Read Online Dean and Me: A Love Story by James Kaplan, Jerry Lewis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James Kaplan, Jerry Lewis
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question in my eyes. I never said a word, though I wanted to ask, “Are we good enough?”
And he smiled at me as only he could smile, and in his eyes I saw my answer: “We’re fine! We’ll be a smash!”
And we were. Oh, were we a smash. We tore that goddamn place down.
The day after our opening at Slapsy Maxie’s, the studios came calling.
We had an initial meeting with Jack Warner, who delighted in doing his own stand-up and clearly would rather have gotten a laugh with a joke he’d heard from a grip or an electrician than sign a new twenty-year deal with Bette Davis.
Then we got a call asking us to meet with the great Louis B. Mayer himself, at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Culver City. After taking the famous Long Walk—everyone in Hollywood knew about that intimidating corridor that led to Mayer’s office—we were ushered in by two security guards, one on Dean and one on me. The office was known as Mayer’s Folly, and when I saw the layout, I understood why.
We were asked to sit in two chairs carefully placed before Mr. Mayer’s desk—close enough for him to shake our hands. Although he wasn’t a tall man, he was looking down on us, as if we were two street urchins. I kept staring around the huge office, and it soon became evident to me that Mayer was sitting on a platform. It was subtle, but he was definitely sitting higher up than the two of us—an ingenious device that made him the prophet and all those sitting before him the disciples. A great device for him and his need to dominate.... But as young as I was, I could still smell a rat.
We sat and listened politely as he told us his life story: how he’d started from nothing, come west, and built this studio . . . and now he was L. B. Mayer! When he took his first breath from the dissertation and made us an offer for forty thousand dollars a picture—with MGM’s ironclad control over all our outside work—I wanted so much to say, “And you’re still nothing.” But because I was afraid Dean might slash my throat, instead I said, “Mr. Mayer, we would like to sleep on your offer and get back to you.”
Mayer didn’t look happy. “No one out there will better my deal!” he shouted.
Both Dean and I half-smiled. We got up, made that interminable walk to the door, and, as if we had rehearsed it, both turned and waved heartily....
(We later found out that after we’d left, Mayer had delivered the immortal pronouncement: “The guinea’s not bad, but what do I do with the monkey?”)
When we arrived back at our hotel, there was a message to call our agent. Dean made the call. I made a malted—the only true sustenance I gave my body in those days. I was just too excited about everything that was happening to us to eat anything else. My partner, on the other hand, had a six-course dinner every night, without fail. I’d say to him, “Eat, my boy, build yourself up so you can continue to carry the Jew.”
Dean, on the phone with Greshler, was doing all the listening. I heard nothing after the first hello. He finally said, “Okay, Abby, I’ll tell Jerry. He’ll like that a lot.” Then he hung up and, to drive me crazy, stuck a cigarette in his mouth and proceeded to look all over the suite for a match.
I knew what he was up to, but I bit anyway. “Tell me already, you lousy fink,” I said. “And use the goddamn lighter in your pants pocket.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, grinning. “Abby says he’s not really interested in the Mayer meeting,” he told me. “He says we can do better.”
When we sat down with Greshler, he told us that Universal had offered us thirty thousand dollars a picture. Twentieth Century Fox offered a little less, but for a six-picture deal. Sam Goldwyn wanted us as a team, but with the option to split us up when a project called for either a handsome leading man or a crazy Jewish monkey. Republic wanted to make a film with us, but basically wanted to shoot our act in a nightclub. (An interesting
And he smiled at me as only he could smile, and in his eyes I saw my answer: “We’re fine! We’ll be a smash!”
And we were. Oh, were we a smash. We tore that goddamn place down.
The day after our opening at Slapsy Maxie’s, the studios came calling.
We had an initial meeting with Jack Warner, who delighted in doing his own stand-up and clearly would rather have gotten a laugh with a joke he’d heard from a grip or an electrician than sign a new twenty-year deal with Bette Davis.
Then we got a call asking us to meet with the great Louis B. Mayer himself, at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Culver City. After taking the famous Long Walk—everyone in Hollywood knew about that intimidating corridor that led to Mayer’s office—we were ushered in by two security guards, one on Dean and one on me. The office was known as Mayer’s Folly, and when I saw the layout, I understood why.
We were asked to sit in two chairs carefully placed before Mr. Mayer’s desk—close enough for him to shake our hands. Although he wasn’t a tall man, he was looking down on us, as if we were two street urchins. I kept staring around the huge office, and it soon became evident to me that Mayer was sitting on a platform. It was subtle, but he was definitely sitting higher up than the two of us—an ingenious device that made him the prophet and all those sitting before him the disciples. A great device for him and his need to dominate.... But as young as I was, I could still smell a rat.
We sat and listened politely as he told us his life story: how he’d started from nothing, come west, and built this studio . . . and now he was L. B. Mayer! When he took his first breath from the dissertation and made us an offer for forty thousand dollars a picture—with MGM’s ironclad control over all our outside work—I wanted so much to say, “And you’re still nothing.” But because I was afraid Dean might slash my throat, instead I said, “Mr. Mayer, we would like to sleep on your offer and get back to you.”
Mayer didn’t look happy. “No one out there will better my deal!” he shouted.
Both Dean and I half-smiled. We got up, made that interminable walk to the door, and, as if we had rehearsed it, both turned and waved heartily....
(We later found out that after we’d left, Mayer had delivered the immortal pronouncement: “The guinea’s not bad, but what do I do with the monkey?”)
When we arrived back at our hotel, there was a message to call our agent. Dean made the call. I made a malted—the only true sustenance I gave my body in those days. I was just too excited about everything that was happening to us to eat anything else. My partner, on the other hand, had a six-course dinner every night, without fail. I’d say to him, “Eat, my boy, build yourself up so you can continue to carry the Jew.”
Dean, on the phone with Greshler, was doing all the listening. I heard nothing after the first hello. He finally said, “Okay, Abby, I’ll tell Jerry. He’ll like that a lot.” Then he hung up and, to drive me crazy, stuck a cigarette in his mouth and proceeded to look all over the suite for a match.
I knew what he was up to, but I bit anyway. “Tell me already, you lousy fink,” I said. “And use the goddamn lighter in your pants pocket.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, grinning. “Abby says he’s not really interested in the Mayer meeting,” he told me. “He says we can do better.”
When we sat down with Greshler, he told us that Universal had offered us thirty thousand dollars a picture. Twentieth Century Fox offered a little less, but for a six-picture deal. Sam Goldwyn wanted us as a team, but with the option to split us up when a project called for either a handsome leading man or a crazy Jewish monkey. Republic wanted to make a film with us, but basically wanted to shoot our act in a nightclub. (An interesting
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