Jerry Lewis Donates Archive to the Library of Congress

Jerry Lewis Donates Archive to the Library of Congress

Posted on September 15, 2015 at 8:00 am

Jerry Lewis has donated a large collection of movies and memorabilia to the Library of Congress, where it will be available for researchers, historians, and critics.

Copyright Jerry Lewis 1960
Copyright Jerry Lewis 1960

“The Geisha Boy,” “The Bellboy,” “Cinderfella,” and “The Nutty Professor” are all among the many motion pictures that personify the comedic genius of Jerry Lewis. The Library of Congress announced today that it has acquired a trove of documents, films and other media that provide a unique window into the world of a man who has spent more than 70 years making people laugh.

In celebration of the materials arriving at the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, Lewis will perform at 8 p.m., Friday, Oct. 9, at the historic State Theatre in Culpeper, Virginia in cooperation with the Library of Congress. “An Evening with Jerry Lewis” is a ticketed event. For more information, visit the State Theatre’s website (www.culpepertheatre.org) or call (540) 829-0292.

Before the concert, Lewis will tour the Library of Congress Packard Campus in Culpeper to see where his collection will be stored and preserved as part of the nation’s artistic and cultural patrimony. The collection will complement the Library’s existing collections of iconic humorists, including Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Danny Kaye, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Sid Caesar and Johnny Carson.

“Many of us know Jerry Lewis through his comedy, in film and onstage, or for his humanitarian work,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “Lewis is one of the few comic auteurs. This collection will give the world a more complete picture of his life as a performer, director, producer, writer, recording artist, author, educator and philanthropist. He is one of America’s funniest men, who has demonstrated that comedy as a medium for laughter is one of humanity’s greatest gifts.”

“For more than seven decades I’ve been dedicated to making people laugh. If I get more than three people in a room, I do a number,” Lewis joked. “Knowing that the Library of Congress was interested in acquiring my life’s work was one of the biggest thrills of my life. It is comforting to know that this small piece of the world of comedy will be preserved and available to future generations.” Lewis donated portions of the collection; the rest was acquired via purchase.

The Jerry Lewis Collection contains more than 1,000 moving image materials and paper documentation that cover the entire span of his remarkable career—from an early screen test made years before his movie debut to extensive amounts of test footage, outtakes and bloopers from his self-produced and often self-directed Hollywood productions.

The collection also chronicles his television career, including his appearances with his onetime partner Dean Martin on the “Colgate Comedy Hour” (NBC, 1950-1955), full runs of his various variety series and guest appearances on programs like “The Tonight Show.” Lewis received copies of virtually every television appearance he ever made, including “Tonight” show episodes, that don’t exist anywhere else. Other now-obscure programs such as “Broadway Open House” are also in the collection.

In addition, there are home movies, films given to Lewis as gifts (such as the 35 mm print of “Modern Times,” which was given to him by Charles Chaplin), videos of his lectures given while instructing at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, filmed nightclub appearances both with and without Martin, and footage from his legendary work on the Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon.

Collection highlights include:

35 mm prints and pre-prints of many of Lewis’ most popular films including “The Bellboy,” “The Errand Boy” and “The Family Jewels.”
A rare autographed picture of famous silent comedian Edgar Kennedy.
Test footage—of costumes, make-up, camera and actor screen tests—from some of Lewis’ leading films, including a complete one-reel silent comedy filmed on the set of “The Patsy.
Home movies of Lewis at work and play, featuring such notables as his rock-star son Gary Lewis, comedian Milton Berle at Disneyland in 1955 and Lewis and Dean Martin on the set of “Pardners.”
Fully scripted motion pictures produced by Lewis at home, which often starred Lewis’ neighbors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Titles include “Fairfax Avenue” (spoofing “Sunset Boulevard”) “Come Back Little Shiksa” and “The Re-Enforcer,” starring Dean Martin.
Rare footage of Martin and Lewis doing their nightclub act.

The Jerry Lewis Collection will be available to qualified researchers in the Library’s Motion Picture and Television Reading Room in Washington, D.C. Processing of the collection continues, but much of it is currently available to researchers. A small portion of the collection, however, will be restricted for 10 years.

