The Reunion

48 years ago today, Frank Sinatra did something spectacular. He saw to it that two greats were reunited after not seeing each other for 20 years – Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. He did it on the 1976 Labor Day Telethon. It is a magical thing to watch.

Martin and Lewis were huge when they were together. They did live shows in nightclubs, radio shows, TV shows and countless movies. On July 24, 1956, ten years to the day that they first performed together, they split and didn’t speak to each other until Frank brought them together.

It is obvious that Jerry was clueless about this. Vanity Fair wrote: “Jerry Lewis hates surprises – and on September 5, 1976, the biggest one of his then more-than-30-year career was waiting in the wings at Las Vegas’s Sahara Hotel. Lewis’s annual M.D.A. Telethon, always an event, was, on this night, already the equivalent of a “Very Special Episode”: Frank Sinatra was performing live instead of remote for the first time since 1953.

Frank did his set and presented Jerry with a couple of donations, including one for $5,000 on behalf of his grandchildren. “Listen,” he told Jerry, “I have a friend who loves what you do every year, and who just wanted to come out. Could you send my friend out, please?”

Then, to thunderous applause, Dean Martin walked on stage from the wings.

Dean’s surprise appearance at the telethon caught Jerry completely off guard. “You son of a bitch,” he can be heard saying, sotto voce, to Frank in the clip, before joking, “Shoulda been a Jew that did it.” And then Frank bows out, and it’s just Jerry and Dean. “So, how ya been?” Jerry begins. “You know, it seems like we haven’t seen each other for 20 years,” Martin replies. Lewis’s response: “Well, you know, there was all those rumors about our breaking up—and then when I started the show and you weren’t here, I believed it.”

The moment has been called one of the most iconic moments in television history.

Putting it into words just doesn’t cut it, so let’s enjoy the moment together, shall we?

Magical!