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Jerry Lewis
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Jerry Lewis (bornJerry (or Jerome) Levitch, March 16 1926) is an American comedian and actor. He is best known for acting in many comedy movies from the 1950s and 1960s. He ... helps to raise money for people with disabilities and illnesses. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, USA.
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Slapstick specialist Jerry Lewis was one of the top movie comedians of the 1950s and 1960s. Lewis and Dean Martin were a hugely successful comedy team of stage, screen and radio. They made a string of popular movies from 1949 to 1956, with Martin as the straight man and Lewis as the zany cut-up. After they ended their partnership, Lewis went on to produce, direct and star in comedies such as The Bellboy and The Nutty Professor. Lewis is widely known for his annual Labor Day telethon, a charitable event raising money to fight muscular dystrophy.
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French affection for Jerry Lewis has always mystified Americans. Highbrow critics (the only kind France has) wrote appreciatively about his work beginning in the 1950s, but things didn't really get rocking until Jerry's visit to France in 1965. Though past his peak in America by then, he was mobbed at the airport by fans and the press and was the toast of Paris for a week. French critics, who had voted The Nutty Professor the best film of the year, gave him an award, an art cinema put on a three-week Jerry Lewis festival, and the French film library held a retrospective with seminars on Jerry's art. Rosenbaum recalls Lewis hosting a two-hour prime-time show on French television in the 70s, with "guests like Louis Malle literally at his feet."
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On April 20th, Jerry Lewis had a permanent neurostimulation system implanted by Dr. Ben Venger, a neurosurgeon in Las Vegas. The procedure was similar to the neurostimulation trial, only this time his neurosurgeon implanted the entire system-including the neurostimulator-beneath Jerry's skin (under the skin of his abdomen). Jerry takes no other pain medication and has suffered no side effects, but side effects are possible and can happen. Because the system is surgically placed, risks of infections do exist. Device complications, such as lead displacement causing an interruption in pain relief... exist.
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As National Chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Jerry Lewis has personified the fight against neuromuscular diseases for more than four decades. The most effective fund-raiser in television history, Lewis' thirty-three Labor Day Telethons have raised more than $850 million. This year, in addition to its broadcast on 200 TV stations, the telethon will be webcast. To tune into the live show (which starts Sunday, September 6 at 6:00 p.m.), you will need the free RealPlayer plugin (http://www.real.com/products/player/index.html). Donations are processed via a secure server. Look for the olive green "DONATE" button.
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In "My Friend Irma" (1949), their screen debut, would-be stage stars Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis befriend scatterbrained blonde Marie Wilson. "My Friend Irma Goes West" (1950) finds the trio hopping a train to California and getting mixed up in a zany kidnapping plot. Martin is a football star charged with toughening up meek and mild Lewis, in "That's My Boy" (1951). The boys are Navy men wreaking havoc on a submarine, in "Sailor Beware" (1952). It's "Geronimo!" for Dean and Jerry when they play entertainers touring Army bases who wind up as recruits for the paratroop squad, in "Jumping Jacks" (1952).
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