Jerry Lewis humor
I enjoyed Robert Wiener’s article on my friend Jerry Lewis (“Newark natives recall antics of Jerry Lewis,” Aug. 31). We went to Union Avenue School in Irvington, but he was two grades ahead of me. During air-raid drills in the 1940s, we hid under our desks. Jerry came dancing into all the classrooms, with a mop on his head, singing while the warning bells were ringing. Teachers threw him out!
The Rex movie theater on Chancellor Avenue in Irvington allowed him two hours Saturday morning to perform on stage in front of an audience; the cost of admission was 15 cents. I was his cashier. He lived with his grandmother, not his aunt, in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. I know — I was there.
Years later when he performed in the tri-state area I schlepped my husband to every event and was permitted backstage to say hello. The last time he was in “Damn Yankees” on Broadway, we went to see him but he refused us backstage. That was the last time we saw him.
Lila Levine Barsky
Clark
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