Talking Pictures - Jerry Lewis: The King of Comedy
An auteur in his own right, Jerry Lewis’ frenzied physicality and comedy of chagrin has been making people laugh and cringe for over six decades.
Alan Finney chats with Lewis fans Shaun Micallef, Santo Cilauro, Chris Fujiwara, Frank Woodley and Lawrence Mooney about his immense and diverse career.
Alan Finney has worked as a film critic on TV and radio, and in advertising, promotion and marketing at Roadshow Film Distributors before becoming Managing Director of Roadshow, and Vice President and Managing Director of Buena Vista International (Australia and New Zealand). He also served on the Board of ACMI and as a Board Member of The Australian Film Institute. In the Australia Day Honours for 2002 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for services to the Australian Film Industry. He is presently Chair of The Australian Film Institute.
Chris Fujiwara was previously the artistic director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and increased the festival's attendance by 33% during his tenure. In 2009, Fujiwara released his book Jerry Lewis, which examined the visionary director’s self-referential comedic style. In 2015 he programmed the Destruction Cinema sidebar at the Sydney Film Festival, focussing on lesser known anarchic films from the 1960s and 1970s.
Frank Woodley spent 20 years in the much loved, Perrier Award-winning duo Lano and Woodley. Since hanging up his hat, Frank has been busier than a bee (bees are allegedly flat out), producing and performing solo shows, stand-up, short films, TV series and more. He was a regular guest on ABC TV’s music quiz show Spicks and Specks and Network TEN’s Good News Week and an audience favourite on Thank God You're Here.
Lawrence Mooney is a stand up comedian. His brutally honest and hilarious insights have earned him Best Show Sydney Comedy Festival 2015 and a Barry Award Nom (Best Show) at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2015. Lawrence Mooney is well known as the host Dirty Laundry Live on ABC TV, and for his appeatances on ABC TV's Agony Uncles, Agony of Life, Agony of Modern Manners and Agony of the Mind. He has also appeared in It’s a Date (ABC1) series 1 and 2, which he co-wrote with Peter Helliar.
Shaun Micallef has been a fixture on our television screens for the last 25 years. From Full Frontal to his own Micallef Program, he has done it all: chat shows, sitcoms, improv, drama, feature films, radio, books, newspaper columms and theatre. Shaun has won four Logies, an Aria and AFI Award but admirably has not let any of this go to his head.
Santo Cilauro started collaborating with Rob Sitch and Tom Gleisner in comedy theatre productions and tours. One of the co-founders of The D-Generation, Cilauro Cilauro was also writer/performer on the D-Generation's 1992–1993 sketch comedy The Late Show, and went on to help set up the Working Dog production company, where he was one of the writers/directors/actors of films The Castle and The Dish, and TV series Frontline, The Panel, A River Somewhere, All Aussie Adventures, The Hollowmen, Thank God You're Here, Utopia and Have You Been Paying Attention?.