JERRY LEWIS What He Hid From the World

MILLIONS LOVED THIS COMEDY GENIUS, BUT IT WASN'T ENOUGH TO HEAL THE WOUND IN HIS HEART

- Katie Bruno

Dean Martin thought Jerry Lewis was joking when he offered him the role of a uniformed police officer in his 1957 movie, The Delicate Delinquent. “Dean said, 'We're partners. I should at least be a detective!'” recalls the crooner's daughter Deana Martin to Closer. “But Jerry said, “No, that's the part.' It was the straw that broke the camel's back."

After their comedy team, Martin & Lewis, split up, Jerry's star continued to rise. In 1959, he signed a $10 million, seven-year contract with Paramount – a record at the time. But although the public loved Jerry for the adorable misfits he played, he hid a darker, often malevolent side that reflected his deep insecurities.

Born to two vaudeville performers, Jerry learned how to make people laugh as a youngster. “Jerry was an only child largely left by his parents in the care of his grandmother,” Shawn Levy, author of King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis, tells Closer. “His parents were so remote they almost didn't attend his bar mitzvah."