There's a PBS special called An Evening with Jerry Lewis that's debuting this weekend — tonight, in some towns. It was taped last November at the Orleans Hotel in Vegas and it's supposed to be Jerry singing and telling stories and mostly doing a Q-and-A with the audience. I am told that Jer loves the Q-and-A segments more than anything he does professionally and that he would not do a show without an extended one.
I've seen a few of them, live and on video, and they're…odd. He seems to like playing the non-nutty professor…likes to hold court on lofty topics. If someone asks him if he and Dean liked to hang out, he turns it into a five minute discourse on trust and caring and the bond of two men, and much of what he says is incoherent and rambling. Sometimes, he doesn't even wander away from the topic. He just starts a mile away from it and keeps going in all directions. I assume the PBS special will be edited judiciously to make it appear as if he is actually addressing the questions that are asked.
He is beloved and honored these days — less, I suspect, for anything he's done than for what he is: A survivor and a relic of another time. I don't think people love him for his movies or TV shows so much as they love him for just being Jerry Lewis all these years and not dying or going away on us as so many of his contemporaries have. When he does go away, it'll be sad…because he'll be taking an entire era of show business with him when he goes.
Here's a little preview of the special in which, as you can see, he does the Typewriter Routine for about the three hundred thousandth time…
