Jerry Lewis was an American comedian, award-winning actor, film producer, writer and director, known for his slapstick humor and his charity fund-raising telethons for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Lewis has won several awards for lifetime achievements from The American Comedy Awards, The Golden Camera, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, The Venice Film Festival and he has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Governors Award of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors, the highest Emmy Award presented.
Lewis was originally paired up in 1946 with Dean Martin, and formed the comedy team of Martin and Lewis. In addition to the team's popular nightclub work, they starred in a successful series of comedy films for Paramount. The act broke up ten years later.