Jerry Lewis shoots for stage success at Aurora's Paramount
Audiences beware.
When comedy icon Jerry Lewis performs his personal brand of sit-down humor at Aurora's Paramount Theatre Sunday, he might be loaded.
Even armed.
I only say this because of what happened 32 years ago this month when I interviewed Lewis on tour to promote his autobiography "Jerry Lewis: In Person" at Chicago's Ritz Carlton Hotel.
After the interview, Lewis said he wanted to show me something: a gun, one he said he carried with him at all times. As I recall, it was a small, hammerless .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.
To my knowledge, Lewis has not yet employed his snubby to deal with assailants, critics, bad telethon acts or rude audience members.
What I remember most about our interview was how the then 56-year-old writer/producer/director/star/philanthropist/teacher/innovator coached me in his favorite hotel pastimes: how to draw birds on the artwork hanging on the hotel walls, and how to catapult butter patties on to the ceiling using hotel napkins as slingshots.
"I'm 9 years old and I'm never going to be any different," he told me. "I still get pretty nuts. As long as I can create fun, I get pretty bananas. Would you have me any other way?"
Fans will get to decide that when Lewis, now 88, performs his one-man show at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26. For an interview, I emailed questions to Lewis, who does not use phones because of hearing loss.
I asked him: Why get out there on the stage given your age and health?
"The audience is the reason I still go out there and perform," Lewis replied. "I do it for them. And I get so much in return. Walking onstage and getting a standing ovation before the show even begins is an incredible feeling. To have an audience applaud after a film clip of work I did 50 or 60 years ago is something any performer dreams of."
I asked Lewis if his new musical "The Nutty Professor," based on his 1963 classic film, would ever make it to Broadway, and would he direct it as he had an earlier production in Nashville, Tenn.?
"'Nutty' is still very much on track," Lewis reported. "We are waiting for the right Broadway theater to become available. I love the Marquis where I did 'Damn Yankees.' Coordinating schedules with all the people it takes to get a Broadway musical together these days takes a while. 'The Nutty Professor' is my baby, of course, and I will be involved."
I hesitated to inquire about "The Day the Clown Cried," his unreleased 1972 movie about a German clown who entertains Jewish children being taken to the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps.
I asked if the movie will ever be released. His blunt answer: "No. It's my movie and my decision."
I remembered that Lewis once put his career in jeopardy when he refused to stand up when powerful gossip columnist Louella Parsons entered Chasen's Restaurant. She ripped Lewis to pieces in subsequent columns.
Lewis told me in 1982, "I think that if I, at that time, had been as wise as 56 makes you, I would have stood."
So I put it to him now: Would he at that time, had he been as wise as 88 makes you, stood up for Louella Parsons?
"If I had it to do over again," Lewis wrote, "I'd stay seated."
Two final questions:
1. Have you ever consumed an Alaskan polar bear heater cocktail like your alter-ego Buddy Love chugs in "The Nutty Professor"?
"No," Lewis responded. "One sip and I'd be bombed!"
2. What's the best thing about being Jerry Lewis?
"When I open my eyes in the morning, I'm a hit!"
Note: A tribute to Lewis simply titled "Jerry Lewis" is available on Xfinity On Demand, as are many of Lewis' movies, with and without his late partner Dean Martin.
Jerry Lewis
When: 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26
Where: Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora, (630) 896-6666,
Tickets: $45-$65