As a child growing up in West Columbia my favorite entertainment venue was the Capitol Theater downtown. And my favorite movies from my earliest visits to the "picture show," as we always called it back then, starred "The Big Three" in my book: John Wayne, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis. Anytime a new film one of those 1960s Hollywood Heroes put out was being shown at the Capitol Theater, it was a good bet that my tiny ass was going to be sitting in the dark watching it . . . popcorn, pickle, Milk Duds and ice cold Coca-Cola in hand.
I caught about an hour or so of the 44th annual Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon this past Labor Day, and was watching the early hours of the 21 and a half hour broadcast on Houston's Channel 2 Sunday night when the show suddenly went off the air. I was disgusted to discover that the local NBC affiliate that had aired Jerry Lewis's telethon in its entirety in years past was not going to do so in 2009. Bill Balleza of Channel 2 informed the viewers, including yours truly, that KPRC-TV would be picking the telethon back up at 8 a.m. on Monday morning. I switched through the other gazillion channels on my DirecTV satellite dish to see if the MDA telethon was airing throughout the night on a different channel, but it was nowhere to be found.
Despite the cutting back of the annual fundraiser's TV air time in the Houston market, Jerry Lewis still proudly announced at the 2009 telethon's conclusion Monday evening that nearly $60.5 million was raised across the nation to continue funding worldwide research to find treatments and cures for muscular dystrophy and related diseases. Lewis said the total was down from last year's record $65 million but added it was an amazing accomplishment considering the state of the nation's economy.
I shed my usual tears sitting in front of my TV set, as numerous feature stories and guests appearing from both the Houston studio and with Jerry Lewis and his many cohosts in Las Vegas touched the softest parts of my heart. Little Abbey Umali, the MDA's current National Goodwill Ambassador, is pictured in her wheelchair with Jerry in the photo above. She and many other people of all ages--but primarily the children afflicted with this horrible disease--who have to live with Muscular Dystrophy are the reasons so many of us dig deep into our pockets to help Lewis and the MDA hopefully one day bring an end to the crippling of so many humans. To think that Jerry Lewis started his annual telethons 44 years ago is really mind boggling, and when you add to the equation the many health issues the telethon's host has had to endure himself in recent years it becomes even more stunning that the octogenarian comedian is able to live out the old entertainment world motto: "The show must go on!"
Lewis, who told the Las Vegas crowd Sunday night that he will be 84 in March of 2010, had to do the telethon for the first time since 1973 without his sidekick Ed McMahon. Johnny Carson's longtime announcer and best bud, who had served as Jerry Lewis's MDA telethon announcer for 35 years, died in June. I made a point to tune in to this year's telethon this past Sunday night to see my childhood comedic hero for what possibly could be the last time.
Jerry disclosed several years ago that he is dying from Pulmonary Fibrosis, a disease that suffocates its victims by scarring the lungs. The disease is irreversible, untreatable, and invariably fatal, according to wire reports I read during the week leading up to this year's Labor Day telethon. Most patients suffering from PF die within three years of diagnosis, the wire reports indicate, which is why thousands of PF sufferers tuned in Sunday night looking to Lewis for clues to his survival for so many years with the disease.
Jerry Lewis has spoken many times publicly about his disease but has not yet spoken out on behalf of the cause that has stricken him so personally. Pulmonary Fibrosis claimed the lives of actor/singer Robert Goulet and Odetta in recent years, as well as being the primary cause of the death of my favorite actor of all time, Marlon Brando, who died several years ago at the age of 80. Pumonary Fibrosis claims the lives of approximately 128,000 Americans annually.
Lewis has suffered two heart attacks--a serious one in 1982 that led to Jerry being forced to kick his cigarette habit and a minor heart attack in 2006--and has been forced to deal with prostate cancer, diabetes and extreme back pain. But he has never missed hosting his annual Labor Day telethon over the past 44 years.
Born Joseph Levitch in Newark, New Jersey, on March 16, 1926, the comedian who took the stage name Jerry Lewis and later vaulted to stardom on stage, TV and films when he teamed up with Dean Martin in the 1940s remains today an entertainment industry icon. Among the many comedies he starred in (usually writing, producing and directing his films as well) that I loved so much as a child were "The Nutty Professor," "Cinderfella," "The Patsy," "Don't Raise The Bridge, Lower The River" and "The Big Mouth." I never missed a Jerry Lewis movie at The Capitol Theater when I was a kid. So many of my childhood movie heroes have gone to that great big screening room in the sky, so Jerry's importance is amplified in my viewpoint even more because he is one of the few Hollywood stars from the 1960s still working.
I was thrilled to learn late last year that Jerry was going to be honored at the 2009 Oscars telecast. Who could possibly be more deserving. Forty-four years of hosting his annual telethon to raise much needed funding in the fight to defeat Muscular Dystrophy, combined with seven decades of entertaining the world with his slapstick antics and, as the French and T. Gup truly believe, his comedic genius, earned him the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the February 22, 2009, presentation of the Oscars in Los Angeles.
Jerry Lewis received an honorary Oscar at the February 22, 2009, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' telecast. The "King of Comedy" was the most recent recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in honor of his more than 40 years raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
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