Jerry Lewis the following summer, and the audience was so enthusiastic that Kaye became Lewis' manager and guardian for Borscht Belt appearances. During World War II, he was rejected for military service because of a heart murmur. Lewis initially gained attention as part of a double act with singer Dean Martin, who served as straight man to Lewis' zany antics as the Martin and Lewis comedy team. They were different from other duo acts of the time because they played to each other and had ad-libbed improvisational segments within their planned routines. After forming in 1946, they quickly rose to national prominence,
The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon attained. Many criticisms arose against Jerry Lewis himself, and his negative impressions of disability. Activists argued that Lewis tended to only value disabled children as "poster children," yet ignoring those same "poster children" as they grow up and need genuine help rather than pity. In his 1990 essay "If I Had Muscular Dystrophy" in "Parade" (which had a longtime yearly feature about the telethon with the MDA and Lewis' cooperation), Jerry Lewis imagines himself as an adult with MD. He writes, "I decided after 41 years of battling this curse that cripples children of all ages, that I would put