Lewis was born Joseph Levitch in Newark, New Jersey on March 16, 1926. Born into a vaudeville family, Lewis started performing at the age of five. In 1945, he met crooner Dean Martin and a year later, they formed the comedy team Martin and Lewis. The famous duo became an instant hit in nightclubs, film, radio and television. After performing with Martin for more than a decade, Lewis became a successful solo actor and director and Martin embarked on a singing-acting career.

Lewis also turned his talents toward teaching and charitable work. He received several lifetime achievement and humanitarian awards. He has been honored by The American Comedy Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He received the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors’ highest Emmy Award, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for his humanitarian efforts and received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2009 Academy Awards.

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Interview: Patricia Clarkson on “Learning to Drive”

Interview: Patricia Clarkson on “Learning to Drive”

Posted on September 11, 2015 at 9:53 pm

Copyright 2015 Broad Green Pictures
Copyright 2015 Broad Green Pictures

Patricia Clarkson stars as Wendy in Learning to Drive, the story of a New York writer who has to get her first driver’s license after her husband of 21 years leaves her for another woman. The license is just a symbol of all she has to do to learn how to pay more attention to what is going on around her and to become more independent. In an interview, Clarkson explained why this small story resonates so deeply. “I think it’s not unique to women. Men have to go through growth experiences too. They do, they do, we all have to. As we age we have to encounter strife and change and that’s to me what interests me about making movies, it’s to reflect the things that we as adults are really going through. I mean I love to play fantastical characters really but it’s also nice a play people who have real life problems.”  It seems that in every scene she is at a different stage, from denial to acceptance and transcendence, so I asked how she kept that all straight while filming out of sequence.  “I spent a lot of time with the script. It’s part of acting, it’s part of learning, taking the journey and so as we work on a script, actors have to do homework and we have to really do homework or we’ll be caught up short. And so I had to just kind of chart her levels of denial and rage and anger and acceptance and love and I think at the end that’s where she lands.  She’s able to love herself and other people and that’s the beauty of this journey. This is a woman who finds a better self, not a new self, a better self, a less surface self, which is a great journey for all of us to be on. More engaged, present. In this world of selfies and computers, we forget to actually be present in life, to actually take others in, to actually hear other people’s troubles, joys, to know anything. We forget to actually look right in front of us or look right beside us. That’s the beautiful metaphor of this film in that through driving she learns so much more about life. You have to pay attention, you have to look, you have to be present, you have to care. You have to be absorbed in something other than yourself.”

Clarkson herself learned how to drive without any drama.  “I was born and raised in the great city of New Orleans and my father taught me to drive at 16. I was actually a pretty good driver but as I slowly became more and more of a New Yorker, as I slowly become more and more like Wendy, my driving abilities waned. So the glorious Sir Ben Kingsley had to trust in me that I had enough abilities left over to drive him in our scenes.” Unlike a real driving instructor, he did not have a passenger-side brake.

She was especially proud of the women behind the movie. “It’s extraordinary. I would say I have many, many proud moments on this film struggling to get it made and actually the first day of shooting was an extraordinary moment. But a couple of weeks ago we had a New York premiere and I took a photo. You know a picture says more than 1000 words. In that photo is the great Katha Pollitt who wrote the essay, Sarah Kernochan who did the adaptation, Isabel Coixet our extraordinary director, Thelma Schoonmaker the great one and only, greatest living editor of all time, myself, I’m okay, and Dana Friedman, our producer, it is a remarkable moment in cinema history that these six women came together. We had great men in front of the camera, it doesn’t get any better and two remarkable young men who started a production company and this was the first film they made and they were young men which is why I call them visionary. But this particular film, to have the six women at the helm, women who were not 25, 35, none of us were even 50. That’s a beautiful moment in this industry, it’s a proud moment for this industry. It’s a moment I shall cherish for a very very very long time.”

That may be why this movie has a sex scene that is more from a woman’s perspective than we usually see in films. “Sex scenes in movie are always not what they appear but I loved the scene. I thought it was funny, true, necessary, valuable to the story. Which you don’t get all the time and it’s nice that women my age are naked on film, it’s nice to see young women naked on film. But we have to continue to see women of all ages naked on film. We certainly see men of all ages naked on film.” She also spoke about the brief nudity in a flashback domestic scene with Wendy and her husband. “We know each other; it’s just a moment but it’s what she reflects on, which is what we do reflect on. When we miss someone we reflect often on the most ordinary.”

