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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 contract has been personally autographed (signed) by BOTH Dean Martin AND Jerry Lewis! In it, their agent agrees that they will appear on the Charlie McCarthy radio program on October 24, 1948 (a live broadcast), in return for $2,500. Interestingly, the contract says that Martin and Lewis can't appear on any other radio show during the seven days preceding this one, and that they will "comply with all the rules and regulations of the broadcasting system", which might have been standard text, or might have been specifically added for Jerry Lewis, given his many antics at that time! Also, the contract originally had a clause that said that the show producers could re-broadcast it within seven days at no extra charge, and that clause has been crossed out and initialed. The contract is signed by their agent, Abner Grashler, and is also signed by both Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Note that this radio performance was after their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in June of 1948, but before their second TV appearance, on The Milton Berle Show, in October 1948. Our consignor is a longtime dealer who acquired this signed item among many other purchases in his inventory, and he does not have a certificate of authenticity, but we believe the signatures to likely be authentic.

As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

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