greater heart. thank you for the laughs, the feels, jerry lewis. gilbert gotfried tweeted, the french were right about him all along, r.i.p., jerry lewis. the king of comedy jerry lewis was a tremendous talent and good friend. rest in peace, jerry lewis, you ll be missed. rob schneider tweeted oh no, jerry lewis just died. another comic legend has left us. martin and lewis, nobody bigger. lewis raised over $1.6 billion in 45 years. in an interview with vanity fair, they asked him, how would you like to die. well, in true lewis fashion, he said, i didn t know we had a choice. richard? the key piece of trivia there you brought up, morgan, he was wildly popular across the world, but especially in france, once again, one of the hallmarks of his success over the years.
well, jerry lewis in the lett 40s, throughout the 1950s was probably the most famous comedian in the world. maybe the most pop flar his comedy team, martin and lewis. they were the closest thing comedy ever will to beatlemania. the famous newsreel images of playing the paramount, girls screaming, clutching at their clothes, peeking out the window of the hotel room, and a bonanza, the first comedians major in television. and huge stars and major headliners in big nightclubs across the country. the cobe pa cabana and others. as movie stars, together and later individually, they had a tremendous impact on show business. a lot of people who were younger probably don t realize that, because essentially, jerry lewis, i don t mean this necessarily in a bad way, peaked around 1964, 65.
levich in 1926, but he became known to the world as jerry lewis, the zayny, but lovable nutty professor. lewis hit it big when he teamed up with another young entertainer dean martin. dean was the virile, macho and i was the monkey, and i knew we had lightning in a barrel. reporter: martin and lewis became one of the most popular teams in history. thousands of sold-out performances, 16 hit movies and dozens of radio and tv appearances. on his own, lewis signed a seven-year, $10 million contract with paramount in 1959. at that time it was the largest contract ever between a studio and performer. lewis went on to act in or direct shows in movies for several decades. he later offered this advice to fellow entertainers. be a hit. score. get the audience laughing and happy.
in a career spanning over half of the century jerry lewis became america s king of comedy. [video] born in 1926 to two entertainers he made his stage debut at the tender age of five years old. and enjoying only limited success. [video] that all changed in 1946 when he teamed up with a debonair crooner from ohio. [video] dean martin was 28 and jerry was 20. together the comedy team of martin and lewis quickly became the hottest nightclub act on the eastern seaboard. having conquered new york, the pair went hollywood.
from today on the sixth floor here, the same studio where jimmy fallon actually broadcasts. one of the locations where he and dean martin got together. then they had that long career, had that two decades of where they didn t get along, then they got back together again. that brings us to folks like don ri rickles and jim carrey. if we were trying to think of two younger comedians and entertainers, those might be, too, right? i think jim carrey for sure. and i see a lot of martin short, a lot of jerry lewis in martin short s act also. i think that s not an accident. you know, the way he throws himself around the stage. i just had a chance not long ago to see martin short and steve martin do a stage show here in las vegas periodically, and i was watching them. this is the closest thing i think i will see, or we will see, to martin and lewis. it was that kind of feeling. he touched so many people.