Awhile ago, Jerry Lewis was formally ejected from the MDA as its chairman and spokesman, and it was reduced to a 6 hour affair, eventually to end. Ironically, during that same period, the Sahara hotel which used to host the telethon (the last of the great original casinos), announced that it too was closing down for good. His recent death was a great loss to the entertainment world.
I used to vacation in Vegas twice a year when I was single, driving out across the desert to spend a few days in the most American of cities, notoriously labeled Sin City. Typically I went once in April and once in the fall, and a few times I managed to see the MDA show.
During the 60’s and then the 70’s, I always felt Las Vegas and the telethon was America in a nutshell.
The entertainers of the Rat Pack and others that hung with them (Lewis included) always gave 100% in every show they put on. The concept of lip-syncing or calling in a bad show would never occur to these guys. It was a full bore show every dinner hour, and then hi-jinks all night in the casino. The period they performed in, and the city they came to represent, Las Vegas, was all of what was best, and worst, of America. Money, action, sex appeal and spectacle, all wrapped up in a glittery overdone package. This was, and is, the legacy of Las Vegas.
One of the things that disappointed me the most was the disrepair the telethon had fallen into over the years.
The big acts started dying off, and Lewis was seen as a dinosaur and relic of an age that was long gone. When I was kid, the MDA telethon was an event– I often pulled an all-niter, staying up and hoping Sinatra would make an appearance. He always did, and never let down the kids. For me, Labor Day weekend is still an event in my house even to this day, punctuated by late night pizzas and Sunday morning French toast watching the different stories, and Lewis’ sometimes bizarre performance.
Labor Day kicks off the season of the holidays, with birthdays, turkey, pumpkins and Christmas Trees soon to follow. It’s too bad entertainers from the newer generations didn’t contribute as much as the older generation did to this event; and as such some felt the telethon had lost its luster.
Not me.
I can tell you when you see it live, in between commercial breaks, Lewis often came across as tyrant, directing people frantically and criticizing even the slightest mistakes that had been made. Clearly a perfectionist, he would go so far as to even tell cameramen what lens to use or the grip how to maneuver the light better. The thing was, Lewis was—is—a directing genius, and was always right. His humor, while deprecating, was only done with the greatest of love for both the people he worked with and the kids he helped to support. As he got older, and our society’s sensitivities changed, his humor often appeared mean spirited; but I never doubted it was not meant to be harsh, but that of an expert at work.
Lewis, as much as Woody Allen or Rob Reiner, was more than just a brilliant comic and director. He is an institution, as much as the telethon is. Lewis’ contributions to the industry are manifest; many of the techniques he pioneered are used in film-making today.
This Labor Day will be a little sadder and a little emptier after he is gone. While its true most of the donation money now comes from corporate sponsors (take that government entitlements!) and donation drives year round, there’s a more than a little sadness at the shortening of the telethon and the departure of Lewis. The Tonight Show was Johnny Carson, and the MDA telethon is Jerry Lewis. The two are the same, immutable and inseparable.
I’ll won’t be sending off any donation this year, and this year I want to mention a small note of gratitude to not only Lewis, but of a bygone era of martinis, steaks, and always betting on black in a golden painted room. I hope someday a true biopic of Lewis and his contribution to the industry is made; but not too soon.
Times change, the roulette wheel spins, and the sands of the Sahara and the Dunes have trickled away. But Lewis and the telethon will always live on.
At least I hope they do…
