A couple of folks wrote to ask me if I think Jerry Lewis does his annual telethon (in progress as I write this) for selfish or altruistic reasons. The answer, I suspect, is All of the Above. I think it's a good thing that the money is being raised for the charity, if only because it brings a lot of aid and comfort to folks who have to live with crippling disease. Too much attention is probably focused on the notion of actually curing dystrophy; not enough to the vast amounts of good that are done just to help its victims get through the day.
Does Jerry do it for personal glory? Probably, and I don't think it matters. The nature of telethons is that they feed egos and hype careers. It's unavoidable and I've actually heard performers say that they don't do fund-raisers because it feels somewhat hypocritical to derive personal benefits from something that's supposed to aid others. I think that's a reasonable, perhaps admirable position. But I also understand that some don't see it that way and that they genuinely think it's wonderful that their performing skills can generate a few bucks to help crippled kids.
There is much on Mr. Lewis's annual telethons that makes me cringe, especially the parade of celebs who otherwise couldn't get national exposure. Jer not only puts them on, he extols them as great humanitarians and fiercely plugs their current appearances. Last night, he did a hard sell that had nothing to do with Muscular Dystrophy, urging people to go see his friend Peter Bogdanovich's new movie. I wish less of the telethon was like that but I'm afraid that's the nature of these beasts.
Years ago, I got into a friendly argument with a lovely gent named Artie Forrest, who is one of the all-time great TV directors. Artie was then handling Jerry's telethon and was defending it to just about everyone he met. They were all saying it was tasteless; that it had less to do with helping sick children than sick show biz careers; that Jerry was going to give himself a muscular ailment from patting himself on the back. I told Artie that I thought it would be possible to raise even more money each year without all that ego-massage. "Perhaps," I said, "If the telethon weren't so tacky, bigger stars would appear and larger sums would be collected."
Artie didn't disagree. But he said something that I thought was very true and very realistic. He said, approximately, "Yeah, but Jerry raises a helluva lot of money doing it his way, and nobody else is doing anything. You can talk all you want about other ways it might be done, and you might be right. But, in the meantime, he's buying research and wheelchairs and getting results."
The more I think about it, the more I think Artie was right. When it comes to something like this, results matter.