says, “I know that I’m asking a lot of you, but could we adopt a baby?” I said, “Under one condition. That when it comes, it’s put into my arms and then I can present it to you. And it has to be a girl.”
We went for it. We got a baby in less than a year and a half later. We had that little cupcake in my arms and my tears were dropping on her little cheeks. What it did for us! We got tired of saying we’re so blessed. “He heard you already—enough with the bless.” Now Dani [his daughter, Danielle] comes to us a few months ago, she says, “Will I ever meet my real mommy?” This takes us aback a little bit. And we sit her down and say, “Yeah, one day, maybe—if you want to.” “No, I don’t really care. Mommy, why didn’t you have me from your belly?” And Sam says, “Because Mommy’s belly was broke, and Mommy couldn’t have a baby in there. So we went to a lovely lady who could have a baby and we said, ‘Could you make a baby for us?’ And they made you for us. And you’re our baby girl.” And she’s satisfied with that. She’s fine. See, I had an adopted son—I know what the ground rules are. Yeah, Ron—he’s great. Fifty years old this week. So I bought a house in Florida, established residence, did everything: voting rights, driver’s license, living there for six months. We got the baby, and in Florida, in three months you’re given the right to keep it. It’s tougher in California. I’ll never forget the day with the judge: I’m holding Dani in my arms three months after she was born, and the judge said, “I’ve been doing this for a lot of years but I cannot remember ever feeling as good about granting a child to a man who does so much for so many children.” He started to cry—the judge; the bailiff cried, my attorney cried, Sam cried, I cried. And Dani peed in my hand. She was watching my show at the Orleans last night—the first-night video we gave to her. She wasn’t coming closing night because she had school in the morning. So we come home and Sam says, “She’s running the show from the Orleans and she’s mesmerized.” She loves it.
You tape all the shows?
Oh, we always do.
You’ve been taping your live shows for years.
Just for reference. If I need to clean up something, I need to change something—I gotta know I did such and such. Sometimes I look at it and I say, “Jesus Christ, that’s old hat, it’s three years old.” And it’s interesting how it gives you another place to go. The negative aspect will give you a positive aspect most of the time. At least with me. And here [on shelf], these are the four shows I just did. So I got a backup audio and a master video. We then put it into the film computer and I can call on it any time I want.
When did you first meet Chaplin?
Oh, Charlie. It was the year he was cutting Limelight [1952]. I was in Chasen’s [restaurant] and so was he. I’m having dinner with my wife and my children and Dave Chasen comes over to me and says, “I know you don’t like to table-hop, and you don’t like to meet people, and you’re here for dinner, but I thought that since this is an extraordinary case that you might want to come over and meet this person.” And I said, “There ain’t no extraordinary cases, David, I come in here to relax. I really don’t want to go meeting people.” He said, “What if it was Charlie Chaplin?” “What? What are you saying to me?” He said, “I know who you are and what you are—I knew how you’d react—now get off your ass and come over with me.” I go. My whole life flashed before me. “Charlie, this is Jerry Lewis.” “How do you do, Mr. Chaplin.” He said, “Charlie.” I said, “Hi, Charlie.” That’s when I did my first gag with him; I said, “You call me Mr. Lewis.”
Did he laugh?
Oh, God, yes—broke him right up. He asked me to sit down. And Oona’s with him. And, to the best of my recollection, it was around ten to ten at night. We were finishing our dinner when Dave called me. I sat with Charlie till three-thirty. We talked about his beginning, my beginning. He talked about the wonderful work that Dean and I are doing that will ultimately gain the mantle of Laurel and Hardy as one of the greatest comedy teams, and so on.
It must have meant a lot to you.
Oh, God almighty.
Had you been an abject fan from the time you were a child?
Five years old, sure. So we talked and it’s late, we have to go. But I have to tell you that the last half-hour was about cutting a scene in Limelight—and he’d like my opinion. He’s gonna give me two versions of the scene. And I’m sitting like I’m trying not to look like I’m nine, you know, half-crossed legs, smoking my cigarettes. “You’re gonna ask about an edi … an edi … edit?”
Then I got to be with him in 1959 in Lucerne. I spent two days at his home, as his guest. You can’t talk education—I had it all. I got a four-year discussion from Charlie on how to really make movies. We talked and talked and talked. [Pointing across to the opposite wall:] That’s his picture over there, you know? That’s his last Christmas card to me—I got one every year—that was his last one. To make a long story short, I revisited Charlie in ’63 in Lucerne and I said, “You know, I wanted to ask you this the night we met, but I didn’t have the courage. But now, since we’re such good friends, I figure you’re not gonna throw me out of your house, because, I don’t know how to talk Switzerland.” He said, “What is it?” I said, “I love Modern Times [1936] more than I do breathing. And if I could get a print of Modern Times so I could show it to my children every Sunday….” He said, “You’ll have it.” “That’s it?” He said, “Yeah, you’ll have it.” “How do I know you’re not lying?” He says, “I’m not lying to you. I love that you want it. I’m gonna call New York and draw a mint print from the negative and send it to you. With one provision.” That’s if I’ll send him The Bellboy. Well, I called New York the next morning and got it done. I get home and on my front step at Bel Air—remember the entrance to the house?—there’s a can delivered from United Artists Los Angeles with a tag: “To Jerry—Love, Charlie.” I never touched the tag. It’s in my vault.
Now, here’s the best of Charlie in the four or five wonderful experiences I had with him. When I opened at the Olympia [in Paris] in 1970—if you could have seen that—it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Because, in the front row was Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut and [Jacques] Tati, Fernandel, and anyone you want to think, including Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Pierre Cassel. Name it—every actor, every director, every actress—were in that opening night at the Olympia. Maria Callas was in the third row. The world of Paris was at my opening night. I just paralyzed that fucking city.
It was the first time you played there?
Yeah. There were like 20,000 people around the block of a theater that seats 2,100 and I’m doing one show a night. It was incredible. If I had to name one thing that was my whole life, it was that night…. Now, we’re at Maxim’s for an after-theater party. And Geraldine Chaplin couldn’t stop telling me how much she loved the show. Also, Geraldine and I were establishing a terrific fund for the poor children of Paris that she brought to my attention—I was going to help her by doing a couple of shows for her—so she reminded me we were having breakfast the next morning. The next morning she’s in my suite at the Hilton, we’re having breakf
ast, and I said, “I haven’t asked you, how’s your dad? How’s he doing? Is he well?” She said, “He’s terrific—and he thought you were terrific.” “What do you mean, he thought I was terrific?” She said, “He was there last night.” “What!?”
Jerry Lewis walks the hotel guests’ dogs as The Bellboy (1960), the first film he directed (and co-wrote and produced and financed), one of the biggest box-office hits of its year. Though a talking picture, Lewis doesn’t speak at all.
Now, after the show, I forgot to tell you, Jean-Luc and everyone were backstage in my dressing room. My dressing room sat four people—I had thirty-five people back there with chairs outside my dressing room and I’m holding court till six in the morning. So I said, “Where was he?” She said, “He was in the light booth. He didn’t want to steal your thunder on an opening night.” He stayed for the whole performance and couldn’t tell her enough about how much he was enthralled about what he saw. He was leaving that afternoon and I asked Geraldine if I could call him. She gave me his number. I said, “Charlie, Jesus Christ, I would never stand in a spotlight booth when you were onstage!” He says, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll never see me onstage. Ha, ha, ha. You were just wonderful. I loved every minute of it.” That was Charlie. He was so delicate—he had a delicate frame—kind of a ballerina. I loved him. I was working him—loved to make him laugh—and anything I could do or say that was irreverent …
Would make him laugh.
Fred Karno, who Chaplin worked for at the beginning—I told him that Karno called me, and he started to laugh hysterically because Karno’s been dead for fifty years. I said, “Karno called me and wants me to do a transvestite in Liverpool …” and he’s banging on the table.
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