NEW YORK — Jerry Lewis, 90 years and nearly one month old, is wearing a dark jacket, yellow shirt and a big red tie. He is seated in a director’s chair in the middle of the first floor bar of the Friars Club.
Lewis has agreed to meet with The Associated Press and discuss whatever one might try to bring up with the man who gave us “The Nutty Professor.” He can still contort his face and cackle like the old days but the years have caught up to his hearing, and Lewis has never been much for questions and answers.
So think of the interview not as a private exchange, but like shouting out orders at a popular deli.
How does it feel turn 90?
“I feel like 90. I don’t think you get away with feeling any other way. It’s a great number.”
Next!
What do you think of the Friars Club?
“It’s OK. I have nowhere else to go. It’s the best place in the world to come to.”
Next!
Lewis turned 90 in March and celebrated near his home in Las Vegas, but a milestone isn’t a milestone until it’s been reached at the Friars, the venerable show business gathering place where he holds the high-ranking title of Abbot.
At the Friars, the rooms have names. The grandiose banquet space on the second floor is called the Milton Berle Room. The shining second floor bar, where you can order a Bourbon Legend or Rye Sense of Humor, has been christened the Lucille Ball Room. And this cozy spot where Lewis speaks is named for Billy Crystal Except when Lewis is in town. Then it becomes the Jerry Lewis Room. Every room at the Friars becomes the Jerry Lewis Room.
“There’s something about him,” says Gilbert Gottfried. “The times I’ve met him, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I’m 3 years old and he’s Jerry Lewis.”‘
Enter Jim Carrey.
“He’s 90!” Carrey reminds the crowd. “He can still disappoint us!”
The madness keeps Lewis young, and so does having a goal: Live longer than George Burns, who made it to 100.
“Beat Burns” is his slogan.
“I still have a shot at it.”
