RIP Jerry Lewis

[WrongVerb]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/20/entert...ies/index.html

[757690]

The Day The Clown Died.

[marcshoe]

When I was a kid in the sixties and early seventies, I'd park myself in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn whenever one of his movies was on. I think the maudlin aspects of his telethons distanced me a little, but I still have a lot of good memories. Good, abbreviated appearance on Marc Maron's podcast last year, I think.

[Joseph]

RIP.

I realize how much I learn about some of these veteran entertainers when reading their final write ups at times like these.

[Dom Heffner]

What an absolute jerk.

Talented, but what a turd.

[westofyou]

Never was a fan, but he is such a H U G E part of my early life, Labor day, the "Idiot" movies, Martin and the King of Comedy

[cumberlandreds]

I watched every Labor Day the telethon. I would watch for the other guests mainly. I didn't care that much for him as an actor or comedian. He was OK but nothing special in my eyes. I think overall he did a lot of good with those telethons. I would think the over a $billion they raised over the years would have helped many in their muscular afflictions.

[RedsBaron]

When I was a kid I thought that Jerry Lewis was the funniest person ever. I loved his Martin & Lewis movies and his early solo efforts when I watched them on our old Zenith B&W TV. By the time I got into my teens I didn't really care for his act anymore.
IIRC, at the time Martin & Lewis broke up, many people expected Lewis to have the more successful solo career, whereas Dean Martin wound up having the more versatile and successful career.
While I never watched that much of his telethons I do assume they did good work.
R.I.P.

[Sea Ray]

What an absolute jerk.

Talented, but what a turd.

He put a tremendous amount of energy into raising money for MD. Gotta tip your cap to him for that.

[Dom Heffner]

But to many others, including a large contingent of people living with disabilities, his telethons were insensitive and self-serving. They said that Lewis treated the children he claimed to be helping with little respect, that he pitied those living with muscular dystrophy and that he used offensive language when describing them.

Eventually, the telethons were protested by a group of people with disabilities who called themselves Jerry’s Orphans, a play on the term Jerry’s Kids, which Lewis used to describe those children with muscular dystrophy.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.was...t-off-the-air/

Im not even quoting the worst of it.

Guy was a phony, miserable, jerk.

[JaxRed]

Gotta go with Jerry on this one. He raised a billion for MDA because people felt sympathy for the kids. As they should have. He was right. Critics wrong.

[Dom Heffner]

Gotta go with Jerry on this one. He raised a billion for MDA because people felt sympathy for the kids. As they should have. He was right. Critics wrong.

Yes, side against the people with MD. Who cares why or how they do it as long as they do it, right?

Phony, classless, really a giant hole.

Mean to fans, mean to people with disabilities.

But he got people to open their wallets so all cool.

Yeah, pass on that.

[757690]

What an absolute jerk.

Talented, but what a turd.

Look up what female comedians say about Louis CK. Research the personal life of John Lennon. Check out stories about Johnny Bench. Pretty hard to find any famous people, especially comedians, without serious skeletons in their closets. As the saying goes, don't meet your heroes.

[GAC]

Look up what female comedians say about Louis CK. Research the personal life of John Lennon. Check out stories about Johnny Bench. Pretty hard to find any famous people, especially comedians, without serious skeletons in their closets. As the saying goes, don't meet your heroes.

Exactly!

While the telethons had it's detractors and critics over the many decades it ran .... it was well exceeded by it's supporters. And as the WP article states ....

But the telethon had many defenders as well.

“The telethons have heightened public awareness, not only for MDA victims, but other disabilities as well,” MDA spokesman Bob Mackle once said, according to the AP. “Before the telethons, people with disabilities weren’t seen on television. Children were not allowed in schools, disabled people were shunned. The telethons changed that by humanizing the victims.”

Arguably the loudest voice belonged to Muscular Dystrophy Association vice president, the late Bob Sampson who had a form or muscular dystrophy.

“If I didn’t feel my dignity and my pride were being preserved, I would never have become involved,” Sampson told the New York Times. “I believe in Jerry Lewis.”

Lewis himself, never known for keeping a low profile, had no time but many harsh words for such critics.

“I have all the strength in the world to fight those morons,” he once told The Washington Post about his telethon critics. “Do they want to talk to the 135,000 who are afflicted, who call me their hero? They’ll get killed. And what about the S.O.B.s who come to you and say, ‘How much do you get out of this action?’ You have to smile, because they have capital punishment in most states.”

One thing is certain: The MDA has not distanced itself from Lewis.

“MDA would not be the organization it is today if it were not for Jerry’s tireless efforts on behalf of ‘his kids,'” MDA Chairman R. Rodney Howell said in a statement after Lewis’s death. “Jerry’s love, passion and brilliance are woven throughout this organization, which he helped build from the ground up.”

“Though we will miss him beyond measure, we suspect that somewhere in heaven, he’s already urging the angels to give ‘just one dollar more for my kids,’” Howell added.

The "bottom-line", as far as I'm concerned, is that Jerry Lewis - with all of his imperfections and controversies, did far more to raise awareness (and money) for the fight against MD then myself or any of those that want to slam him. What did they do to help?

Oh yeah .... and IMO he was a helluva a comedian!

RIP Jerry

[RedsBaron]

Look up what female comedians say about Louis CK. Research the personal life of John Lennon. Check out stories about Johnny Bench. Pretty hard to find any famous people, especially comedians, without serious skeletons in their closets. As the saying goes, don't meet your heroes.

Everyone has feet of clay.
If I posted a list of athletes, actors, singers, politicians, business leaders, members of the clergy, or any other celebrities or well known individuals, I expect someone here could and would point out the flaws in each one. For most of them, I know of their flaws and admire them despite, not because of, those flaws.
As I indicated in my prior post, when I was a kid, say age 6 or 8, I thought Jerry Lewis or perhaps Curly in The Three Stooges was the funniest person ever. By the late 1960s, when I was only around age 12 or so, I saw parts of a few episodes of a TV series Lewis had on NBC and found him to be unwatchable, just painfully unfunny, and I never thereafter cared for his act. I am not saying he lacked talent, but I just didn't care for his act.
Dom's assessment of Lewis may be correct. I think he probably did more good than he did bad.