Free Dean and Me: A Love Story by James Kaplan, Jerry Lewis Page B

Dorothy Lamour, Marlene Dietrich, Alan Ladd, William Bendix, Bill Holden, Rosemary Clooney, Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, and Kirk Douglas—all in the same place at once! Some of the biggest stars ate in the private dining room, a privilege we, too, would be allowed once we became box-office hits—and not a second before.
    Then lunch was over, and it was back to Stage 9, where I would shoot my screen test with Marie Wilson.
    Mr. Marshall explained the scene to me: I was to play Al, Irma’s loser boyfriend. Al was a schemer, a leech; Irma basically worked to support him. He was brash, he was pushy—Hal Wallis must have thought that role was created for the Jerry Lewises of the world. Since the movie was, after all, a comedy, Al was supposed to come off as funny, with a kind of Damon Runyon edge to him. Remember Jack Carson in all those B pictures of the forties? But I wasn’t Jack Carson. It was hard for me to think of a way to make this character sympathetic.
    Marie and I did the scene. She was cute, she was bubbly—but she was thirty-two years old to my twenty-two, ten years that really made a difference. And I, having never acted before, was trying hard to pretend to be someone I profoundly was not.
    Neither my partner nor I could figure out why Dean was essentially playing himself and I was supposed to play someone else altogether. What had Hal Wallis seen at the Copa that made him want to sign us? Where were the two guys he saw that night?
    Good questions!
    I had a sinking feeling the next afternoon when we sat down in the executive screening room. Dean’s screen test with Diana was wonderful, as we all knew it would be. Cy Howard was thrilled. George Marshall was ecstatic. Hal Wallis and the Paramount executives in the room were slapping him on the back.
    Then came the scene with Marie and me.
    It limped onto the screen, and finished even limper. When it was over, it was so quiet in that room, you could have heard a mouse piss on a blotter.
    Wallis suggested we meet in his office. We all gathered there—Dean and I, our agent, press agent, and lawyer; Wallis and his minions— around twenty people in all, and the atmosphere was not lighthearted. “Gentlemen, I think we all agree we have a problem on our hands,” Wallis said. “I think we must move ahead with great care, given the very significant commitment we’ve made to Paramount on Martin and Lewis. We have to deliver on that commitment. Now, my suggestion is that we all sleep on this, and reconvene at the end of the workday tomorrow to begin to formulate a plan.”
    My heart sank even further. I was a sharp kid, and I knew what Wallis was up to: He wanted to spend the early part of the day on the phone conferring with Paramount executives in New York, seeing what his options were. Maybe cut the Monkey loose and make the Crooner a star? I had to think that was on somebody’s mind. Nobody but Dean would really look me in the eye.
    The driver took us back to our hotel. “Sleep on it,” I muttered. “Sleep on what? Sleep on the fact that they
took what we were and
changed us!
”
    In our suite, Dean and I sat in silence. Finally, he said, “Hey, who the hell wants to live in Los Angeles, anyway?”
    Oops
, I thought.
Here we go. He’s gonna do it. He’s about to make the grand
gesture
.
    “Listen,” Dean said. “If they just put the camera on what we did at the Copa, it would’ve been great!”
    “But that’s not what movies are about,” I said. “Movies are about personalities playing characters. Movies are about story.”
    “Well, I say bullshit,” Dean said. “I say it’s Martin and Lewis or nothing.”
    I loved him for it, and I was torn. There was no way in hell I could watch my partner throw away what might be his chance of a lifetime; at the same time, I agreed totally with what he was saying. There was no way in hell I could watch Hal Wallis throw away Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
    We decided to forget our worries and