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,
Jerry Desmonde of 11 and later became part of his family's act "The Four Sadlers". He built a career as a song and dance man in musical theatre and later toured parts of the United States in 1927-1928 with Beatrice Lillie and Noël Coward in the two-act revue "This Year of Grace". By 1934 he had married Peggy Duncan and they toured as a double act called "Peg and Jerry", largely in Scotland. In the 1940s, Desmonde was briefly a straight man for Scottish comedian Dave Willis and in 1942 he was invited to be straight man for stage comedian Sid Field