Dean and Me: A Love Story (10 page)

But God, did they pay attention to
him
. And I have to admit: When I was an impressionable young man, one of the first things that fascinated me about Dean was the way he smelled.

The postwar years were a great era for men’s colognes, especially after Leo Durocher, the tough-guy manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers (who would become a pal of ours) let it slip that he liked to slap on something nice-smelling after he showered and shaved, and he didn’t care who knew it. Dean’s cologne was the provocatively named Woodhue (say it out loud and it sounds like the kind of question Dean might ask a beautiful young woman—or that beautiful young women would ask him), by Fabergé. The minute I first sniffed it, I associated it with the almost incredible voodoo my partner exerted on the opposite sex. I wanted some of that, too!

I began paying close attention to Dean’s postshower ritual: He would take his bottle of Woodhue, pour some into one cupped palm, then put the bottle down and slap his palms together. Then he’d rub the cologne all over his body—as far as I could see, anyway. At this point he was always in the bathroom, the door just slightly ajar to let out the steam. After a couple of minutes, he’d emerge in his robe, smiling with complete satisfaction: He looked, felt, and smelled great!

I’ll never forget what happened one day in Detroit.

We had done six shows at the Fox Theater, were dog-tired, and were back in our suite at the Book-Cadillac Hotel. Dean was lying on his bed, reading a comic and drinking a beer, and I was ready to take a nice, long shower. I sauntered into the elegant bathroom, turned the radio on, and stepped into the shower, ready to spend twenty minutes just letting the warm water hit my body. The music was nice, we had done six terrific shows, and I felt swell.

When I stepped out of the shower, I yelled out to Dean: “Hey, Paul— can I use some of your Woodhue?”

“Sure, use what you like!”

I took the bottle, unscrewed the top, and, just for a moment, admired my twenty-three-year-old body in the full-length mirror. Then I started to splash the cologne on—under my arms, on my chest, on my legs, even down my back....

Then I poured some of the liquid into my hand, put the bottle on the sink, and proceeded to anoint Little Jerry and the entire surrounding region.

It might have been about fifteen seconds before the burning sensation began—and did it ever. I bounced out of the bathroom Indian-style, whooping and dancing in pain. I went through both bedrooms into the kitchenette, then the sitting area, until finally, deciding I needed air, I flung open the door of the suite and dashed down the long hall, hoping I could create a little wind on my crotch.

I passed the elevators—naturally, they opened with women in them, who screamed louder than I did. Down the hallway, doors began to open as people emerged to investigate the noise . . . men laughing . . . women aghast . . . and at our door, there was Dean, leaning against the jamb, laughing hysterically.

I finally ran into a room-service waiter and his cart—rolls, knives, forks, and steaks flew from one wall to the other—and picked up two silver plate covers, using them like Gypsy Rose Lee used her boas. I limped back to the suite, where Dean was still laughing. I crawled off to my bed and lay down with a pillow between my legs, waiting for the pain to quit, and swearing to myself I would never use the smelly stuff again.

I just couldn’t seem to keep away from Dean’s Woodhue, though.

Practical jokes were an important part of our life on the road, and I worked overtime to tease my hero, my big brother: When the devil got into me, I would stop at nothing. Once, back in Atlantic City, I found a duplicate of his pin-striped performing suit (these were the pretux days) in a pawnshop, and made razor cuts along the stripes. The incisions were impossible to see until Dean put the suit on—at which point it fell apart. Another time I took his prized bottle of Woodhue, dumped it out, and put in Coca-Cola that I mixed with water to achieve an identical light-brown shade.

It was a perfect match. I put the bottle back in place, cleaned up my tracks, and couldn’t wait until he got home from golf, showered, and went for his “Woodhue.”

Some hours passed, and I took a nap. When I awoke, I heard Dean in his bathroom, taking a shower.
Yeah
, I said to myself.
The beaver’s in the
hopper.

I waited... and waited. Finally, I decided it was time to shower and get ready for our shows. When I was done, we met for a drink in the living room of our suite, and Dean said nothing to me. I didn’t understand. I walked by him. . . . His Woodhue aroma was in place—he smelled like always, and I didn’t get it. I said nothing, we just made some idle chatter, and off to work we went.