Clarkson also loved the cross-cultural friendship Wendy has with her Sikh driving instructor, an immigrant from India played by Sir Ben Kingsley. “At the end of the day what I honor most about this film is that we are obviously from different cultures, Sir Ben and I, our characters Wendy and Darwan, but at the end of the day we are just two people and we are grown-ups. It is about how true friendship can have a profound effect and change on one’s life. I hold most high and most dear those relationships. I have exquisite friends and I must say at the end of the day when I’m feeling blue or feeling fraught or feeling less, then I remember the remarkable and extraordinary friendships that I have. And this film is I think at the end of the day an ode to friendship, to adult friendships. And we can get a lot out of a relationship that is chaste, that is that is pure and that’s a nice thing. Purity is a beautiful quality. So having a pure friendship is a beautiful thing, when it’s not all muddled.”

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Tribute: Dean Jones

Posted on September 3, 2015 at 2:20 pm

When the sad news came about the death of actor Dean Jones, those who remembered him most fondly mostly fell into two separate groups with not much overlap. Many baby boomers remembered him as the eternally fresh-faced star of Disney films like “The Love Bug” and “The Shaggy DA.” And Broadway musical fans remembered him as originating the central figure in the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical “Company.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6S1EvWcub4

The “hippies” in this clip seem more of a fantasy than the magic car.

Here he is with Dorothy Provine and Hayley Mills in the original “That Darn Cat.”

Jones appeared in “Company” briefly, but his performance on the cast album is considered a classic.

He appeared in “Jailhouse Rock” with Elvis Presley and with Jane Fonda in “Any Wednesday.”

He was a committed Christian whose Christian Rescue Fund protects persecuted Christians and Jews.

May his memory be a blessing.

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Actors Tribute
Interview: Rachel Hendrix of “77 Chances”

Interview: Rachel Hendrix of “77 Chances”

Posted on August 30, 2015 at 3:39 pm

Copyright 2015 Echolight
Copyright 2015 Echolight

Rachel Hendrix plays Mac in the faith-based romantic film “77 Chances.” It’s a “Groundhog Day”-style story about a young man who feels lost after the death of his mother. He meets a pretty girl and they have a wonderful evening together until a tragic accident. He keeps repeating the same day, 77 times, until he can figure out a way to keep her safe.

I can’t think of a bigger challenge for an actor than essentially doing the same scene so many different ways. Tell me a little bit about how you kept that straight.

They paid somebody to keep that straight so I don’t have to worry about it. The writer Tracy Trost, who also directed, did a good job of showing how every day can be different if you make different choices. And so it was really fun to see how he examined that and how no matter what, never do you more than once have the same day which was interesting. It kind of makes you think about how you live your life and the little nuanced things that we do to affect the people we encounter. It was challenging because you are in the same clothes and you don’t really get a lot of exploration with your character as things happen over time, but you do get to explore your character in different scenarios and that was different. I’ve never done anything like that before.

In the scene where you have your first conversation while you are standing in line to get lunch, your character reacted very differently to different overtures that he tried each day.

I think in the beginning she’s curious about this guy. She wants to know who he is and what he is doing and what his story is and so she is kind of initiating a conversation. I guess you would call that a move. And you see him respond to that in very kind of awkward he doesn’t know what to do with it kind of way. But I feel like it was a realistic depiction of what a first conversation might look like in a scenario like that and it was neat to let that be warm and friendly and natural and organic and see how we messed it up so often when he tried to repeat it. And I think that’s a big statement on humanity in general when we try to force something or we try to be artificial or re-create something that’s already been created, it often times surprises us how far away we are from that, how it’s not really possible to re-create it. So that was fun to kind of jump into that first. We shot all of those pieces all on the same night so that was a really repetitive night but a whole lot of fun and we did that scene first before all of the other ones in sequential order which you typically don’t do on film. It was fun. It was kind of fun to be thrust into – hey this is what the relationship could be like if you didn’t keep messing it up.

One of the scenes that is very affecting in the film is when your character talks about the broach. Do you have a memento like that that’s very meaningful to you?

