Jerry Lewis interview by Dick Cavett

Dick Cavett: When you have all of that great success like that it has to bring out some bad sides in a person and one of them is supposed to be that you’ll just snap your fingers and watch people jump for the fun of it… Did you ever catch yourself doing that? Just to remind yourself that you’re powerful?

Jerry Lewis: No, I don’t think that’s true.

DC: They say everybody does that when they get great success at an early age.

JL: I think you’ll find, not unlike Joe Mankiewicz, you’ll find that the dialogue of that nature… that you hear about people who are maligned unfairly and unjustifiably… It usually comes from incompetence. And it usually comes from people who think they’ve been told to jump, when they were in fact not even invited in the room.

You’ll never hear it from heavyweights. You’ll never hear negative things from important people. You’ll only hear productive things and constructive things. There isn’t anybody I can rap or will I rap, at any time, about anything. I may disagree, I may have another opinion, but I respect the fact that they have to that opinion. 

And I haven’t go the time to be negative. That makes ya old. And it makes you tired and sick.

Jerry Lewis interview by Dick Cavett / Date: ?