Jerry Lewis, the comedian and a filmmaker who was loved by many was unquestionably a defining figure of American entertainment in the 20th century, died on Sunday morning at his home in Las Vegas at the age of 91.
His death was confirmed by his publicist, Candi Cazau.
Mr. Lewis has gained immense success and popularity in movies, on television, in nightclubs, on the Broadway stage and in the university lecture hall.
On the other hand, Mr. Lewis made three uninspired films to complete his obligation to Hal Wallis. He served his creative energies for the films he produced himself, including; “Rock-a-Bye Baby” (1958), “The Geisha Boy” (1958) and “Cinderfella” (1960). “The Bellboy” (1960); a virtually plotless hommage to silent-film comedy that he wrote, directed and starred in, playing a hapless employee of the Fontainebleau Hotel at Miami Beach. It was the beginning of Mr. Lewis’s most creative period.
During the next five years, he directed five more films of remarkable stylistic assurance, including “The Ladies Man” (1961), with its huge multistory set of a women’s boardinghouse, and, most notably, “The Nutty Professor” (1963), a variation on “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” in which Mr. Lewis appeared as a painfully shy chemistry professor and his dark alter ego, a swaggering nightclub singer.
After his death, White House issued a brief statement praising his exceptional charity work that touched the lives of millions.
