[8] His mother, who was performing at the time with the Ted Fio Rito Orchestra,[9] intended to name him after her favorite actor, Cary Grant, but her son became "Gary" as the result of a clerical error.

During his two years of service, he spent two months at the Saigon Airport during the Vietnam War, and the remainder of the time in South Korea.

[12] Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on the Lewis name,[10] Garrett put the band into the studio to develop,[6] still financed by Gary's mother.

[10] By Lewis' own admission, his natural singing voice was not one of his strengths,[11] and Garrett employed overdubbing techniques in the studio to enhance it.

[17] In the summer of 2013, Lewis, along with a group of 1960s musicians including Gary Puckett (Gary Puckett & The Union Gap), Chuck Negron (formerly of Three Dog Night), Mark Lindsay (former lead singer of Paul Revere & the Raiders), and The Turtles featuring Flo & Eddie, toured 47 cities in Paradise Artist's "Happy Together" tour.

[18] He also appeared in a credited role singing "The Land of La-la-la" with his dad in Rock-A-Bye Baby (1958), where he played Jerry Lewis as a boy.

In 1971, Lewis took a break from performing, operating a music shop in the San Fernando Valley and giving drumming lessons.

[10] In 2009, on the nationally syndicated program Inside Edition, Gary met his half-sister Suzan Kleinman, who had learned from DNA testing results that they are related siblings, the children of comedy star Jerry Lewis.