Actor-comedian Jerry Lewis hospitalized in Las Vegas with infection

[June 06, 2017]   By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran actor-comedian Jerry Lewis has been hospitalized in Las Vegas for treatment of a urinary tract infection but is expected to recover in time to travel to Canada later this month for his next movie shoot, his spokeswoman said on Monday.

The 91-year-old entertainer was admitted late on Friday, and doctors "decided to keep him in over the weekend for observation and to make sure the drugs they put him on agree with him," publicist Candi Cazau told Reuters.

Cazau said she was told that the antibiotics administered to Lewis were "doing their job, and he's feeling better."

She added that he was expected to be discharged from the hospital on Sunday or Monday and was otherwise in relatively good health.

A longtime Las Vegas resident, Lewis had been beset for many years with various ailments, including heart attacks, an inflammatory lung disorder and chronic back pain.

Lewis sprang to fame in the 1950s as a zany comic performer in nightclubs, on television and in the movies, launching his act as the cross-eyed sidekick of the suave singer Dean Martin. Lewis went on to star in more than 45 films in a career spanning five decades.

He also was closely associated with his annual Labor Day telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which he began hosting in 1952. He retired from that show in 2011.

Lewis is scheduled to travel to Canada around the end of this month to begin a 10-day shoot of his latest movie, in which he is playing the principal role, though details of the film are being kept under wraps for now, Cazau said.

Lewis is due to appear for a one-night show at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury in New York state in September.

His last big-screen appearance was in the title role of the 2013 film "Max Rose," playing an aging jazz pianist who questions his marriage after learning that his wife of 65 years may have been unfaithful.

It was his first movie in 18 years, following the 1995 comedy "Funny Bones." That same year, he made his Broadway debut in a revival of the musical "Damn Yankees."

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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