Written for "Playbill" at the Hummingbird Theatre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 8, 1997 – Opening Night of "Damn Yankees"

By Christopher Louden

For someone who’s remained in near constant motion throughout most of his seventy years, Jerry Lewis has always been a surprisingly easy target.

Forget that this is the guy who, at age 20, persuaded an Atlantic City nightclub owner to replace a less-than-stellar singer with a young Italian crooner named Dean Martin, and then hand-crafted the most successful comedy duo of all time.

Forget that he was, throughout the late fifties and early sixties, the number one box office champ for six years running, prompting Paramount chief Barney Balaban to comment that, "if Jerry wants to set fire to the studio, I’ll give him the match."

Forget that his heartfelt, tireless efforts on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association have, to date, benefited that organization to the tune of one-and-a-half billion dollars and earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

Forget that Woody Allen has dubbed him "the best comedian’s director around," and that Robin Williams refers (and defers) to him as simply, "the maestro."

Forget his Oscar-calibre dramatic turns in Martin Scorcese’s The King of Comedy and last year’s Funny Bones. Forget that he is the only performer in history who can legitimately claim to have been, at various points throughout his career, the highest paid artist in films and nightclubs, on television, and on Broadway.

Easier, instead, to remember the jokes and gibes that have plagued him for fifty years. The digs about his donkey-bray variations on the old ‘Hey, Lady!’ shtick. The subtle putdowns of his triple-threat skills as a screenwriter, director and producer. The snide quips about his hero-worshipping French fans. The taunting remarks about his emotion-filled Telethon appearances.

Easier, yes, but immensely unfair. As Lewis’ legion of defenders will attest. Among them is singer Mel Torme, who has observed that, "Jerry is one of the most informed, intelligent persons I have ever met. He has been parodied, in some instances mercilessly and unfairly, [yet] he does good stuff endlessly."

Lewis is admired for his comic genius, his immeasurable generosity, his finely-honed survival instincts. Most of all, however, he’s admired for his ability, despite his status as arguably the most under-appreciated of all American icons, to remain remarkably upbeat about the rocky, five-decade roller coaster ride he’s endured with yellow journalists and ill-mannered naysayers.

"I have a very simple philosophy," says Jerry, speaking on the phone from a West Coast hotel suite. "I think that mean-spirited people who lean on the negative are struggling with their own self esteem. I think they find that there’s something missing in their lives, and if they can take what they assume is a wonderful life and diminish it, they find comfort in that. People like myself who do well in a particular field have only one way to go, and that’s to root for others to enjoy it."

And, at long last, Lewis does, indeed, have a brand new, ever-expanding, rooting section. The ol’ devil is finally getting his due.

A year-and-a-half ago, the superstar comedian did something he’s been anticipating since age five. He made his Broadway debut, stepping into the role of Applegate – the fiendishly funny demon who trades a middle-aged baseball fanatic his soul for a shot at the big leagues – in the acclaimed revival of Damn Yankees.

As has happened so often during his career, it was a precedent-setting event. Yes, he instantly became the highest-salaried performer who had ever crossed Broadway’s footlights, but that’s beside the point. In validation of Jerry’s immense audience-pulling power, producer Mitchell Maxwell agreed to close the show for three months to provide his new headliner with the time necessary to prepare for his role.

"Mitchell got my attention." Remembers Jerry, "when he called and said he’d love me to read the script, and I said, ‘Why?’ And he said that playing the devil would be so interesting for me. And, again, I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘well you’ve been playing it for sixty years. Nobody is more mischievous than you are, and we think we can reinvent the show if we bring you into the role.’ I wasn’t sure how to work it, so I went to New York to see the show. With a director’s eye I looked at the total mosaic, not just my role but the whole show, and it was absolutely staggering. I came back to my home in Las Vegas, called my agent and said, ‘What an opportunity!, and it’s coming at a marvelous time in my life.’ I had three films in pre-production, and I got so excited that I tabled everything. Mitchell wanted me to go into the show immediately, but I said, no, no, no, I need three months. I’ve got to lose 35 pounds [added, at director Peter Chelsum’s request, for his role in Funny Bones], learn the book, learn everyone else’s role, and learn the music. That’s the only way it will fly. So they closed the show, getting permission from all the unions. It had never happened before on Broadway, but since I hold fifteen union cards, the unions were a little more persuaded because of who it was and what I might bring to the show. So they closed it down, and re-opened three months to the day, and I was exactly my best fighting weight of 170."

Opening the richly revitalized production on February 28, 1995, Jerry hit an out-of-the-park home run, earning unilateral praise from the tough New York critics and creating the kind of box-office line-ups that Manhattan hadn’t seen since Martin and Lewis played the Paramount Theater back in 1951.

185 standing-room-only performances later, Damn Yankees embarked on an ambitious 36-city tour that, thanks to continual record-breaking sales figures and ongoing critical support, has now been extended well into 1998 and is expected to last through the millennium. In other words, Damn Yankees is quickly becoming America’s second favorite pastime.

