Monday, August 20, 2007

Jerry Lewis Update!

I received a call today from a spokesman for the Muscular Dystrophy Association who read today's item about this blog in Norm Clarke's Review-Journal column. This blog's posting yesterday made it's way onto The Huffington Post and the popular Romenesko journalism blog as well.

The spokesman told me that Mr. Lewis is quite appalled by the actions of Mr. Saphire and has severed ties with him. Indeed, yesterday, Saphire's site touted Lewis as a lifelong friend and had a drawing of Lewis as its main art (as seen in this screen shot). Today, the Jerry Lewis link is dead and the only Lewis listed in a blurb about his clients was Mally, daughter of the late Lambchop puppeteer Shari.

The $20K fee was actually something Lewis set up a few years ago for international media because he was trying to shrink down the number of interview requests he receives. It was never intended to be suggested to mainstream American journalists. I'm not sure this explanation fully makes it that much better -- a polite "no" seems more honest and less likely to create this sort of negative feedback than an unrealistic, ridiculous fee -- but I was pleased to get any answer of this type.

That said, the MDA spokesman said Jerry Lewis will sit down with me for an interview after all. And, no, it won't be limited to chat about the MDA and the Telethon, although I do want to hear about that.

So stay tuned. If it works out in the next day or two, Lewis will be this week's guest for "The Strip." I only hope the chat turns out to be as least as interesting than the chase.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is awesome.

Unknown said...

"a polite "no" seems more honest and less likely to create this sort of negative feedback than an unrealistic, ridiculous fee "

Doesn't one hire a publicist for the exactly this process of filtering out the publication for which you don't want to deal with?