Who needs Jack Benny? In 1947, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson took his own act on the road, here appearing in Northern Kentucky at the famous (and probably whites only) Lookout House supper club, literally just up (an admittedly long) hill from where I'm sitting as I type these words!
Almost every day he was here, he got some coverage in the local papers and he was even held over for a second week!
And look who was playing over in the next county at the same time, a full two years before their first movie!
This appearance by Martin & Lewis is so early in their careers that Lewis doesn't have his signature buzz cut hair style. Dean Martin's dad was a barber and he would do his own hair. So it was Dean who came up with this hair style for Lewis. The idea was to reinforce Lewis' child like persona. Lewis has written that their act was basically Dean was the organ grinder, and Jerry was the monkey. You can see in this ad how they kind of like alike.
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