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Mark Simp­son on the hottest male com­edy double-act of all time — and how they make today’s ‘bro­mance’ look like bromide

(Orig­i­nally appeared in Out, May 2009 — but has fallen off their website)

For­get hair whorls, genomes, amni­otic fluid, older broth­ers, dom­i­neer­ing moth­ers or disco. I can reveal with absolute, religio-scientific cer­tainty that the cause of my homo­sex­u­al­ity was just two words. Jerry. Lewis.

As a kid in the 1970s I watched re-runs of his movies, espe­cially the ones from the early fifties with his on-screen boyfriend Dean Mar­tin, with a level of breath­less excite­ment that noth­ing came close to – until I dis­cov­ered actual bug­gery in the 1980s.

Films like Money From Home where he pins Mar­tin to the bed wear­ing a pair of polka dot shorts camper than Christ­mas in West Hol­ly­wood (1953), andSailor Beware (1951), where he is pricked by sev­eral burly USN medics wield­ing ever-bigger nee­dles until he squirts liq­uid in all direc­tions and faints made me the man I am today.

Ear­lier this year, after a life­time of being ignored by a cross-armed Acad­emy Awards that never gave him so much as a nom­i­na­tion when he was mak­ing movies, Lewis is finally get­ting an Oscar. But not for his cute films with Dean Mar­tin or his solo clas­sics such as The Bell­boy, The Errand Boy, The Nutty Pro­fes­sor, and The Dis­or­derly Orderly – in which, mem­o­rably, he hap­pily hoovers with the appli­ance plugged in up his own ass – but for his fundrais­ing for Mus­cu­lar Dys­tro­phy. It’s a char­ity Oscar – in every sense. Lewis is 82 and has had seri­ous health prob­lems for some time.

The Hol­ly­wood gays though were report­edly Not Happy. They had a hoover up their ass about Lewis.  Appar­ently some tried to block his Oscar because this ill, old man born in 1926 almost used the word ‘fag­got’ last year after host­ing a twelve hour telethon.  In effect, the gays are run­ning down the street scream­ing Maaaaaaa!!

Like­wise, because he isn’t him­self gay, and because his early nerdy, ‘retarded’ sissy per­sona has been deemed ‘exploita­tive’, Lewis has been almost com­pletely spurned by gay stud­ies, when really he should have his own depart­ment. If noth­ing else, Lewis Stud­ies would be a damn sight more fun than Queer Stud­ies (as long as they didn’t include the Telethons).

Cer­tainly his films should be set texts.

But it was his anar­chic early 1950s TV shows with Mar­tin when a twenty-something Lewis was at his queer­est and gid­di­est. Their heads so close together in those tiny 50s cath­ode ray tubes, gaz­ing into each other’s eyes, rub­bing noses, occa­sion­ally steal­ing kisses from one another or lick­ing each other’s necks to shrieks of scan­dal­ized plea­sure from the audi­ence. They were a prime-time study in same-sex love. And were adored for it – lit­er­ally chased down the street by crowds of scream­ing young women and not a few men (espe­cially pop­u­lar with sailors and sol­diers they were the Forces sweethearts).

This half-century old dou­ble act from the homo-hating 50s is much more alive, much more flir­ta­tious, than today’s sup­pos­edly lib­eral and lib­er­ated ‘bro­man­tic’ com­edy, which goes  out of its way to purge the pos­si­bil­ity of any­thing phys­i­cal. Next to Dean and Jerry’s sim­mer­ing screen-love, bro­mance just looks like bro­mide.

What­ever the nature of his off-screen sex­u­al­ity, Lewis’ com­edy part­ner­ship with Mar­tin, the most suc­cess­ful of all time, along with most of their best gags, was based around the matter-of-fact, unspo­ken assump­tion that they were a couple.

Their very first TV show opens with our boys arriv­ing at a posh ball full of Waspy straight cou­ples being announced: ‘Mr & Mrs Charles Cord­ney!’, ‘Mr and Mrs Wal­ter Chris­tian­dom!’.  And then: ‘Mr Mar­tin and Mr Lewis!’.  The dago and the jew. Set­ting the tone for their series, Lewis promptly trashes the place with his nervey-nerdy slapstick.

The Mar­tin and Lewis part­ner­ship was queer punk rock before even rock and roll had been invented, trash­ing nor­mal­ity right in the liv­ing rooms of 1950s Amer­ica, cour­tesy of Col­gate. No won­der they’ve been almost forgotten.

They should never have existed.  True, the explic­it­ness of their pair­ing depended on the offi­cial ‘inno­cence’ of the times, and the nos­tal­gia for bud­dy­dom in post-war Amer­ica, allow­ing the audi­ence to enjoy the out­ra­geous queer­ness of what was going on with­out hav­ing to think too much about it. Lit­er­ally laugh­ing it off.

But offi­cial inno­cence is a mis­chie­vous comedian’s gift-horse. A skit depict­ing (fic­tion­ally) how Mar­tin and Lewis (or ‘Ethel’ and ‘Shirley’ as they called one another) met cli­maxes with them being trapped in the closet together – pushed together mouth to mouth, crotch to crotch, by Martin’s vast, vain col­lec­tion of padded jack­ets. In another skit our boys end up shar­ing a bed with Burt Lan­caster play­ing an escaped homi­ci­dal maniac: Jerry: ‘Boy, Dean, these one night stands are moi­der!’

Moi­der was exactly what they got away with.  In a skit set in prison, Jerry’s bunk col­lapses on Mar­tin below. ‘What are you doing?’ asks Mar­tin. ‘I felt loine­some,’ replies Lewis.

Lewis’ on-screen queer­ness may have been just a phase – but what a phase! It was so unruly, so inde­fin­able, so crazy, so tick­lish, so exhil­a­rat­ing that gays – and prob­a­bly most peo­ple today – don’t know what to do with it.  Or where to put it.  It’s a bit scary, frankly.

But that – in addi­tion to still being piss your pants funny – is pre­cisely what is so great about it. And why I still think clas­sic Lewis is as much fun as sodomy.

An exploi­sion of D&J kisses in this cheeky and charm­ing clip painstak­ing com­piled by a YouTube fan.

The noise made by the audi­ence when Dean falls on top of Jerry in the bath wouldn’t be heard again until Elvis shook his pelvis.

Jerry joins the Navy, gets some big pricks, and then sprays every­where.

Dean and Jerry join the Army as para­troop­ers. Watch Dean’s eyes dur­ing the blan­ket scene.

‘I was loine­some.‘

A slightly fic­tion­lised account of how our boys met, com­plete with closet clinch climax.

Never been kissed… Yeah, right.

Spe­cial thanks to Elise Moore and Han­nah for shar­ing their pash­er­nate love of Dean & Jerry — and remind­ing me of mine.