by James Kaplan
First published 2005
Jerry Lewis looks back on the fifty years that defined his life, starting with that spring afternoon in 1945 when he met Dean Martin on a New York street corner. Two young performers from different worlds - Martin, the Italian crooner from Ohio, and Lewis, the Jewish entertainer from Newark - discovered an instant chemistry that would make them bigger than Elvis. Their act conquered every stage in America, from nightclubs to television to movies. Money and fame poured in for ten years until July 24, 1956, when it all collapsed. The partnership ended as suddenly as it began, leaving both men to build separate careers while nursing a wound that never healed. Lewis went on to write, produce, and star in hit comedies while Martin became a movie star and Rat Pack legend. But their silence lasted twenty years, and their final meeting decades later revealed two old men still carrying the weight of what they had lost together.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, american, memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: New York, Newark, Ohio
Period: 1945, 1956
352 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday