The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon individual stations, airing on ABC on Sunday, September 1, 2013, and running two hours. The final edition aired on ABC on August 31, 2014, again as a two-hour special, beginning at 9PM ET/PT. It was announced on May 1, 2015 that the MDA would be discontinuing the annual event for good. Jerry Lewis began hosting telethons to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Associations of America (MDAA) in 1952 after a plea from a staff member who worked with Lewis and Dean Martin on "The Colgate Comedy Hour". Lewis had previously taken part in what has been described as the very first
Eric Lewis (actor) to Act", with words by Barrington and music by Wilfred Bendall, at the Japanese Village in Knightsbridge. Frustrated by his position as understudy to an actor who had hardly ever taken ill in four years, Lewis resigned from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in January 1887. On 29 January 1887, one week after the opening of the new opera, "Ruddigore", Grossmith did fall ill, and Henry Lytton, a young actor who was in the right place at the right time, took Grossmith's role of Robin Oakapple until 18 February. Lytton went on to perform with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company