I’ll admit I haven’t been following the career of “funnyman” Jerry Lewis recently, but a glimpse of him on the Labor Day Telethon was quite jarring. He was so bloated he bore an eerie resemblance to Martin Short’s Glick character. I forgot about it until I saw him on the cover of one of the supermarket tabloids this week. Had I not seen him on the telethon, I’d have sworn it was retouch job. Inside the tabloid, spokespeople attributed his appearance to pneunomonia medication. Is that possible and/or probable, or has he been getting steadily chunkier and I haven’t noticed. I think the last time I saw him was in Martin Scorcese’s “King of Comedy”.
Lewis had spinal surgery in early February this year. The surgery was to alleviate back pain caused by his over-enthusiastic pratfalls of years past. The surgery could have caused him to have some bloating, I suppose.
He’s in his 70’s, so he does get sick from time to time. But he just finished a lengthy appearance as the Devil in a revival of “Damn Yankees”, and he has several shows scheduled in Vegas and NY.
I don’t know, but if he’s having spinal problems, he may be on corticosteroids, which would cause bloating, especially of the face.