is way through famous singers whose recordings would play off-stage. 5’10 1/2”, wiry. By 18, he was an experienced resort and club comedian, and married to Patti Palmer, a vocalist, 6 sons from union, including rock’n’roller Gary Lewis. At 20, he met Dean Martin, a vocalist, and the duo decided to become a team, as he unconsciously reversed his earlier life’s counterpoint comedy, letting Martin play the suave boulevardier he had been, while he created the retarded grotesque, which he had played off of beforehand. Initially unsure of himself because of his father’s competitive unwillingness to accept him as a comedian. Their act was an immediate success, although he had to spend 3 1/2 years paying off his gambling debts after his first Las Vegas gig. Wound up settling there later on in life anyhow. By the end of the 1940s, Martin & Lewis were the most popular comedy team in the country, through exposure from stage, TV, and clubs. Despite his little boy persona, he handled the business side of the act. While Martin would croon, he would continually interrupt him, and the two would play off insults, ad libs, and his penchant for mugging. Began their film career in his early 20s, and proved equally successful in that medium, making some 16 movies together, with the same format, the suave Martin playing against the hopelessly misfit Lewis. Thanks to Martin’s need to rise above second banana status, the duo mutually called it quits in 1956 after a decade together, and both went onto successful separate careers. Immediately began familiarizing himself with the technical aspects of film as soon as he was in front of the camera, which ultimately allowed him to be independent of the studio system. Began taking total control over his film vehicles, producing, financing and directing, as well as starring in them, reaching his peak in the early 1960s. Deeply disturbed by the effect Vietnam had on his rock’n’roll son, and the subsequent drug addiction it inspired in him. After doing radio-casts for muscular dystrophy for nearly 2 decades, he began doing a yearly Labor Day telethon in 1966, although he eventually received much criticism from activists. Effected an unrehearsed make-up with Martin on one of the telecasts. Although his eternally adolescent characters wore thin on American critics, he was deemed “Le Roi du Crazy,” by the French, and became a cult hero there, in an unconscious celebration of his previous existence there as king of comedy. Played a series of performances at the Paris Olympia to enthusiastic sell-out crowds in 1971, and wrote a book on his craft the same year, “The Complete Film Maker.” Because of his compulsive, nervous nature, and dependency on painkillers, he suffered a near breakdown during the 1970s, and came close to expiring from an aggravated ulcer condition. Reunited with Martin on his annual telethon in 1976, and in 2005, he co-penned Dean & Me (A Love Story), limning both the break-up and the reconnection. Wrote his auto-biography in 1982, Jerry Lewis in Person. Returned to the screen in the early 1980s after a decade’s absence. Divorced his wife after 36 years of marriage and 2 years later married SanDee Pitman, in his late-50s, one adopted daughter from union. In the mid-1990s, he finally appeared on Broadway as the Devil in “Damn Yankees,” a dream he had always had, and one that his late father had impressed upon him as the only way to have a complete entertainment career, which, indeed, he has had. Suffered pulmonary fibrosis and ballooned through painkillers, after finally conquered back pain, symbolic of father support, which plagued him for 37 years, and had brought him to the point of suicide. Returned to normal afterwards, with great relief his suffering had finally ended. Awarded the French Legion d’Honneur on his 80th birthday, and, appropriately clowned throughout the entire ceremony. Soon afterwards, he ascended to abbot of the Friar’s Club, in crypto-recognition of his status as both ancient and modern king of comedy, before suffering a heart attack, from which he recovered, to continue on with his career. Inner: Manic, obsessive, self-absorbed, compulsive to the extreme, with an eternal youthfulness that underscores his childish humor. A perfectionist, and generous to a fault, but supersensitive to criticism and highly emotional. Arrested adolescent lifetime of reversing his comedic stance from the one he had adopted earlier this century, and playing it out to a full life in the public eye, rather than truncating his existence as he had earlier in his desperation for love, adulation, a sense of inner peace, and most importantly, his father’s approval. Max Linder (Gabriel-Maximilien Luevielle) (1883-1925) - French comedian. Outer: From a farming family. Left school at 17 to study at the Bourdeaux Conservatoire, and then acted in Bordeaux, before moving to Paris in his early 20s, where he initiated his larger career by playing supporting roles in melodramas, before finding his true metier in comedy. Played against the grotesque comic manic archetypes of the day, by creating a suave, handsome boulevardier character with an impeccable ability to survive catastrophic situations. Began working in cinema at 23, but because of the low esteem in which early film was held, changed his name to Max Linder, in order to further separate himself from his stage presence. Spent several years dividing his time between the 2 mediums, and then totally switched to film in his mid-20s. By 1910, he had fully evolved his stage character and the counterpoint situations against which he would play, becoming an international star, and the best known comic of the pre-WW I era. Wrote, supervised and directed all his films after 1911. Interrupted his career to serve in WW I, where he was gassed and suffered a breakdown, never to fully recover psychologically or physically from it. Although Charlie Chaplin considered him an inspiration, and invited him to America to strut his stuff, his weakened condition disrupted his career, and he fell victim to double pneumonia, requiring a year in a Swiss sanitarium to recover. Returned to America and formed his own production unit, but his touch began to wane and he slipped into melancholia when Chaplin’s popularity far eclipsed his own. Came back to Europe and was infatuated with Jean Peters, the 17 year old daughter of a Paris restauranteur, whom he married in his early 40s. Became prey to a pathological jealousy, which ultimately culminated by his committing suicide by slitting his wife’s wrists and then his own, when he realized his career was over. Inner: Highly competitive, albeit highly original, and the prototype for many of the comedic films of the silent era. Dualistic lifetime of creating a unique niche for himself in the annals of comedy, only to be undone by his unintegrated interior and an overweening ne