Jerry Lewis’ Manager Details Just How Much ‘The King of Comedy’ Cheated on His Queen
You know a comedian had a dark side when he made an entire movie about a clown who witnesses and participates in the Holocaust and that’s still not the most disturbing decision he ever made.
Like too many of his contemporaries, the so-called “King of Comedy” wasn’t exactly chivalrous when it came to his treatment of women or his subjects. In fact, when Jerry Lewis was asked which female comedians he admired at the Aspen U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in 1998, he infamously responded, “I don’t like any female comedians. A woman doing comedy doesn’t offend me but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world.” And, to absolutely no one’s surprise, Lewis’ less than stellar treatment of women (and people in general) extended past his professional life into his personal one, wherein he spent decades cheating on his two wives and terrorizing his colleagues — at least, according to one of his closest friends.
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Lewis’ personal manager Rick Saphire is author of the memoir titled, The Real Jerry Lewis Story, and he recently spoke with RadarOnline about his biggest client’s “egomaniacal” behavior, his repeated infidelity and a shocking incident wherein Lewis handcuffed a claustrophobic coworker to a pipe in his bathroom shower for “a few hours.”
During the talk, Saphire claimed that Lewis had once marveled at his manager’s own commitment to marriage and monogamy, supposedly telling Saphire, “It’s great that you never cheated. I gave it up years ago.” Lewis spent 36 years married to singer Patti Palmer before Plamer divorced him, citing his outrageous infidelity as the reason for the split. In 1983, Lewis married ballerina Sandra Pitnick, with whom he would stay wed until his death in 2017.
Specifically, Saphire recalled Lewis having an affair with actress Stella Stevens during the making of The Nutty Professor, noting how the pair would “disappear and have sex” whenever there was a break in shooting. Stevens refused to continue the affair past filming due to Lewis’ marriage, finding a shred of conscience that Lewis never had.
However, the most upsetting act of unprofessional assholery came later in Lewis’ career when he was working with a saxophone player and flautist who had previously played in Dean Martin’s band, an unfortunate musician identified by Saphire as Sammy Bidner. Saphire claimed that Lewis once called Bidnery into his hotel suite and, knowing full well that the musician suffered from crushing claustrophobia, handcuffed him to a pipe in the bathroom and left him there for most of the day. Saphire said that Bidner was “so terrified that he began to cry as he yelled for help” — though Saphire apparently didn’t take any action himself.
While Lewis is no longer with us to try and refute these unseemly stories, we can look to his surviving family for answers on his personal life — such as his oldest son Gary, who, upon his father’s death in 2017, called the King of Comedy a “mean and evil person,” adding, “He was never loving and caring toward me or my brothers.”
Furthermore, several of Lewis' female co-stars have come out with allegations of harassment and assault, accusing Lewis of running his productions with a “casting couch” approach.
With all the bullshit that Lewis allegedly pulled, it’s a miracle that he ever wed at all, let alone spent half his life married. But, then again, there’s a certain allure in being the “Queen of Comedy,” even if the king is a royal pain in the ass.
