Here's another one of those "may be of interest to someone" items. As we all know, a moment of TV history was made on the 1976 Jerry Lewis Telethon when Dean Martin made a surprise appearance, courtesy of Frank Sinatra. You've all seen the video. It's pretty clear that Jerry was surprised…but who else (besides Frank and Dino) knew about this in advance?
On November 30, 2005, Jerry appeared on Larry King Live and said several times that everyone on his staff knew but him. Here's an excerpt from the conversation…
KING: You said everyone knew but you, right?
LEWIS: Everybody in my staff, the crew, the production people, everyone knew but me.
Pretty straightforward, right? But in October of 2000, Lewis was interviewed for the Archive of American Television. The interview is online (here's Part One) and they've posted portions of the transcript. Here's one thing Mr. Lewis had to say during the interrogation…
Frank worked it out. He worked it out so that everyone in that studio, every member of my staff — nobody knew Dean was coming on. The only one that knew it was Ed McMahon. So I could never have heard about it. It was such a total surprise.
Actually, I'm not all that interested in who knew. Years ago, I asked Artie Forrest, who usually produces and directs the telethon, about it. I can't recall if Artie directed that particular one or not but he said, approximately, "Everyone who had to know knew and probably a lot of other people." There had to be some planning because the telethon is on a tight schedule with cutaways and certain hours where it's only seen in portions of the country. Sinatra, assuming he was the main driving force in all of this, would have to make certain that Dean was properly smuggled into the building and that he came out at the moment of maximum tune-in and impact. Most likely, everyone on the staff heard well in advance that a surprise guest was coming out at the specified time and many knew who it was. Jerry may even have known Frank was planning something.
What intrigues me is why Jerry has two different versions. What difference would it make if the crew did or didn't know about it? It doesn't make Jerry look any better or worse either way. No one is saying, "Boy, Jerry, it was dumb of you not to know Dean would be walking out there. Even the stagehands knew." No one is saying that. I guess it makes Sinatra look a bit cleverer if he'd managed to even keep it from the crew but so what? This kind of thing is why it's so hard sometimes to nail down history. People change their stories even after they've told them in front of millions of people.