page_title: Martin and Lewis
section_title: After the split
hierarchical_section_title: Martin and Lewis / After the split
caption_attribution_description: English: Cropped screenshot of Dean Martin from the trailer for the film Rio Bravo (1959).
context_page_description: Martin and Lewis were an American comedy duo, comprising singer Dean Martin and comedian Jerry Lewis. They met in 1945 and debuted at Atlantic City's 500 Club on July 25, 1946; the team lasted ten years to the day. Before they teamed up, Martin was a nightclub singer, while Lewis performed a comedy act lip-synching to records.
  They performed in nightclubs, and, starting in 1949, on radio. Later they branched out into television and films. In their early radio days they performed as Martin and Lewis but later became hugely popular as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. These full names helped them launch successful solo careers after parting.
context_section_description: According to Lewis, the two did not speak to each other privately for twenty years, to which Lewis later commented, "the stupidity of that, I cannot expound on. The ignorance of that is something I hope I'll always forget." 
  Dean Martin's career arguably reached new heights after the team split up, as a recording artist for the Capitol and Reprise labels, as a movie actor both on his own (Rio Bravo, The Young Lions, the Matt Helm series) and as a member of the Rat Pack (Ocean's 11, Sergeants 3, Robin and the 7 Hoods), and with his own hugely successful 1965–1974 television variety series, The Dean Martin Show. 
  Lewis remained with Paramount Pictures, appearing in and directing a succession of commercially successful films on his own (The Bellboy, The Nutty Professor), at one point becoming Paramount's biggest star. He also continued with his philanthropic work, which had begun while still partnered with Martin, hosting telethons for muscular dystrophy research until 2010.
  In 1958, Lewis was the guest on an episode of NBC's The Eddie Fisher Show and was bantering with the host when Martin emerged from behind the curtain and said, "Don't sing. Do what you want but don't sing!" Martin was then immediately "pulled back" by singer Bing Crosby. Martin said something else but the rest of his words were drowned out by the wildly excited reaction from the audience. Martin's entire appearance was just eight seconds long, and Crosby was on camera for two seconds. After the applause died down, Lewis crooned the title of Martin's then-current hit "Return to Me".
  In 1960, four years after they broke up, Martin and Lewis briefly reunited, seemingly without prearrangement. Both were performing their own separate acts at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, a club they frequently played while they were together. Lewis caught Martin's closing act and Martin introduced his former partner to the audience, bringing him on stage. For about 15 minutes, they joked a bit and sang a duet of "Come Back to Me". However, the reunion was never duplicated. Later in 1960, when Lewis was rushing to finish The Bellboy and was too exhausted to perform his stage act, Martin generously replaced him. The two were also filmed laughing together in 1961, outside Eddie Fisher's opening at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles.
  The two men reconciled in September 1976, after Frank Sinatra orchestrated a surprise appearance by Martin on Lewis's annual Labor Day telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, saying only "I have a friend who loves what you do every year." The pair beamed and embraced, and then had a few minutes of friendly banter, during which Lewis asked Martin, "Uh, so, you workin'?" The brief reunion was big national news and, according to Lewis, the two spoke "every day after that".
  In 1987, when Martin's son, Dean Paul Martin, was killed in a plane crash, Lewis attended the funeral unannounced and did not reveal his presence to Martin. According to Lewis's 2005 memoir Dean & Me and Deana Martin's 2004 book Memories Are Made of This, when Martin found out about it, soon after, he called Lewis and talked to him for about an hour. In 1989, the two reunited for the last time at Bally's Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where Martin was doing a week of shows, on his 72nd birthday. Lewis presented him with a birthday cake, thanked him for all the years he gave joy to the world and finally joked, "Why we broke up, I'll never know." This would be the last public reunion of the duo before Martin's death on Christmas Day 1995.
  Despite their animosity after the split, Lewis published an affectionate memoir of his partnership with Martin called Dean & Me: A Love Story in 2005.
caption: Dean Martin in Rio Bravo
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