Jerry Lewis (entertainer).

Jerry Lewis (entertainer). Jerry Lewis (entertainer), born in 1926, American motion-picture actor and director, known for his screwball comedies. Born Joseph Levitch to a family of professional stage performers in Newark, New Jersey, Lewis was introduced to comedy while watching his father and other Jewish performers in the so-called Borscht Belt dinner theaters of upstate New York. He is probably best known for his antics as the frantic, blundering sidekick of American actor Dean Martin. Lewis and Martin started their team as a nightclub comedy act in 1946, before making their film debut with My Friend Irma (1949). They made 17 other movies in the next six years, each following the same basic routine: Martin plays the suave, romantic ladies' man undermined by Lewis's madcap bungling. The most notable of these films include Sailor Beware (1952), The Caddy (1953), Three Ring Circus (1954), Artists and Models (1955), and Hollywood or Bust (1956). Lewis and Martin ended their collaboration in 1956, and after making appearances in several other popular comedies, Lewis began producing and directing his own films, starting with The Bellboy (1960). Lewis also directed and starred in The Errand Boy (1961), The Ladies' Man (1961), and the acclaimed comedy The Nutty Professor (1963), in which Lewis plays a shy, bumbling college professor who develops a chemical formula that transforms him into a shamelessly overbearing swinger. Lewis's output as a director was sporadic after directing The Big Mouth (1967), in which he plays the hapless look-alike of a wanted diamond smuggler. He continued to perform in a number of movies by other filmmakers, most notably The King of Comedy (1983), by American director Martin Scorsese. Lewis always found large audiences for his frenzied comedy in the United States, but he became a popular cultural hero in France during the 1960s after renowned French critics praised his work. Aside from his comic performances, Lewis is also an active campaigner for various charitable causes. In 1966 he began the "Jerry Lewis Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy," an annual Labor Day television fundraising campaign to benefit children suffering from the muscle disease. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.