eMoviePoster.com

What are the objects in the corners of some images? Learn More

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!

About the Collection this Item Comes From
Note that this item (and 40 others we are auctioning this week, each in its own auction) was consigned to us by a man who was a major movie memorabilia dealer in the 1970s and 1980s. During that time, he was approached by an elderly man named Sterling H. Bond, who had collected autographs for many years (starting in the early 1930s), and who sold the dealer his entire collection. Bond had tracked down many important Hollywood celebrities and obtained autographed items (often personalized to him), and he also had autographs from celebrities who were not in the film business (including famous politicians!). The dealer was so impressed with this collection that rather than sell it item by item, he began collecting autographs himself, sending celebrities items by Registered Mail which they then autographed and returned to him! He also purchased a few autographed items from top autograph dealers of the 1970s and 1980s. Now, decades later, the dealer has consigned these autographed items to us. So all of these 41 autographed items we are auctioning were either obtained by long time collector Sterling H. Bond, or were obtained by this memorabilia dealer, and we feel certain that the autograph on this item is authentic! Note that each of the 41 items from this consignor all have this paragraph on them.

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775