Post by Ajax on May 12, 2007 16:10:40 GMT -5
I ordered this from Amazon.com Marketplace a few weeks ago and just got it today, I'm almost done with chapter one and I love the pictures, which I will scan and post later, but I just wanted to post this one thing right now, I thought was really cute. Jerry wrote it for Patti after they had been married for seven years. Enjoy!
JUST 'CAUSE I LOVE HER
by JERRY LEWIS
July 4, 1951
I DEDICATE THIS TO MY INSPIRATION PATTI
When I stepped out of the cab that Thursday in August, 1944, I thought there couldn't be a happier guy. I was to appear in Detroit that week, at the Downtown Theater, one of the better vaude houses. Besides, I was to earn all of four hundred dollars, and at that time it was a small fortune. Naturally, after struggling for a long while, I was not as happy as a man could be. I didn’t think it possible to be any happier. I was dead wrong.
I paid the driver, opened the stage door, walked in, and sat down. I don’t think I sat longer than ten minutes. It seemed ten years. I guess it was because there wasn’t anyone to talk to. I thought I’d go outside for some coffee, (really hoping that someone would recognize me from the pictures out front) and as I took a few steps toward the door, it opened. All I could see was a large makeup box at the end of an adorable arm. The arm belonged to a little Italian singer, who looked as though she had just carried the whole band on her back from a one-nighter in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Her pigtails weren’t as pretty or as smartly combed as she would have liked them to be. I didn’t know why I felt funny. I guess it was because the happiness I had felt minutes before was now mild compared to the joy and happiness I knew I would one day share with the little band singer who looked at me as if I were some Detroit jerk waiting for an autograph…
The only sound in the cold corridor was the patter of her little size-six, gum soled loafers. I remember watching her walk down the long hallway to her dressing room. I wanted so to call out and tell her I was an actor, too, and that we’d be working together that week. Just as I was about to do so, an elderly gentleman demanded my attention. I turned to him and listened as he spoke his piece. It was the first time I remembered my heart pounding while giving light…
Well…it was time for rehearsal, so off I went to my dressing room…I took the first landing real slow, hoping she would be on that floor. No luck…I did the same on the second and third floors, and still no luck. I couldn’t go to the fourth because I had already reached my own room, but at least I knew she was on the floor above me. I tried so hard to find something missing, but I had everything…Kleenex, etc…so I figured I’d see her on stage.
The show was on. I never liked Spanish music, but for the first time, “Bim Bam Boom” sounded like Beethoven’s Fifth. I had never known this excitement before. It wasn’t physical…it wasn’t loneliness…it wasn’t something I had talked myself into…I know now…I had fallen in love.
I would work every show to the wing as well as to the audience, hoping she would be watching. I found out much later, she had been, without my knowing. I guess that’s the way girls are. Time went on…all of three days…I hadn’t eaten…I hadn’t slept…I didn’t feel right…No, I was okay with the draft, despite my punctured eardrum…All I needed was some sort of encouragement from the little lady I thought of as ‘My Princess.’
When she accepted my invitation to dinner, I felt better than a thirty-five dollar act when they are booked to headline the Palace. We went to a restaurant next door to the theater. I said I thought it would be wise not to go too far and possibly miss the show, but I’m almost sure she knew I didn’t have enough to take her to a classy joint. She made me feel as though the chicken salad I bought for her was a rare New York Steak…She didn’t eat it, though…I thought at the time she didn’t feel good. When she later married me, I knew that that night she felt the same as I.
The only time that week my heart was hurt was the day I met her mom and I said, “I’m going to marry your daughter.” Her mom laughed at me…I had devoted my whole life to making people laugh…but this was the one time I wished I wasn’t funny.
I was thrilled when we rode through the park in a cab, as the day I first put on long pants. When I kissed her and told her I loved her, she looked into my eyes and I knew my life was first beginning. I said goodnight and she ran into the house like a happy but frightened puppy.
I’m afraid I’m not eloquent enough to express the joy and contentment I experience riding back to the hotel that night.
