Local brother act cut their teeth working with the late Jerry Lewis

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This article was published 21/08/2017 (3125 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of the toughest tasks for the Steiner Brothers, a former kid tap dancing act from Winnipeg, was performing with Jerry Lewis at hospitals for sick kids.

“Oh my, you’d be trying not to cry,” recalled Rob Steiner, 72.

And Lewis, who would go on to help raise over US$2 billion for muscular dystrophy over his career with his annual telethons, would admonish the boys.

“He’d say, ‘What are you crying for? You’re making them happy. Why are you crying?’”

The Steiner brothers shared some of their reminisces of the legendary American comedian, film director and philanthropist who died on the weekend at age 91 at his Las Vegas home. The Steiners were Lewis’s main opening act in Sin City from the 1950s to 1970s, dating back to when Lewis was still teamed with crooner Dean Martin.

The Steiner brothers were a tap-dancing act comprised of Roy, 11, Ron, 9, and Rob, 7, when they started. The Steiners opened for Lewis up to three times a year in Vegas, each time for two-to-three week runs. They kept up their association with Lewis for 25 years until they hung up their tapping shoes and returned to Winnipeg in 1976. The members are all in their 70s today.

Seeing as they were so young in an entertainment world lurid with temptation, Lewis took them under his wing.

“He was like a second father to us. He kept a real close eye on us,” said Rob.

That included phoning their parents if they got out of line. Rob recalled a time when Lewis took him aside and said, “’I heard you were with this person last night, blah-blah-blah, I think your mom would like to know about that.’ I said, ‘No, no, no!’ I think I was about 15 or something.”

“None of us drank or smoked or did drugs,” he said, and Lewis, who didn’t imbibe either, was determined to keep it that way. He was also the only star the brothers could recall who didn’t fool around on his wife.

“He never did any blue material at all” in his performance, added Rob. “He said if you have to do blue material, you’re not funny.”

(The Steiners also opened in Las Vegas once for Lenny Bruce, who pushed the boundaries of obscenity laws, only to see him arrested by police in the middle of his act.)

Lewis showered the boys with gifts.

“If he’d go to a store, whatever he bought for himself he bought for us. One time he bought us complete ski outfits,” said Rob.

The rubber-faced comedian could be as antic off stage as on. If the boys danced too close to the curtain, he would grab them by the seat of the pants and say, “Try dancing now you little schmuck!” Another time he cut Roy’s necktie at the knot seconds before Roy was to go on stage.

Rob recalled how he would take the boys out on the ocean in his boat, the Pink Pussycat. “He said, ‘I’m going to teach you how to water ski. Here’s one ski.’ I said, ‘I don’t ski.’ ‘Well, you’ll learn on one and then I’ll give you two.’”

When Ron finally managed to get up on two skis, Lewis cut the tow rope.

But he could take a joke in return, which was a rarity with most performers, the Steiners said. One time Rob snuck up behind Lewis and mimicked him behind his back while he was performing. Another time, they snuck on stage and put a wig on his piano player’s head.

In fact, it was a Los Angeles Christmas party (a barbecue) hosted by Lewis and Martin that launched the Steiners. An aunt worked for the duo and mentioned her nephews were pretty good tap dancers. The aunt had encouraged the Winnipeg family to relocate to Los Angeles a year earlier. The boys were asked to dance and an agent in the crowd booked them into Las Vegas the following week.

Lewis’s muscular dystrophy telethons were just who he was, the brothers said. The Steiners performed on the telethons, too. “It wasn’t a joke to him. It wasn’t a publicity thing. It was a genuine wish to help,” said Ron.

The Steiners opened for some of the biggest stars back then including Elvis Presley, Bob Hope and Marilyn Munroe (they even attended her funeral).

They would also perform on TV variety shows hosted by Dinah Shore, Ed Sullivan, Gary Moore and Jack Benny. They worked for Martin and Lewis when they were one of the hottest acts in show business, and were the only act who worked for both after their bitter split.

They opened for the Rat Pack as well as separately for Martin, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

“If you worked with one of them, you were interconnected with all of them, and we worked individually with all of them,” said Ron.

“Jerry was the closest to us. He took care of you,” Ron said. “We worked with him probably more than any star we worked with back then.”

 

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca