Read Online Dean and Me: A Love Story by James Kaplan, Jerry Lewis - Free Book Online
Authors: James Kaplan, Jerry Lewis
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the Copa and a one-show-a-night gig at the newly renovated Roxy Theater, we were pulling down $7,500 a week. Each. As a point of comparison, the apartment Patti and I were renting in Newark cost sixty bucks a month.
And it wasn’t just the money. Suddenly, it seemed as if everyone in New York City wanted to meet us. A lot of them were female people.
Dean, of course, had never had any trouble in that department. I was a little slower to come to the party. At twenty-two years old, I’d never been what you’d call a ladies’ man—all the more so since I had married at nineteen. But I’d paid careful attention to Dean’s words during our late-night bull session; I’d been impressed by his free and easy way of drawing the line between his fun and his domestic life. A super-handsome man, I knew, could always have it both ways. But now, I was learning, success and fame were just as much of an aphrodisiac as good looks.
Two encounters during our first few weeks at the Copa would have a huge effect on us, both as a team and as individuals. The first, like something out of a fairy tale, was good and evil at the same time. It would take us to enormous wealth and fame—and would lead, ultimately, to our breakup.
The second would join us forever to the biggest star in the world, and would continue to reverberate for both of us, individually, long past the split.
The first meeting was with the legendary Hollywood producer Hal Wallis. As production chief at Warner Brothers, he’d made
Little
Caesar
,
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
,
The Charge of the Light Brigade
,
Casablanca
, and
Yankee Doodle Dandy
. He’d left Warner’s in the mid-forties and hung out his shingle as an independent producer. Now he and his partner, Joe Hazen, had a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures. We both knew Wallis’s name, and we were pretty damned impressed when he stopped by.
But then Hal B. Wallis seemed pretty damned impressed with himself. He was a stocky, well-dressed fellow with a big, suntanned bullet-head like one of those stone statues on Easter Island. Wallis squinted at you, sized you up, and made you feel like it was a privilege just to shake his hand. He also didn’t appear to have a sense of humor—especially when he told us he thought our act was “terrific fun.” In fact, you’d have had trouble finding many comedies in his résumé, which should have told us something right then, but we weren’t thinking about that when he said he wanted to sign the two of us, then and there, to a Hollywood contract.
“Where’s a pen?” I yelled. Funny guy. Dean looked pretty excited, too. But once again Greshler, who was standing by, prevailed.
“The boys are booked at Slapsy Maxie’s”—a famous Los Angeles nightclub—“in late August,” our agent told Wallis. “We’d love to sit down and talk with you then.”
Wallis smiled politely—looking not especially pleased that he hadn’t gotten his way on the spot—and said he looked forward to it.
“What were you thinking?” we wailed to Greshler after Wallis left. “Hollywood comes calling, and you send it packing?”
“You think he’s the only fish in the sea?” Greshler said. “You watch—they’ll all come courting.”
Once again, he turned out to be right. And though what resulted wasn’t a shotgun marriage, in the end it might as well have been.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DAY WE ARRIVED IN LOS ANGELES—AUGUST 9, 1948— our new press agent, Jack Keller, took us to George Raft’s house for our first Hollywood party. George
Raft
! My eyes were practically falling out of my head. My God, Raft was the biggest movie star in the world (or at least the biggest one I’d ever met), and here he was in his cabana, telling me to pick out a pair of brand-new swim trunks and go jump into his gorgeous backyard pool. I suited up and ran out to Dean—who was standing poolside, cool as could be, with Loretta Young, Sonny Tufts, Edward G. Robinson, Veronica Lake, Mona
And it wasn’t just the money. Suddenly, it seemed as if everyone in New York City wanted to meet us. A lot of them were female people.
Dean, of course, had never had any trouble in that department. I was a little slower to come to the party. At twenty-two years old, I’d never been what you’d call a ladies’ man—all the more so since I had married at nineteen. But I’d paid careful attention to Dean’s words during our late-night bull session; I’d been impressed by his free and easy way of drawing the line between his fun and his domestic life. A super-handsome man, I knew, could always have it both ways. But now, I was learning, success and fame were just as much of an aphrodisiac as good looks.
Two encounters during our first few weeks at the Copa would have a huge effect on us, both as a team and as individuals. The first, like something out of a fairy tale, was good and evil at the same time. It would take us to enormous wealth and fame—and would lead, ultimately, to our breakup.
The second would join us forever to the biggest star in the world, and would continue to reverberate for both of us, individually, long past the split.
The first meeting was with the legendary Hollywood producer Hal Wallis. As production chief at Warner Brothers, he’d made
Little
Caesar
,
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
,
The Charge of the Light Brigade
,
Casablanca
, and
Yankee Doodle Dandy
. He’d left Warner’s in the mid-forties and hung out his shingle as an independent producer. Now he and his partner, Joe Hazen, had a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures. We both knew Wallis’s name, and we were pretty damned impressed when he stopped by.
But then Hal B. Wallis seemed pretty damned impressed with himself. He was a stocky, well-dressed fellow with a big, suntanned bullet-head like one of those stone statues on Easter Island. Wallis squinted at you, sized you up, and made you feel like it was a privilege just to shake his hand. He also didn’t appear to have a sense of humor—especially when he told us he thought our act was “terrific fun.” In fact, you’d have had trouble finding many comedies in his résumé, which should have told us something right then, but we weren’t thinking about that when he said he wanted to sign the two of us, then and there, to a Hollywood contract.
“Where’s a pen?” I yelled. Funny guy. Dean looked pretty excited, too. But once again Greshler, who was standing by, prevailed.
“The boys are booked at Slapsy Maxie’s”—a famous Los Angeles nightclub—“in late August,” our agent told Wallis. “We’d love to sit down and talk with you then.”
Wallis smiled politely—looking not especially pleased that he hadn’t gotten his way on the spot—and said he looked forward to it.
“What were you thinking?” we wailed to Greshler after Wallis left. “Hollywood comes calling, and you send it packing?”
“You think he’s the only fish in the sea?” Greshler said. “You watch—they’ll all come courting.”
Once again, he turned out to be right. And though what resulted wasn’t a shotgun marriage, in the end it might as well have been.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DAY WE ARRIVED IN LOS ANGELES—AUGUST 9, 1948— our new press agent, Jack Keller, took us to George Raft’s house for our first Hollywood party. George
Raft
! My eyes were practically falling out of my head. My God, Raft was the biggest movie star in the world (or at least the biggest one I’d ever met), and here he was in his cabana, telling me to pick out a pair of brand-new swim trunks and go jump into his gorgeous backyard pool. I suited up and ran out to Dean—who was standing poolside, cool as could be, with Loretta Young, Sonny Tufts, Edward G. Robinson, Veronica Lake, Mona