Lewis starred in six more comedic features from 1981 to 1984, including Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1982), in which he played the role of a talk show host, earning a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Followed by their own series of 14 new movies, At War with the Army (1950), That's My Boy (1951), Sailor Beware (1952), Jumping Jacks (1952), The Stooge (1952), Scared Stiff (1953), The Caddy (1953), Money from Home (1953), Living It Up (1954), 3 Ring Circus (1954), You're Never Too Young (1955), Artists and Models (1955), Pardners (1956) and Hollywood or Bust (1956).

"[24] While there, he received an urgent request from his friend Sid Luft, who was Judy Garland's husband and manager, saying that she couldn't perform that night in Las Vegas because of strep throat,[24] and asking Lewis to fill in.

[citation needed] In late 1956, Lewis began performing regularly at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, which marked a turning point in his life and career.

[35] This made Lewis the highest paid individual Hollywood talent to date and was unprecedented in that he had unlimited creative control, including final cut and the return of film rights after 30 years.

Lewis's clout and box office were so strong[36] that Barney Balaban, head of production at Paramount, told the press, "If Jerry wants to burn down the studio I'll give him the match!

Trade reviewer Pete Harrison noted the sight gags but felt that Lewis was not a true pantomime artist: "As a mute, there are only brief moments of his work coming close to Chaplin, Jacques Tati, or Harpo Marx.

Following a cameo on The Joey Bishop Show, he starred in The Family Jewels (1965) about a young heiress who must choose among six uncles, one of whom is up to no good and out to harm the girl's beloved bodyguard who practically raised her.

[52] His television appearances during this period included Good Morning America, The Dick Cavett Show, NBC Follies, Celebrity Sportsman, Cher, Dinah!, Tony Orlando and Dawn.

While guest starring in five episodes of Wiseguy,[citation needed] its filming schedule forced Lewis to miss the Museum of the Moving Image's opening with a retrospective of his work.

"[68] Placed in the context of the conservative era, his antics were radical and liberating, paving the way for future comedians Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, Andy Kaufman, Paul Reubens, and Jim Carrey.

"You cannot help but notice Lewis's incredible sense of control in regards to performing—they may have looked at times like the ravings of a madman but his best work had a genuine grace and finesse behind it that would put most comedic performers of any era to shame.

His techniques and methods of filmmaking, documented in his book and his USC class, enabled him to complete most of his films on time and under budget since reshoots could take place immediately instead of waiting for the dailies.

[citation needed] Man in Motion,[76] a featurette for Three on a Couch, features the video system, named "Jerry's Noisy Toy"[77] and shows Lewis receiving the Golden Light Technical Achievement award for its development.

[82] Lewis also traveled to medical schools for seminars on laughter and healing with Clifford Kuhn and also did corporate and college lectures, motivational speaking and promoted the pain-treatment company Medtronic.

[citation needed] After meeting with Paul Cohen, founder of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), Lewis and Martin made their first appeal in early December 1951 on the finale of The Colgate Comedy Hour, followed by another in 1952.

anthology,[130] meeting up with seven-year-old Lochie Graham in 2010, who shared his idea for "Jerry's House", a place for vulnerable and traumatized children[131][132] and in 2016, would lend his name and star power to Criss Angel's HELP (Heal Every Life Possible) charity event.

[163] In an October 2016 interview with Inside Edition, Lewis acknowledged that he might not star in any more films, given his advanced age, while admitting, through tears, that he was afraid of dying, as it would leave his wife and daughter alone.

On other occasions, Lewis expressed admiration for female comedians Totie Fields, Phyllis Diller, Kathleen Freeman, Elayne Boosler, Whoopi Goldberg, and Tina Fey.

"[177] As a filmmaker who insisted on the personal side of his work—who was producer, writer, director, star, and over-all boss of his productions in the interest of his artistic conception and passion—he was an auteur by temperament and in practice long before the word traveled Stateside.

His purposeful selection of lenses, for example, expands and contracts space to generate laughs that aren't necessarily inherent in the material, and he often achieves his biggest effects via what he leaves off screen, not just visually but structurally.

"[182] As a director, Lewis advanced the genre of film comedy with innovations in the areas of fragmented narrative, experimental use of music and sound technology, and near surrealist use of color and art direction.

[3][183][184] This prompted his peer, filmmaker Jean Luc Godard to proclaim, "Jerry Lewis ... is the only one in Hollywood doing something different, the only one who isn't falling in with the established categories, the norms, the principles.

"[185] Jim Hemphill for American Cinematheque wrote, "They are films of ambitious visual and narrative experimentation, provocative and sometimes conflicted commentaries on masculinity in post-war America, and unsettling self-critiques and analyses of the performer's neuroses.

[186] Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times said, "The idea of comedians getting under the skin and tapping into their deepest, darkest selves is no longer especially novel, but it was far from a universally accepted notion when Lewis first took the spotlight.

Stephen Dalton in The Hollywood Reporter wrote, Lewis had "an agreeably bitter streak, offering self-lacerating insights into celebrity culture which now look strikingly modern.

Speaking of The King of Comedy, "More contemporary satirists like Garry Shandling, Steve Coogan and Ricky Gervais owe at least some of their self-deconstructing chops to Lewis's generously unappetizing turn in Scorsese's cult classic.

As Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote: Lewis had "the impulse to deconstruct and even demolish the fictional "givens" of any particular sketch, including those that he might have dreamed up himself, a kind of perpetual auto-destruction that becomes an essential part of his filmmaking as he steadily gains more control over the writing and direction of his features.

"[citation needed] Lewis, and Martin & Lewis, as himself or his films, have been referenced by directors and performers of differing genres spanning decades, including Andy Warhol's Soap Opera (1964), John Frankenheimer's I Walk the Line (1970), Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), Randal Kleiser's Grease (1978), Rainer Werner Fassbinder's In a Year of 13 Moons (1978), Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future (1985), Quentin Tarantino's Four Rooms (1995), Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994), Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002), Hitchcock (2012), Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), Jay Roach's Trumbo (2015), The Comedians (2015), Baskets (2016), The Sopranos (1999), Seinfeld (1996, 1998), and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017, 2018).

[citation needed] Similarly, varied musicians have mentioned Lewis in song lyrics including, Ice Cube, The Dead Milkmen, Queen Latifah, and Frank Zappa.