Comedians Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis Were Lifelong Best Friends: They ‘Truly Loved Each Other’
Seasons come and go, but true friendships last forever! Comedian Jerry Lewis knew musician Dean Martin would be his partner in crime when they first met at New York City’s Belmont Plaza Hotel in the mid-1940s.
“I was having a very loose egg salad sandwich, and I bite the sandwich and now most of the egg salad was on my shirt and tie,” he once recalled. “I look around, and there’s this handsome guy sitting there, hysterical. He said, ‘Lick it!’ So I lifted the tie and I licked it, and I said, ‘What else do you want?’ I knew from the moment I looked at him I had found a big brother and a friend.”
Dean and Jerry later went on to become one of the best entertainment acts in the world. Together they could bring the house down with one of their hysterical routines. “They were very attractive guys, and before that you had duos like Laurel and Hardy, and Abbott and Costello,” singer Steve Lawrence previously told People.
Dean and Jerry’s chemistry was also booming off stage. “[They] truly loved each other. When they were hot for those 10 years, it was a magical time for all of us,” Dean’s daughter Deana Martin exclusively told Closer Weekly in the magazine’s latest issue, on newsstands now. “Jerry would be there for me any time I wanted.”
Even though Dean died from lung cancer at age 78 in 1995 and Jerry passed away at age 91 in 2017, their work lives on forever. “They made history as the greatest comedy team ever,” Deana gushed about them both. “They made people laugh and feel good, and they loved each other.”
