They were the unlikeliest of pairs--a handsome crooner and a skinny monkey, an Italian from Steubenville, Ohio, and a Jew from Newark, N.J.. Before they teamed up, Dean Martin seemed destined for a mediocre career as a nightclub singer, and Jerry Lewis was dressing up as Carmen Miranda and miming records on stage. But the moment they got together, something clicked--something miraculous--and audiences saw it at once.

Before long, they were as big as Elvis or the Beatles would be after them, creating hysteria wherever they went and grabbing an unprecedented hold over every entertainment...

A Book Is Born It was 1962. I was at Paramount filming "The Nutty Professor," a labor of love that transcended everything else I had ever done. One day I felt instinctively that there were minor rumblings among my crew. Backbiting and envy are two of the most destructive forces I know of. So I went home that night, sat down and wrote a tome -- a small one, but a tome, on the benefits of being a person. I wrote the words in a matter of two hours and had my sketch artist interpret what I wrote in sketches. Within one week I had the little book printed and bound and made up only 200 copies (my...