Feisty at 90, Jerry Lewis is back onscreen in 'Max Rose'

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.  — Jerry Lewis, once the master of physical comedy, is wheeled slowly into a hotel ballroom, smiling beneath a tousled head of still-boyish hair, now a deep gray.

His manager pulls the legendary performer from his wheelchair into a seat as Lewis makes clear that his pratfall days from impossibly rubber legs are behind him.

“You saw how I arrived,” Lewis says matter of factly. “You’re looking at the end result of taking falls.”

It’s not just the falls, it’s the mileage. At 90, Lewis has lived a long and celebrated life with well-chronicled difficulties — surviving two heart attacks and prostate cancer, among other major health ailments.

But Lewis stepped in front of the movie camera for the first time in 18 years for his major role in Max Rose (in theaters Friday in New York, expands nationally through Sept. 16), a poignant drama for the beloved comic star and director.

Lewis makes clear with a yawn (30 seconds in) and a not-subtle look at his watch (10 minutes in) that he doesn't relish interviews. It’s partly fatigue during four straight days of promotion and partly wariness — the outspoken Lewis often makes the wrong kind of headlines, as in December when he said Syrian refugees “should stay where the hell they are.”

“Interviews are vital, but you cannot allow an interviewer to take your life and disturb it,” says Lewis. "There are people who do that."

But Lewis grits through, even managing some laughs, as he discusses Max Rose, a passion project that started when writer/director Daniel Noah tracked down Lewis' Las Vegas business office and mailed his unsolicited screenplay. Lewis was moved by the story of a jazz musician dealing with the death of his wife of 65 years (Claire Bloom), whom he discovers was unfaithful.

“I got the script on a Monday. I called Daniel that afternoon and told him, ‘Let’s go for it.' He had never received as quick a response,” says Lewis. “I knew it was going to be good.”

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Lewis even vowed to keep entirely out of the first-time director’s way.

“(Noah) had to know that the guy he's working with is not going to impose on him with his filmmaking information,” says Lewis.  “I just stayed away from it. It's the best way.”

Lewis, then 87, appeared in every scene over the 42-day shoot, which included a dramatic kitchen fall. Noah brought the rough cut to the 2013 Cannes Film Festival so Lewis could be honored by the adoring French. Critics carped (Variety called it “excruciating”).

“Having your first test screening on the world stage at Cannes is something I don't recommend,” says Noah. “It took a huge press hit.”

Noah has refined Max Rose in the editing room and is set to release the movie for Labor Day, a weekend associated for decades with Lewis, who hosted his annual Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon until his exit in 2010.

“It just wound up that way, it’s lucky,” says Lewis of the timing. “It’s wonderful because it touches areas which are rarely, rarely gone to. Love is the bottom line. That’s why it’s a good movie.

“I said it all. And you have been boring,” Lewis tells the reporter, his love wordfest reaching its end. “That is what an interview is supposed to be. So don’t feel badly."

He looks to his manager and commands, “All right, let’s move.”