Here Are All the Medical Procedures Jerry Lewis Claimed He Understood As Well As a Surgeon
If confidence is key to a comedy career, then Jerry Lewis was an all-time great based on hubris alone. Not only was Lewis on top of the laughs game, as he told Larry Wilde in The Great Comedians Talk About Comedy, but he knew more about most fields than the people who studied the subjects in college.
“Would you know what the procedure for brain surgery is from reading books?” Lewis asked. “I could tell you because I watched it. Same thing with an appendectomy, tonsillectomy, amputation, I’ve seen (them).”
But Lewis’ practical knowledge extended far beyond the medical field. “You think you could articulate about what makes a submarine go 400 feet below the surface of the water by reading about it? Or being in it, like I was? Or jumping,” Lewis offered. “Did you ever jump in a parachute? You can read about it, but that ain’t gonna tell you anything. I did it. Practical application.”
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In case you haven’t guessed by now, Lewis wasn’t much of a reader. “I know a lot of guys that have read thousands of books,” the comedian said with disdain. “But I’m still a professor of cinema at the University of Southern California. They can’t make it.”
Let me just Snopes this claim for a second. While Lewis gave lectures about film at USC in the 1960s, I’ve yet to find a source that claims he was a professor, honorary or otherwise. Lewis likely could have cared less about the distinction. “I know my racket, and (USC) wanted the one that knew best,” he told Wilde. “A drop-out’s a professor!”
Forget actual education — audacity is where it’s at, according to Lewis. “Without an ego, no one’s going to know (a comedian) is alive,” he explained. “Ego’s very important.”
Years later, Lewis was even more sure of his intellectual abilities. “I'm a multi-faceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius. I have an IQ of 190 — that's supposed to be a genius,” he told Los Angeles Magazine in 1980, a dozen years after his conversation with Wilde. “People don’t like that. My answer to all my critics is simple: I like me. I like what I’ve become. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, and I don’t really believe I’ve scratched the surface yet.”
No wonder Lewis once told Look magazine he refused to read books. He sincerely believed he was a genius who could learn whatever he needed by talking with someone over a beer. “Reading books isn’t bad,” he consoled Wilde, who occasionally read one himself. “It’s just time-consuming. And I can learn more from sitting with a new acquaintance about what life is all about than I would ever get from a book, cover to cover.”
Maybe so, but I still wouldn’t want Lewis performing my appendectomy.
