#hardly working

He launched a cinema chain in the 70s with $140 million in cash — and it went bust in seven weeks. In answer to a $27 million lawsuit by some 30 interested parties, he filed bankruptcy.

"An embarrassing kind of thing," he confesses, "for a man who has made the kind of money I've made."

A double cartwheel off a piano in Las Vegas landed him with such pain he got hung up on Percodan. The pain was so crushing he had a brush with suicide. A spinal cord blockage was finally relieved by his friend, Dr Michael DeBakey, a heart specialist.

Now his 36-year marriage to Patti Palmer has also sunk — torpedoed by Jerry's desire to "get some toys and play."

He explains: "One day I decided I had no childhood. I was married when I was 18. I have six sensational sons. I really think I needed to break out . . . my head needed it."

And recently while still mourning the loss of his father, one of his sons, Ronald, 31, was struck by a car and all but killed. At that point, Jerry Lewis decided to take the matter directly to God.

He looked up at the sky and cried: "Hey, if you're testing me, I promise I'm okay. Work on somebody else for an hour."

It's been 10 years since Lewis made a movie, and if he had sat down and plotted the very WORST time for a comeback, now would be it.

Nonetheless, he's back with a movie called "Hardly Working", his 43rd, and viewers with memories will be hardly disappointed. There's the same Jerry Lewis, somehow still looking 12, playing one Bo Hooper who bumbles from job to job, determined to stay off welfare.

He is a Japanese chef, a service station attendant, a bartender, a slick line in search of a carefully placed banana peel.

All that's missing is Dean Martin — but then, $10 million couldn't get them back together.

"Here is the film that's going to bring Jerry back overnight," assures producer Jim J. McNamara. "Twentieth Century Fox hasn't seen numbers like this since 'Star Wars'."

As far as the U.S. is concerned, Lewis is kind of coming in the back door. "Hardly Working" has already racked up $25 million in box office receipts in European countries and South America.

When Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin broke up in 1956 — ten years to the day of joining — it caused such deep feelings they didn't talk to each other for 15 years.

And they live less than a mile apart.

When they did meet, it was by accident, at the Golden Globe Awards.

"We had a nice half hour together," recalls Jerry. "I think we both thought, 'Well, that was nice to break the ice, and maybe now we'll get together and talk, rip, whatever . . .'"

But seven more years passed.

This time their meeting was engineered, on television, live, by their mutual friend, Frank Sinatra, at a now-famous telethon.

Recalls Jerry: "I handled it very well, because it was such a shock. Frank is the only person who could have done that . . ."

Ironically, Sinatra is as close to both Martin and Lewis as they once were to each other. "Frank is Dean's father figure," says Jerry, "his confidant, his hero . . . just like Dean was to me."

Sinatra and Martin hang out together, mostly in Las Vegas, while Sinatra and Lewis talk mostly on the phone.

"We talk every couple of weeks, about nothing. He just checks to see how I am. He is that kind of man, very warm, protective.

"We never talk about Dean and him, and Frank and Dean never talk about me.

"Frank can be in the centre of all that and handle it very well. It's his character. He globs on to something and is immovable. There's nothing you can do to destroy that — unless you cross him morally.

"He is Dean's friend at night, and he's with me during the day. It's an amazing set of circumstances, but it works."

Lewis says it was Sinatra's hope the telethon meeting would launch a new relationship for them but, again, it failed.

"Because," he says, "somebody must be painted black in a situation . . . and I won't discuss that. You can't force it. We're back to how sensitive the situation is . . ."

Still, he admits he HAS entertained the idea of doing another movie with Dean Martin. "It would be suicidal," he says, "although I'd love the challenge, to see if we could pull it off."

He has not discussed the idea with Martin, but adds: "I know Dean. His whole being is as close to me as my breath. I know he would concur. It would bring nothing."

Jerry Lewis' excitement today about his film comeback to American audiences is somewhat dampened by the emotional hurricanes that have swept through his life. Especially lately.

He's "the bad guy" in the breakup of his marriage, as he is seen running with younger, prettier women, settling now in a relationship with Sandee Pitnick, shapely, blonde and beautiful.

He says they met after he left Patti, and that it's still "too early" for pictures together.

Lewis clicks on his own tape recorder ("He's paranoid," a studio executive had warned) and talks candidly of his separation.

"I love Patti. We were together 36 years, have six sons. I am the heavy . . . because I need to break out.