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Postwar America was a very buttoned-up nation. Radio shows were run by censors, Presidents wore hats, ladies wore girdles. We came straight out of the blue - nobody was expecting anything like Martin and Lewis. A sexy guy and a monkey is how some people saw us.

Jerry Lewis

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Jerry Lewis
Age: 91 †
Born: 1926
Born: March 16
Died: 2017
Died: August 20
Comedian
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Musician
Screenwriter
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Newark
New Jersey
Joseph Levitch
The King of Comedy
People
Guy
Sexy
Monkey
Nations
Straight
Presidents
President
Radio
Wore
Running
Blue
Martin
Buttoned
Shows
Saws
Monkeys
Girdles
America
Nation
Ladies
Postwar
Anything
Nobody
Hats
Censors
Like
Came
Expecting
Lewis

More quotes by Jerry Lewis

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If I've learned anything in the more than 50 years that I've led MDA, it's that the generosity of the American people knows no bounds. I'm sure that with their fellow citizens in such dire need, they'll dig deep and do everything they can to help. I'm hopeful that many people will be willing to make two phone calls and donate to both causes.
Jerry Lewis
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I've had great success being a total idiot.
Jerry Lewis
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I have nothing against women. As a matter of fact there's something about them that I love, but I just can't put my finger on it.
Jerry Lewis
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Don't give me paper - I can get the same lawyer who drew it up to break it. But if you shake my hand, that's for life.
Jerry Lewis
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I am probably the most selfish man you will ever meet in your life. No one gets the satisfaction or the joy that I get out of seeing kids realize there is hope.
Jerry Lewis
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The young man who's had the Guggenheim fortune behind him all his life - he can hire all the authorities on the subject to teach him how to do a monologue, but he's never going to have the right stuff to pull it off. If he doesn't walk out onstage needing to walk out there, he doesn't have a dream of doing well.
Jerry Lewis
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People think I'm against critics because they are negative to my work. That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is they didn't see the work. I have seen critics print stuff about stuff I cut out of the film before we ran it. So don't tell me about critics.
Jerry Lewis
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Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.
Jerry Lewis
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I turned down 'Some Like It Hot.' See how smart I am? I felt I couldn't bring anything funny to it. The outfit was funny. I don't need to compete with the wardrobe.
Jerry Lewis
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When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, 'Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?' He answered, 'If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you.
Jerry Lewis
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The doc told me I had a dual personality. Then he lays an 82 dollar bill on me, so I give him 41 bucks and say, 'Get the other 41 bucks from the other guy.'
Jerry Lewis
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Every man's dream is to be able to sink into the arms of a woman without also falling into her hands.
Jerry Lewis
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If I found the cure for dystrophy tomorrow, I would do a telethon in four weeks for acute pain that in this country is a bigger problem than cancer, heart, sickle cell, anemia, name it. It is - it's hitting 70 million Americans.
Jerry Lewis
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When I would be myself, I was being big-headed. I was being egotistical. I was a megalomaniac, when it really was just having not to be a monkey for a few hours a day. And fulfilling the need to be a man.
Jerry Lewis
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A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world.
Jerry Lewis
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Adrenaline is wonderful. It covers pain. It covers dementia. It covers everything.
Jerry Lewis
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For those who understand, no explaination is needed...For those who don't, none will do.
Jerry Lewis
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Comedy is a man in trouble. And without it, there's no humor.
Jerry Lewis
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I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have and I never will. I'm an entertainer for 75 years.
Jerry Lewis
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It'll keep you alive for another 10 years if you get yourself a laugh once a day: either provoke it, or look around in the wildest laboratory in the world, the public.
Jerry Lewis