King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis by Shawn Levy

For nearly fifty years, the world has been trying to figure out Jerry Lewis. Hip comedian, sentimental clown, Hollywood movie star, Vegas icon, innovative film director, tireless philanthropist: His public face is a confusion of clashing types.
   Shawn Levy's fascinating biography -- the product of vast research and interviews with contemporaries, admirers, foes, and even, briefly, Lewis himself -- traces the story of a man who defines High American Show Biz. At points along the time line of his career, Lewis has been the highest-paid performer in history in film, on television, and (in 1995!) on Broadway. With partner Dean Martin, he was half of the most successful comedy duo of all time. He was the first director who debuted in talkies to direct himself. He was a direct, acknowledged influence on giants from Woody Allen to Lenny Bruce to David Letterman to Jim Carry. He is a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, has raised over $1 billion in charity, and was once nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. And, since the 1950s, he has been one of the most recognised faces on earth.
   For almost that long, though, people have argued over what Jerry Lewis means. Is he a talented comedian or a grotesque mimic? A startingly original director or a pretender to Chaplin's throne? A multifaceted entertainer or a megalomaniacal egoist? A tireless champion of the disabled or a tireless self-promoter who has confused America's charitable impulses with affection for him as a performer?
   Shawn Levy's King of  Comedy is a major life story, at once an honest portrait of a funnyman beset by demons, and a chronicle that covers more than half a century of show-biz history: from Jolson, the Catskills, and burlesque through Hollywood's heyday, the birth of TV, and the glory days of Vegas. It's the life--at times familiar, more often eye-opening--of a man to whom there is no neutral response. It is a funny, dark, and very American story.