We did our two shows, had a ball, and headed back to the suite. But I didn’t have great success with sleeping that night, because when you do a practical joke, it isn’t sweet until you got the mark and it’s done. Well, this one wasn’t done, and I had no mark!

This went on for another two or three nights. Dean would shower, shave, use his “Woodhue.” (I tried sneaking into the bathroom to reexamine the bottle, but Dean was always around, for some reason!)

Soon I was starting to feel an itching in my scalp... and the jumpies. If anyone spoke a little louder than usual, I’d jump. All symptoms of an unfulfilled gag.

After a while, the symptoms wore off and I started to forget the whole thing.

We were doing the second show on our next-to-closing-night performance, and as I began to leave the stage (a planned point in the act when I walked off so Dean could do a song), he stopped me, turned to the audience, and said, “If you’ll excuse me for just a second, I need to confer with my partner about something.”

A little ripple of laughter started up in the audience—I’m sure they thought we were setting them up. And Dean turned to me and whispered in my ear, “I didn’t want you to suffer any longer, pally—I know what you did with my aftershave. I dumped it and got a new bottle.”

He looked at me and laughed hysterically, which made me laugh hysterically—and the audience was still waiting for the joke! We recovered, Dean sang, and the “Woodhue” became history.

We loved the sheer nonsense of it all, having as much fun off the stage as we did on.

I don’t think, early on, that we really knew the difference.

A little while later, though, I came up with a scheme I thought might be foolproof. It was 1952, we had just completed two weeks at the Chicago Theater—seven shows a day, forty-nine a week—and we were as exhausted as a groom on his wedding night. Especially my partner. When we finished the last show of the engagement, I heard Dean say something I’d never heard from him before: “Jer, I’m outta gas. I’m really very tired.”

“Let’s go back to the hotel, order room service, catch a Western on TV, and hit the pad early,” I said. (Early for us was before three A.M.)

We got into the limo and rode back to the Ambassador Hotel. We were both so beat we didn’t speak for the whole twenty-five-minute drive, but I had time to think about a scenario I’d been developing for years. All I needed was for my partner to give me ten minutes in the suite before he came up. So I suggested we have a nightcap in the Pump Room, and to my delight, Dean accepted.

As soon as we ordered, I excused myself, telling Dean I had to go to the men’s room. Off I went—not to the men’s room, of course, but to the elevator and up to our suite. It took me no more than three minutes to short-sheet his bed, and when I was done, I just had to spend another moment or two admiring my work.

I rushed back down to the bar, and Dean gave me a look. “Did everything come out all right?” he asked.

“It must’ve been all the Cokes I had today,” I said.

We finished our drinks and headed up to the suite, both of us so fatigued that our feet were literally dragging. When we got inside, Dean went straight to his bedroom.

I stood just outside his door, pretending to be busy doing something, but really listening carefully. I heard his shoes falling, the bedcovers being pulled down, and finally his last sound—the sigh of a dead man. I waited, eager to hear the roar of laughter or the roar of the jungle beast. Nothing. It was as quiet as a zipper in the men’s room. I waited a little longer, completely stumped: What had happened?

Finally, I sneaked into his room to take a look. Dean was sleeping like a baby, snoring a little, his legs tucked into the fetal position. He was so exhausted that he’d never even felt the short sheets—he slept all through the night that way.

I sighed.
Oh well
, I thought.
Maybe I’ll get him next time
.

Some of the best times we had were hanging out with other performers. Both of us were crazy about Jackie Gleason, who in addition to being a comic genius was the greatest party animal alive. He loved teasing Dean about his wussy drinking. It finally got to be too much for Dean. “Let’s have a contest and see who’s standing at the finish!” he told Gleason.

It was February 1950, at Toots Shor’s restaurant on Fifty-second Street in Manhattan. The three of us were standing at the bar, and everyone heard the challenge. We now had at least forty people surrounding us, watching to see how this episode played out. Jackie ordered for both of them: “Let’s have two boilermakers!” Dean called out, “Give us both a Pink Lady!” This got a great laugh—ordering a Pink Lady at Toots’s would be like ordering a condom at a convent.