If I had to grab one thing because my house was burning down, it would be my journal for sure. I don’t think I’ve got a memento or like an actual physical object that was given to me. Other than right now, I am wearing a necklace that somebody gave to me that says “brave” on it and I love it. It’s probably one of the only things that I have that is like a tangible object that I have held on to. But in terms of the value of the written word and the recording of history or recording of stories, experiences, that’s something I would always go back to as a memento for life, my life. So I created them myself, they haven’t been given to me. All the stories were given to me by other people and all my experiences were given to me by other people so I guess that kind of counts.

How did you come to this movie?

I was reading over the script and it looked like a really great story. And I think what attracted me the most to the opportunity was that this is would be like a student film shooting at a university. The the students were all part of a program where they were required to jump right in and crew a professional movie with little to no experience. Really the only experience they have is what they are learning in their classrooms. So it was an opportunity to come in and offer up whatever I could in terms of my experience or my education in acting, which is limited, but to really just like reach out and teach which is something I don’t do very often but I enjoy. So we worked it out and I flew out.

Did you enjoy having a part that was lighter in tone than your previous work?

I enjoyed that and I think I told someone soon after I finished shooting that that was the most natural casting to who I really am of anything that I have done and it was easy because of that. And I enjoyed it just kind of playing myself, not afraid to be vulnerable but kind of hesitant with a new person, somebody with a story, somebody with a painful back history. And it was really enjoyable to explore that with the character that is opposite that. And Andrew Cheney did a fantastic job. He was really magnetic and just easy to spend time with on screen. I so appreciated his energy and his work. I enjoyed working with him and I hope he took away something as well from just hanging out with me and how much I was like that character. And I think the students being on set every day, being sponges and willing to go the extra mile to serve and do great work because their degree depended on it. It was quite surprising how much I enjoyed that, that whole thing just felt really like home and it just continued affirming for me that this is what I want to do and every film I have done since then has just reiterated that.

What is it that really captured you about acting?

I think it boils down to the possibility of when you are an actor, you’re trying to tell a powerful story. You have an opportunity to reach a broad audience, to touch a broad audience, to inspire a broad audience, to have an audience empathize with what you are feeling. That is one thing that cinema does which is so beautiful, is the human experience that happens when a person is sitting in a chair watching another person on screen in empathy. It can invoke empathy and I can’t think of a lot of tools of the pillars of our country, the pillars, the things that this world stands on other than art media, film being in that category that really move people to empathy. If you want to have influence that make people feel, you get involved in the arts. A

You studied photography in college. What did that teach you about being on the other side of the camera?

Being on the other side of camera has taught me a lot. It has taught me a lot about lights and not just the technical aspect of the camera but what ultimately the camera is used for; to frame something, to tell a story or to capture a beautiful image or to paint something with light. I really think that the two inform each other and by having had so much experience behind the camera, that might be why it was easy for me in my first short film to just stand there and be myself and not act, not do anything, just be. Hopefully that is what acting is, it’s just being and listening and responding. So it’s been very helpful and I continue to learn photography. I think I always will. And I will always have my camera with me, I will always bring it with me. It’s just a part of what I do, it’s part of my process and I have enjoyed the freedom to return to it in between when the acting jobs that are coming and going but it’s always a part of seeing it. I do feel like they inform each other in a way that grows me wherever I am behind or in front.

Do you have a favorite Bible verse?

I have so many. This is not my favorite but it is one that I really like. “Do not forget to entertain strangers for by doing so you may have entertained angels without knowing it.”

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Actors Interview Spiritual films

Three Hundred Year-Old Actors Are Still Working

Posted on August 29, 2015 at 3:32 pm

Scott Feinberg talked to three actors with a combined age of 302 for The Hollywood Reporter. Patricia Morison (age 100), Norman Lloyd (age 100) and Connie Sawyer (age 102) shared memories and offered tips.

All are in good health. “I don’t feel any age,” says Morison. “I know I’m old, but I just feel like me.” Lloyd puts it this way: “There’s a conflict between what’s in your mind and what’s in your body.” They each led active lives. Sawyer says, “I always danced, played golf, swam — I was a doer all my life.” “I was playing good tennis up until 100,” says Lloyd, who had a regular game with Chaplin and once played a set with a young man named John F. Kennedy. “It was only after fall that I became aware of my age. I move slowly and I used to move fast. I miss that.”

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