Hard Work

The zany comic team of Dean Martin, 34, and Jerry Lewis, 25, has worked hard to get ahead in its five-year career in nightclubs, radio & TV and movies (TIME, May 23, 1949). Last week, in a personal appearance at Manhattan's Paramount Theater, the boys worked harder than ever. They played to packed houses six times a day, seven times on Saturday, and followed almost every appearance with an extra three minutes of clowning at their dressing-room window overlooking 44th Street--a methodical bit of madness designed to lure overloyal fans out of the Paramount's seats so that others could buy their way into them.

After seven days, with another week still,to go, Martin & Lewis had outdrawn such favorites as Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra to break the Paramount's record for weekly receipts. The new mark: $150,000. Counting up their own take (50% of the gross, minus salaries for an orchestra and supporting players), the comics found that their hard work had paid them the highest one-week salary in the history of show business: $64,000.

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