Dean And Me
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Before the Rat Pack, the string of hit songs and the stellar movie career, Dean Martin had already spent ten years partnering Jerry Lewis in one of the most successful double acts of show business history.
In this wise-cracking yet candid memoir, Lewis recalls with crystal clarity the highs and lows of his relationship with Dean - from their first meeting on a New York street corner, to early improvised performances in the mob owned nightclubs of the era, and the giddy days of Hollywood super-stardom, when it seemed the couples' high-rolling lifestyle would last for ever. It didn't. On July 24th 1956, Dean and Jerry split and the two men did not speak to one another for 20 years.
Jerry Lewis is one of the few surviving Hollywood legends from the period, whose tales reveal much about Dean Martin's craftsmanship and enigmatic charm.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Over the course of their 10-year partnership, Lewis and Dean Martin made 16 wildly popular movies (they were the world's number one box office earners from 1950 to 1956), but their real strength was their performances in nightclubs, theaters and on television. Audiences found their mixture of music and ad-libbed, irreverent comedic pandemonium intoxicating. The duo's fascinating kinship Lewis idolized his partner, while Martin was aloof has been chronicled in Shawn Levy's King of Comedy and Nick Tosches's Dino, but Lewis wants to give his late partner the credit he feels critics missed by always praising the "the monkey" rather than the straight man. Untangling the complicated union, Lewis doesn't spare himself, admitting that when the team's relationship unraveled (they weren't speaking between scenes on their last film), he became a bully on set and made others the brunt of the anger he couldn't vent at Martin. Lewis is a wonderful raconteur, and his tales capture the excitement of their budding career and the slow, sad erosion of the fun. Whether it's his age (Lewis is 79) or his coauthor (Kaplan co-wrote John McEnroe's You Cannot Be Serious), fans will be surprised and entertained by Lewis's honesty and diminished ego and bitterness. Photos. First serial to Vanity Fair. (On sale Oct. 25)
