Has Jay Leno Retired

JP DEVINE: Jerry Lewis takes a bow

Even worse, he will no longer be the national chairman for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. After 85 years of struggle, comic madness, dozens of movies, television shows, cruel nightclub routines and the brickbats of critics, Jerry Lewis is hanging up his tux.

To the entire planet, and there is nowhere on it that the name Jerry Lewis doesn't create a smile, Jerry was truly the king of comedy.

Yes, it started with Dean Martin, beginning in those awful dumpy clubs all over the country, and then billowing into national fame and a series of Paramount films that made them household names.

What few know is that Jerry Lewis loved giving breaks to young talent, even if it only meant sticking them in his sketches with five or six lines.

In the 70s, one of Jerry's scouts saw me doing standup at a Sunset Boulevard club and I got a call. A week later I found myself on Jerry's Sunday night comedy hour, co-starring in a sketch with the late Richard Kiley. I did two more with Jerry, working with Ricardo Montalban and others.

Of course, Jerry was always the center of those sketches. It was after all, the "Jerry Lewis Show." That led to my jobs with Johnny Carson, Laugh In and Bob Newhart. I come here today not to bury Jerry, but to praise him.

I'm not the only one. Jerry had a big heart and eye for talent. He helped many, many young comics. A lot of those comics -- some still working, some retired -- are coming out to protest the actions of the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Jerry was labeled by some as a megalomaniac, a self-centered egoist who kept the spotlight on himself. That's pretty accurate. There is a saying in show business: "What do you call an actor with no ego? A waiter."

I was blessed to be able to watch the great comic in action. I was there on the set day after day when he ran his show, with the help of sight gag master Bill Richmond, and I can tell you it was something to see.

Shimada Shinsuke, the Jay Leno of Japan retires after yakuza ties ...

In Japan it has been front-page news for the past three days that Japan’s most ubiquitous and popular television comic and host, Shinsuke Shimada, is retiring from the entertainment industry after admitting to extensive ties to the yakuza, Japan’s organized crime. Before his announcement, Shimada hosted six different programs, aired in Osaka and Tokyo. The scandal would be the equivalent of Jay Leno or Regis Philbin confessing to being in cahoots with Mexican kingpins. His abrupt departure has forced TV stations to cancel or adapt programs on which Shimada featured regularly as a host. But much more than: it has brought to public attention the yakuza domination of the entertainment industry.

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