The drinks got served, and down they went. First Jackie, then Dean. Jackie said, “What a joy! Round One is completed.” He then remembered that no bet had been mentioned. Jackie said to Dean, “How much are we wagering on this little sojourn?” Dean, of course, had to play this out. “Make it easy on yourself,” he said.

Without a second thought, Jackie said, “How about a grand?”

Without taking a breath, Dean agreed. “You got it!” he said. I rolled my eyes, with visions of this all winding up in
Hollywood Confidential
(the
National Enquirer
’s ancestor). I thought Dean wouldn’t be sober till Labor Day!

Just as things were getting interesting, Leo Durocher walked in with the most gorgeous goddamn woman ever seen on earth! Legs up to her ears, breasts (if they were real) far out enough to ring her own doorbell! Every man in that joint had a community erection. Then Dean hit on her. Jackie Gleason hit on her. Leo loved to laugh (guess he liked comedy better than sex), because he forgot she was with him the minute he saw Gleason. So she became fair game, and most everyone there that night was trying to get her attention.

Guess who left Toots Shor’s with her?

About 4:15 A.M., Dean strolled into our suite and entered his room. I heard him moving about while I was still busily engaged in explaining to this lovely lady how my wife didn’t understand me. There was a knock on the door. I continued sipping Dom Pérignon along with my new friend, and I heard, “Hey, Jer, you in there?”

I didn’t answer. I told her to be very quiet.

“Come on, Jer, I know you’re in there!”

We let Dean knock and knock, and I finally yelled out, “What do you want?”

“I want sharesies!” he said. “Don’t we always share everything?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We share sandwiches, makeup, towels, tux ties, but we never share ladies. I would never let you near mine, and you would never let me near yours.”

“Did you ever hear of an amendment?” Dean laughed.

George Burns understood the depth of my partner’s comic genius. Danny Lewis understood it. Millions of people—including some otherwise quite intelligent people—had no clue. “In the bones” funny is a gift: You’re either born with it or you’re not. Gleason had it. Milton Berle had it. Sid Caesar and Stan Laurel had it. Charlie Chaplin had more of it than anyone else. Discussing Chaplin’s genius would be like measuring the ocean with a cup.

Dean had it, too, yet he never understood the depth of his own skill. He was insecure about it; at the same time, he was never one to betray his insecurities. So he was stuck in kind of a hard place—one that became progressively harder as the press wrote about the comic brilliance of “the funny one.” And that was how our reviews went: “The handsome one comes out and sings pretty nicely—although he’s no Bing Crosby. Then the kid comes out, and the act really catches fire.” Time after time after time, Dean had to read those words.

And you wonder why he never bought a newspaper?

It got worse when we began making our movies. After
My Friend
Irma
, the august Bosley Crowther (you think he made that name up?) of the august
New York Times
opined as follows: “We could go along with the laughs which were fetched by a new mad comedian, Jerry Lewis... the swift eccentricity of his movements, the harrowing features of his face and the squeak of his vocal protestations . . . have flair. His idiocy constitutes the burlesque of an idiot, which is something else again. He’s the funniest thing in it. Indeed, he’s the only thing in it that we can expressly propose for seeing the picture.” Crowther, that sniffy bastard, called Dean my “collar ad partner.”

Meaning: Handsome but empty. A mannequin. A prop.

Meanwhile, the
Los Angeles Examiner
said Dean would “undoubtedly be more at home on the screen with added experience,” but “he shouldn’t oughta listen to any more Bing Crosby records.”

Cruel, cruel, cruel. And what was my partner’s reaction? He didn’t react, not at first. You have to understand: Even though Dean had saved me from a lifetime of lip-synching, even though he had in many ways made me into what I became, he didn’t have a speck of ego about it. He didn’t have enough ego, really. There was a big part of him that felt supremely lucky to have made it to where he had. The money, the broads, the life—why should he give a shit about what some pointy-headed schmucks wrote about him in the papers?

If the shoe had been on the other foot, if I had been the kind of target for the press that Dean was, I wouldn’t have lasted anywhere close to ten years. I’d have been out of there by the third year, at the latest—and I would have made it that far only because the loot was so good. If I had to go back and pull all the written material on Martin and Lewis, it would read like a bunch of writers had gotten together and decided, “Let’s kill the singing part of that team.”