{"id":4079,"date":"2017-08-21T00:45:59","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T00:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixtiescinema.com\/?p=4079"},"modified":"2017-08-21T00:45:59","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T00:45:59","slug":"rip-jerry-lewis-fantasy-femmes-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/21\/rip-jerry-lewis-fantasy-femmes-remember\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Jerry Lewis. Fantasy Femmes Remember"},"content":{"rendered":"

Very sad to hear of the passing of this iconic funny man. I always admired his talent and his dedication to help those in need with his many philanthropic causes. Below are comments from some of the sixties starlets that worked with him over the years who had nothing but praise for him that I interviewed for my book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Joan Staley:<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry Lewis is <\/em>Jerry Lewis. \u00a0There is no switch that turns him on or off.\u00a0 He is what he is.\u00a0 I think every great comedy performer has a dark side.\u00a0 And I think it is part of that dark side that lends itself to the pathos that you have to have in order to be a strong comedic actor, especially in the type of humor that Jerry does.\u00a0 I worked on The Ladies\u2019 Man<\/em> for many weeks.\u00a0 Jerry Lewis [who directed] was kind enough to let me off after about six weeks because I had an offer for a TV pilot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Joan O’Brien:<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry Lewis was totally<\/em> off the wall and we had a lot of fun working on this film [It’s Only Money<\/em>, 1962].\u00a0 He had me laughing so hard and so long during some scenes we had to stop and start over.\u00a0 We wasted a lot of time and money just cutting up and laughing.\u00a0 He was such a practical joker and had all of us including our director, Frank Tashlin, in stitches.\u00a0 You never knew what Jerry was going to do next.\u00a0 You could play the same scene with him ten times and it wouldn\u2019t come out the same way twice.\u00a0 But Jerry could be serious also.\u00a0 He was very generous and gave me a book that I still have called You\u2019re Better Than You Think.<\/em>\u00a0 Inside he inscribed, \u2018and you really are Joannie.\u2019\u00a0 I was going through a period of time with a bad marriage and feeling down and depressed.\u00a0 I was unhappy about a lot of things.\u00a0 Jerry really set my head straight…\u201d<\/p>\n

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Francine York:<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry could be a little bit of a maniac sometimes.\u00a0 When he had someone like Frank Tashlin directing him, he\u2019d fool around a lot.\u00a0 But when he was directing himself using Paramount\u2019s money he\u2019d be more careful and serious.\u00a0 Watching him direct himself in The Nutty<\/em> Professor <\/em>was really something!\u00a0 When he called, \u2018Action!\u2019 he\u2019d go from being Jerry the serious director to Jerry the actor playing the suave Buddy Love or the nerdy Prof. Kelp.\u00a0 It was amazing to watch.\u00a0 On The Disorderly Orderly<\/em>, he missed one of his pratfalls and hurt his back.\u00a0 We filmed this up in the Doheny Estates for about eight weeks.\u00a0 When I did Cracking Up<\/em> with him in 1982 he was really nervous.\u00a0 It was right before he had his heart attack and he was a basket case throughout the shoot.\u00a0 This was a funny movie but Orion went bankrupt and it didn\u2019t get released in the U.S. \u00a0But it was a huge hit in Europe because they just revere Jerry.\u00a0 They thought my part was so funny because I was speaking fractured French and it was subtitled.\u00a0 But the average American didn\u2019t know I wasn\u2019t speaking real French.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Julie Parrish:<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall I had fun doing this movie [The Nutty Professor<\/em>]. Watching Jerry Lewis play this outrageous character was a great experience.\u00a0 He was always making the cast laugh.\u00a0 However, one moment he\u2019d be a really nice person and the next minute he\u2019d be crazy.\u00a0 He scared me.\u00a0 I had a scene with a few of lines.\u00a0 I drank a lot of coffee that morning because we sat around a lot.\u00a0 Those were the days when you could be on a movie for three months and not do much.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even drink coffee but because I was bored I drank it.\u00a0 I got very nervous from drinking the coffee and I was also nervous about doing the scene.\u00a0 Since I didn\u2019t do it correctly he yelled at me.\u00a0 I tried to do it right a second time and he yelled again.\u00a0 I started shaking all over.\u00a0 So he cut the scene entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Celeste Yarnall:<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so in awe of Jerry Lewis and thought he was amazing. Frenetic is a good word to describe him on the set [of The Nutty Professor<\/em>] but he could be charming as well.\u00a0 He wore Alfred Dunhill cologne, which smelled wonderful.\u00a0 One day when he walked by I said, \u201cJerry you smell so good.\u2019\u00a0 The next day he handed me a bottle of it.\u00a0 He also gave me a very good talk about being a young girl in Hollywood and what I should expect.\u00a0 I think he could see that I was a very straight-laced young person.\u00a0 I was very pristine and was lucky to have gone out in a car on a date at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Deanna Lund:<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry was just lovely to work with. But to be honest it was a little confusing.\u00a0 Because he wore so many hats on Hardly Working<\/em>\u2014actor, director and co-writer\u2014it was hard for me to get my character in tune with the right person.\u00a0 First you\u2019re listening to Jerry the intellectual analyzing the scene and speaking with the cameraman and the rest of the crew.\u00a0 And then all of a sudden he\u2019s this lunatic.\u00a0 It was quite an experience.\u00a0 I think it is very difficult for an actor to direct himself.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s done all the time and sometimes extremely successfully but it\u2019s hard.\u00a0 Jerry\u2019s health also wasn\u2019t very good at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very sad to hear of the passing of this iconic funny man. I always admired his talent and his dedication to help those in need with his many philanthropic causes. Below are comments from some of the sixties starlets that worked with him over the years who had nothing but praise for him that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}