'Lewis writes with awe about Martin's unflappable stage persona,
and with humour and affection'

'Read with a Martini and cigarette in hand'

For ten years after WWII, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis weren't only the most successful show business act in history, they were history. Starting as a fill-in for another act in Atlantic city, their improvised, anarchic routines soon sold out all the greatest venues in America. They made films, they made millions. They made a legend. But amidst the dazzling success and the late night laughter, tensions developed between the reserved straight man, Martin, and the manic goon, Lewis. When the duo, who had reinvented the comic double-act, split acrimoniously in 1956 they didn't speak to one another for the next 20 years. This is an intimate memoir of those years of fame and success by one of the only surviving legends of the rat-pack era. Jerry Lewis remembers everything - the casinos, the mobsters, the endless pranks, the cocktails, the women, the meteoric rise to stardom. Here for the first and only time and in his own inimitable, wise-cracking voice he re-lives his days of glory with Dean Martin and gives a frank account of their relationship and break-up. A hilarious ride and heart-breaking, cautionary tale of what fame and fortune can do to love and friendship.

2008-04-16 Pardners

Over fifty years on it is hard to realise just how big a phenomenon Martin & Lewis were in the decade following the war. Their films now seem unfunny and dated and very little footage appears of their stage act, where they were apparently at their best, but in the late 40's and early 50's the names 'Martin & Lewis' on the billboard would guarantee a full house and a queue around the theatre.

Dean & Me is an affectionate account of that partnership. Jerry Lewis describes how they met as solo acts and were struggling along until they found that together they had a chemistry that made America laugh; exactly what was needed in a nation suffering from post war blues. In a way this book can be seen as primarily a story about friendship, because as friends they made it to the top, but when the friendship started to fade and petty jealousies started to creep in the partnership crumbled. Lewis tells us that they only really reconciled in the later years of Dean Martin's life.

Jerry Lewis is honest about the role in played in the break up of the double act after ten successful years. He readily admits that he let his ego get so inflated that his rudeness and arrogance made him difficult to work with. Indeed, on one occasion his behaviour was so bad that the director had to throw him off a film set and ban him from the production. The main reason they split though, was Dean Martin's dissatisfaction at being regarded as being very much the junior partner, playing second fiddle to Lewis, who was thought of at the time as being the much more talented of the two. It is ironic that nowadays it is Dean Martin that is the more popular of the two, his laid back singing having dated far better than Lewis's style of manic comedy.

All in all, a good read, and I won't hold Dean Martins dislike of England, the reasons for which are entertainingly recounted in this book, against him!