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Dean Martin was was an actor and singer from the 1940s to the 1980s. He was a member of the Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Peter Lawford. He was partnered with Jerry Lewis in live performances and in a series of memorable movies until they had a very publicized break-up, after which each had long solo careers. Some of his roles included Rio Bravo, The Young Lions, and Some Came Running AND Jerry Lewis was born Joseph Levitch in Newark, New Jersey in 1926. He began performing at an early age. His father was an entertainer and M.C. who performed as Danny Lewis, and his son used the stage name Joey Lewis at first, but changed it to Jerry to avoid confusion with either Joe E. Lewis or boxer Joe Louis. In the late 1940s, he met singer Dean Martin, and Dean served as his "straight man", and they performed in night clubs and TV, and in a string of incredibly successful movies. But as Jerry became more and more the focus of the act Dean became increasingly dissatisfied, and the two broke up in 1956. Jerry continued making movies (writing, directing, and starring in most of them), and many feel many of his solo movies were superior to the ones he made with Dean. Perhaps his best was The Nutty Professor in 1963, where he played a mild mannered professor who turns into Buddy Love, in a wacky parody of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In 1965, Jerry injured his back while performing and became addicted to Percodan, and he battled this addiction for at least a decade. From 1966 to 2010, Jerry hosted the annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon on TV, which raises millions of dollars every year. In 1976, Dean appeared on the Telethon, and even though they had made some minor appearances together in the past decade, this was widely touted as the first reconciliation of the legendary comedy team. In 1981, Jerry attempted a comeback with Hardly Working, and although the movie made some money, his style of humor (which basically made fun of mentally and physically disabled people) had fallen out of favor, and mercifully it was the only such movie Jerry made. He switched to dramatic roles, and in 1983 he took the Johnny Carson-like role in Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy, and was great. He also was memorable as Eli Sternberg in an arc of the cult favorite TV show, Wiseguy. There is an urban legend that "the French" love Jerry Lewis. I traveled to France twice, and both times I asked numerous people about this, and they all had no idea what I was talking about. Perhaps it started because some French critics in the 1960s praised Lewis as an "auteur" at a time when some American critics were calling his movies "lowbrow"!

Important Added Info: Note that this still has been personally autographed (signed) by BOTH Dean Martin AND Jerry Lewis! Note that this autographed 8x10 is one of 91 that were consigned to us by a former theater owner. He owned two different major theaters in Louisiana from the 1940s through the 1970s, and he sometimes had premieres of movies at his theaters, at which time some of the celebrities connected to the movies would appear in person (this was often done in the 1950s and 1960s). When celebrities came to his theater, he would have them autograph 8x10 stills for him in person, and that got him started collecting signed stills, so at some point in the 1950s, he began requesting the studios to have them send him stills signed by the stars of movies he had recently shown at his theater when he was holding a special event or having the anniversary of his theater's opening! Over the next decade, he collected 91 signed stills that were sent to him by the studios through the mail, as well as several dozen that he obtained in person. We auctioned those "in person" signed stills in our previous auctions, and now we are auctioning the 91 stills where he obtained the signatures through the mail from the studios.

We know for certain that he received these stills directly from the studios, but we can't say for certain if the stills were signed by the stars or if they were signed by secretaries. But since he owned a major theater, and since many of the stills were personalized to him (or to his theater), we would think it likely that most, if not all, of these 91 stills have genuine signatures that are NOT secretarial signatures. But we suggest that anyone bidding on these stills compare their signatures to other examples of that star's signature, so they can best determine if the signature is from that star.

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