Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were introduced on a New York street in March of 1945. Dean was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, on June 7, 1917. Jerry was born Jerome Levitch in Newark, New Jersey, on March 16, 1926.
They were introduced that fateful day by a mutual friend, an Italian singer named Sonny King. At the time, Dean was a semi-successful singer, performing around the East Coast in nightclubs and on his own radio show. Jerry was eking out a living doing a "record act," where he would mime to records by famous singers, all the while mugging outrageously.
According to one later interview, their initial reactions to each other reflected the fact that neither was very impressed. Jerry thought Dean was "conceited, snooty and stand-offish," Dean thought Jerry was "a young wise guy." Despite these initial opinions, the two soon became friends.
Staying in the same hotel, as well as being chronically out of work, Jerry would babysit Dean's kids for him. Soon, by pure coincidence, the two would sometimes be booked at the same clubs. Jerry and Dean would sometimes goof around onstage together, heckling each other, doing imitations and cracking jokes. The audiences ate it up, the boys had fun, but nothing more came of it.