90-year old Jerry Lewis talks about his new film No slowing down

By Mark Olsen

Los Angeles Times

Long before Jerry Lewis even enters a room, his presence and fame fill it. The expectation of his arrival conjures many images and personas: the comedic misfit, the serious maker of smartly silly movies, the earnestly maudlin telethon host, the tireless stage entertainer, the teller of tales from Hollywood’s classical golden age.

Arguably the only constant across those identities is his reputation as an exacting perfectionist. So just why is Jerry Lewis known for being difficult?

“Because I am,” he said with firm declaration. “I expect people that come to the studio to work to come with the same energy I come with. If I see less than that, I get very strong about, if you want to do this, come with a sense of pride, come with eagerness and anxiety.

At 90, Lewis recently made his entrance to the lounge of a hotel in Beverly Hills being pushed in a wheelchair, struggling a bit to move into an armchair on his own.

In the new film “Max Rose,” Lewis plays a retired jazz musician who, while mourning the death of his wife, becomes suspicious that she carried on a long-term affair with another man. His first leading role in a movie since 1995’s “Funny Bones,” Lewis’ performance is ruminative and interior, sincere and raw. The role is potentially a fitting grace note to a storied career.

The film was written and directed by Daniel Noah, also one of the co-founders of the Los Angeles-based genre-focused production outfit SpectreVision, who began the screenplay after having spent a great deal of time with his grandfather in his last years, grieving the death of his grandmother.

The film was shot in late 2012 and early 2013, premiering at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival only a few months after the production wrapped. The rushed and unfinished film was met with a disastrous response.

In the film, Lewis’ character is looked after by his granddaughter (Kerry Bishe) as he attempts to repair his relationship with his son (Kevin Pollak). That aspect of the film may have hit close to home with Lewis, who has six sons from his first marriage and one daughter with his wife Sam, to whom he has been married since 1983. His youngest son, Joseph, died of a drug overdose in 2009 at age 45.

A question about any connection he may have felt between his own family life and that of the character of Max Rose, whether sacrifices were made at home for his career, is what drew Jerry Lewis death stare No. 1.

“Did I miss something? No. My family was as absolute as the work,” Lewis said. “Family was first always.”

At various times in his career, Lewis has played characters who revealed more about himself than, perhaps, he wanted to let out of the box. The sleazoid lounge-lizard Buddy Love – the alter-ego to Lewis’ timid Professor Julius Kelp – might not be the swipe at Lewis’ former partner Dean Martin but, rather, an examination of Lewis’ own internal conflict, between the egotist and the earnest.

Lewis’ isolation by fame was dramatized in Martin Scorsese’s 1982 film “The King of Comedy,” in which he plays a late-night TV host held hostage. And in “Max Rose,” he plays a man grappling with whether his work, and by extension his life, has added up to anything.

A question about the notorious, unreleased, unseen film “The Day the Clown Cried,” which writer-director Lewis made in Europe in the early 1970s and in which he starred as a Jewish clown who leads children to the Nazi gas chambers in World War II, invoked a third and final Jerry Lewis death stare.

“Can’t talk about it. I won’t,” Lewis said. “You can ask me anything you want. That doesn’t mean I’m going to answer you.”

It was reported in 2015 that Lewis’ archives were going to the Library of Congress and that “The Day the Clown Cried” may at last be available for public view in 10 years’ time. Lewis has other thoughts on the matter.

“Never,” he said as to whether the film would finally be shown publicly. “After I’m dead 30 years, you won’t see it. I’ve got it worked out so there’s nothing to show.”

The final moments of “Max Rose” would make for an emotional, elegiac farewell to one of Hollywood’s most enduring stars. Just don’t tell that to Jerry Lewis.

“I don’t know that that’s the case,” Lewis said of how he would feel if “Max Rose” were his last leading role onscreen. “I could start one tomorrow. And I’ve got two in my typewriter now. I’ve been writing for probably a year and a half on a screenplay that I love and that I will do.

“I’m only 90, for Christ’s sake. What do you want?”