The next day we boarded a N.Y.-bound train. When we stopped at Syracuse, My Princess was to leave me. Detroit to Syracuse is nine hours, and in that short span of time I think I said, “I love you” once, and sighed the rest of the time away. When the man with the brass buttons and chevrons on his sleeve called, “Syracuse,” I was certain it was the voice of the devil. I walked slowly but firmly to the platform to help the lovely lady off the train…she cried and said goodbye...I wanted to cry…but I was a man of course…but when the porter closed the door…I became a kid again.
The letters I received were as important to me as was medicine to a sick man. Time moved slowly…We would meet in New Haven, New York, Boston, whenever we could get away. Our love was so wonderful we thought that surely we were the first to love. The only thing we dreamt about was to get married…and we did.
We had nothing but our love…
She was playing the Capitol Theater…I sat in the last row, opening day, with my fingers crossed, and my heart crying, “Why ain’t I up there, making her dependent on me?” I wasn’t jealous…I just wanted to do big things so she’d be proud of me…it was on that day I vowed I would play there and every other important place, only for her. Little did I know that it would be her guidance and faith that would enable me to keep my promise to myself.
Months passed and I was called to the hospital to see my Princess before she went to the delivery room. I just made it in time to say, “I love you,” then they wheeled her in. The thirty minutes I spent waiting were horrible but this was one father who knew God would listen to his prayers and take for of the little lady who was so necessary to his existence. The huge doors swung open…and there she was…I dreaded asking if she was all right, but the smile on the doctor’s face assured me that all was okay. “Your baby weighs seven eleven,” the doctor said as if he were announcing a ball game and not concerned at all about torturing my lady.
I wasn’t allowed to put more than one dozen roses in her room, but she didn’t even notice them, so it was okay. All she could say was, “I gave you a son.” From the day of his birth, the two of them helped make a small-time actor a real big guy, if not in the eyes of the public, at least in the eyes of the family to whom I dedicate my life. Patti, My Princess, Gary, my son, Ronnie, my boy…
The rest of the story is common knowledge…today I am doing television, pictures, nightclubs, personal appearances, eight shows a day…of course with the guy I owe half of my life to…So it’s natural for you to wonder how I have time to sit and write something like this…I think the reason I make time is…just ‘cause I love her.
There were many times through the ensuing years that I hung onto those words…”just ‘cause I love her.”
JUST 'CAUSE I LOVE HER
by JERRY LEWIS
July 4, 1951
I DEDICATE THIS TO MY INSPIRATION PATTI
When I stepped out of the cab that Thursday in August, 1944, I thought there couldn't be a happier guy. I was to appear in Detroit that week, at the Downtown Theater, one of the better vaude houses. Besides, I was to earn all of four hundred dollars, and at that time it was a small fortune. Naturally, after struggling for a long while, I was not as happy as a man could be. I didn’t think it possible to be any happier. I was dead wrong.
I paid the driver, opened the stage door, walked in, and sat down. I don’t think I sat longer than ten minutes. It seemed ten years. I guess it was because there wasn’t anyone to talk to. I thought I’d go outside for some coffee, (really hoping that someone would recognize me from the pictures out front) and as I took a few steps toward the door, it opened. All I could see was a large makeup box at the end of an adorable arm. The arm belonged to a little Italian singer, who looked as though she had just carried the whole band on her back from a one-nighter in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Her pigtails weren’t as pretty or as smartly combed as she would have liked them to be. I didn’t know why I felt funny. I guess it was because the happiness I had felt minutes before was now mild compared to the joy and happiness I knew I would one day share with the little band singer who looked at me as if I were some Detroit jerk waiting for an autograph…
The only sound in the cold corridor was the patter of her little size-six, gum soled loafers. I remember watching her walk down the long hallway to her dressing room. I wanted so to call out and tell her I was an actor, too, and that we’d be working together that week. Just as I was about to do so, an elderly gentleman demanded my attention. I turned to him and listened as he spoke his piece. It was the first time I remembered my heart pounding while giving light…
Well…it was time for rehearsal, so off I went to my dressing room…I took the first landing real slow, hoping she would be on that floor. No luck…I did the same on the second and third floors, and still no luck. I couldn’t go to the fourth because I had already reached my own room, but at least I knew she was on the floor above me. I tried so hard to find something missing, but I had everything…Kleenex, etc…so I figured I’d see her on stage.
