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When Darren McGavin replaced Dean Martin
The thing about comedy duos is that they rarely work as solo acts. Who is Abbott without Costello? Laurel without Hardy? Beavis without Butthead?
Maybe the one exception that proves the rule is Jerry Lewis. He was successful as a comedy duo with Dean Martin, and he went on to have further success in his career as a dual filmmaker/actor. Martin and Lewis found fame as a nightclub duo, before translating their act for television on The Colgate Comedy Hour. From there, the pair starred in a series of feature films before a widely publicized breakup.
According to a 1956 article in the Lubbock, Texas's Evening Journal, Martin refused to appear in A Delicate Delinquent, thus severing the decade-long creative tie with Jerry Lewis.
So, with Martin out and Lewis still in, ol' Jerry needed a new foil. Martin was always the voice of reason, as grounded as Lewis was zany. A few years later, audiences would tire of Lewis on his own with no regular guy to play off of. But for the moment, with 1956's Delicate Delinquent, Jerry Lewis was in need of a partner.
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Enter Darren McGavin. Years before he was Kolchak, and even more years before he was the dad in A Christmas Story, the Evening Journal described McGavin as "a chunky red-haired Irishman." If you're keeping score at home, that's the complete opposite of Dean Martin. One thing they had in common, though, was the fact that both Martin and McGavin sang.
"But I won't be singing in the picture," said McGavin about A Delicate Delinquent. Instead, he gamely stepped into the role that was originally written for Dean Martin, in what amounted to a financially successful but otherwise forgettable romp.
Contemporary readers will, of course, know that the Lewis/McGavin partnership was a one-off. However, at the time, the decision to work together again was up in the air.
"That's up to Jerry," said McGavin. "As for myself, I never plan ahead."
11 Comments
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052506/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_140_act
They *were* co-stars, but a partnership? Nah! However, I've said this before and it's worth repeating... There are times when MeTV's writers *never* let the facts get in the way of a good story...
And in a similar vein, were Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra (although members of the "Rat Pack" who did a number of films together) a comedy/singing partnership? If you think so, well "Ain't That a Kick in the Head"...