"The wonderful thing about this is," says Jerry, "what I see happening in the theater each night. Our audiences are like a bunch of people watching a Beatles concert. They get totally into it, and I’ve figured out why. First, the show and the music are wonderful. It’s about love and hope and deception and revenge – a whole spectrum of emotions that really stir an audience. And, second, the company is busting its ass for the old man, and the old man adores the young kids. The audience can feel that. They stand and cheer at the end of the show and, as I’ve been told a thousand times on this tour, walk out saying ‘that’s the best night we’ve spent in the theater ever!’"

But Damn Yankees is more than just an exhilarating evening’s entertainment. It’s also an intriguing exercise in self-discipline for an artist who’s accustomed to painting on the broadest of canvases. "The most difficult part of this," says Jerry, "is the editing. I have such respect for the material, and I so respect this company of professionals who have allowed me to join them. I love the rules, and I adore breaking them, but I’m committed to maintaining the integrity of this book, so when I do break out, I break out in places that never, ever, in any way encumber the show." Proof of what happens when Jerry’s professional inegrity collides with his limitless imagination is most evident in the rousing "Those Were the Good Old Days" number. As performed by Ray Walston, and by inaugural revival star Victor Garber, it provided a fun-filled, though fairly routine, musical interlude. In Jerry’s hands it has, however, been transformed into a ten minute tour de force, filled with playful bits of business – including some superb sleight-of-hand with a cane – that are fully in sync with Applegate’s sinister self-absorption.

"The audience," says Jerry, "screams and carries on at this son-of-a-bitch and his stupidity. They go ballistic with these terrible old vaudeville jokes, but they LOVE it! And they particularly love it when the devil can't catch the f-ing cane. One night I missed 23 of them in a row and, as the curtain was coming down I turned and said, ladies and gentlemen, you’re watching the Cane Mutiny. And they howled."

Though the Damn Yankees itinerary could easily tire a performer half of Jerry’s age, he finds the breakneck schedule invigorating. (This is, of course, the same Jerry Lewis who once wrote, produced and directed a movie – The Bellboy – in 26 days, played the starring role and a supporting role, filmed it all on location at the Fountainbleu Hotel in Miami, used his leisure hours to develop the script for his next feature film, and still found time to perform each night in the hotel’s ballroom.)

"If you’re passionate about what you do," he says, "then it’s wonderful to channel that energy in the right direction. It works for you. It’s like a reflection, bouncing back and giving you more. I have a four-and-a-half year old daughter who happens to be the air in my lungs, and we are having the absolute best time. And I have a wife who has decided that she and the baby are going to let me go into this as a priority. They’re willing to take second position to the need that I have to make this the most exciting time of my life. They also recognize that I’m 70 years old. I’m making the far turn. They know that, and want me to have this infinite pleasure in my work, ‘cause it’s probably the last thing I’m going to do of any consequence, with the exception of the three films I’m committed to [including a planned big-screen transfer of Yankees]. But from the standpoint of working live, this could be it for me, so it’s very, very special."

Yet, despite the cheering crowds, the critical raves, the backstage camaraderie, the familial support, and the mea culpas that keep pouring in from former detractors, Jerry’s Damn Yankees victory remains a deeply personal one. Punsters like to say that the devil made him do it. Truth is, however, the real impetus came from his dear-departed dad, vaudevillian legend Danny Lewis. "All my life," says Jerry, "I had been very, very closely guarded by my dad; guarded in that he wanted so much for me to do everything right. From the time I started out, he was just so strong about playing Broadway. It was a dream of his that never happened for him, and he wanted me to know what that joy was. So, all through the beginning years he would say to me, ‘you’ve got to concentrate on one day going to Broadway.’ Well, then I ended up getting together with Dean and we had a tremendous ride. During the course of the Martin and Lewis years I would say to my dad, ‘we’re the most important act in show business today, and we have contracts for the next five years for over fifty million dollars.’ And he’d say, ‘you ain’t got it yet, kid.’ Then Dean and I split and I’m doing a single. Paramount shows me that I’ve brought them $800 million in film rentals. I tell this to my dad, and he says, ‘you ain’t got it yet, kid.’ I take my mother and father to London and do a Command Performance for her majesty the Queen. Unlike any previous monarch, I’m told, she stands up at the end of the show. It’s an incredible night. I run back to my dressing room and say, ‘Dad, it doesn’t get and better than this,’ and he says, ‘it does if you play Broadway.’ That night in London, I finally sit him down and say, ‘You’ve been hitting me with this for some twenty years. I need you to explain exactly what it is I’m going to find out if I play Broadway.’ He says, ‘I can’t do that. You need to find out for yourself, and when you do you’ll be incapable of explaining it to your children.’"

"Now, twenty years later, I agree to do Damn Yankees. It’s opening night and as I’m coming up from my final bow, I heard my father say, ‘Now you got it, kid.’ I know in my heart that I didn’t hear his voice, but I felt his spirit, and by God was he right. It paled everything, everything, that I’d accomplished prior to that night."