The show was on. I never liked Spanish music, but for the first time, “Bim Bam Boom” sounded like Beethoven’s Fifth. I had never known this excitement before. It wasn’t physical…it wasn’t loneliness…it wasn’t something I had talked myself into…I know now…I had fallen in love.
I would work every show to the wing as well as to the audience, hoping she would be watching. I found out much later, she had been, without my knowing. I guess that’s the way girls are. Time went on…all of three days…I hadn’t eaten…I hadn’t slept…I didn’t feel right…No, I was okay with the draft, despite my punctured eardrum…All I needed was some sort of encouragement from the little lady I thought of as ‘My Princess.’
When she accepted my invitation to dinner, I felt better than a thirty-five dollar act when they are booked to headline the Palace. We went to a restaurant next door to the theater. I said I thought it would be wise not to go too far and possibly miss the show, but I’m almost sure she knew I didn’t have enough to take her to a classy joint. She made me feel as though the chicken salad I bought for her was a rare New York Steak…She didn’t eat it, though…I thought at the time she didn’t feel good. When she later married me, I knew that that night she felt the same as I.
The only time that week my heart was hurt was the day I met her mom and I said, “I’m going to marry your daughter.” Her mom laughed at me…I had devoted my whole life to making people laugh…but this was the one time I wished I wasn’t funny.
I was thrilled when we rode through the park in a cab, as the day I first put on long pants. When I kissed her and told her I loved her, she looked into my eyes and I knew my life was first beginning. I said goodnight and she ran into the house like a happy but frightened puppy.
I’m afraid I’m not eloquent enough to express the joy and contentment I experience riding back to the hotel that night.
The next day we boarded a N.Y.-bound train. When we stopped at Syracuse, My Princess was to leave me. Detroit to Syracuse is nine hours, and in that short span of time I think I said, “I love you” once, and sighed the rest of the time away. When the man with the brass buttons and chevrons on his sleeve called, “Syracuse,” I was certain it was the voice of the devil. I walked slowly but firmly to the platform to help the lovely lady off the train…she cried and said goodbye...I wanted to cry…but I was a man of course…but when the porter closed the door…I became a kid again.
The letters I received were as important to me as was medicine to a sick man. Time moved slowly…We would meet in New Haven, New York, Boston, whenever we could get away. Our love was so wonderful we thought that surely we were the first to love. The only thing we dreamt about was to get married…and we did.
We had nothing but our love…
She was playing the Capitol Theater…I sat in the last row, opening day, with my fingers crossed, and my heart crying, “Why ain’t I up there, making her dependent on me?” I wasn’t jealous…I just wanted to do big things so she’d be proud of me…it was on that day I vowed I would play there and every other important place, only for her. Little did I know that it would be her guidance and faith that would enable me to keep my promise to myself.
Months passed and I was called to the hospital to see my Princess before she went to the delivery room. I just made it in time to say, “I love you,” then they wheeled her in. The thirty minutes I spent waiting were horrible but this was one father who knew God would listen to his prayers and take for of the little lady who was so necessary to his existence. The huge doors swung open…and there she was…I dreaded asking if she was all right, but the smile on the doctor’s face assured me that all was okay. “Your baby weighs seven eleven,” the doctor said as if he were announcing a ball game and not concerned at all about torturing my lady.
I wasn’t allowed to put more than one dozen roses in her room, but she didn’t even notice them, so it was okay. All she could say was, “I gave you a son.” From the day of his birth, the two of them helped make a small-time actor a real big guy, if not in the eyes of the public, at least in the eyes of the family to whom I dedicate my life. Patti, My Princess, Gary, my son, Ronnie, my boy…
The rest of the story is common knowledge…today I am doing television, pictures, nightclubs, personal appearances, eight shows a day…of course with the guy I owe half of my life to…So it’s natural for you to wonder how I have time to sit and write something like this…I think the reason I make time is…just ‘cause I love her.
There were many times through the ensuing years that I hung onto those words…”just ‘cause I love her.”
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It' s like his heart crying out and expressing all that he has been bottling up inside for so long. And finally the best way he found to express himself was through that letter!!!! WOWWWW im in awe...I DEFINITELY HAVE TO GET THAT BOOK!
lol
