The slapstick comic will be best remembered to movies fans for his roles in the likes of 'The Bellboy', his series of movies with co-star Dean Martin and 'The Nutty Professor', which was later remade, starring Eddie Murphy.
In later life, he was introduced to a whole new generation of movie going audiences when he starred alongside Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's 'The King of Comedy' in 1982.
He came out of movie retirement again in 1990s to star in 'Funny Bones' with Lee Evans and 'Arizona Dream' with Johnny Depp.

Jerry Lewis made over 50 movies. He once starred in and directed a film entitled 'The Day The Clown Cried' about the holocaust in 1971, but decided not to release it. “I was embarrassed,” he said about the film in 2013.
“I was ashamed of the work and I was grateful that I had the power to contain it all and never let anybody see it. It was bad, bad, bad.”
Off screen, Lewis had a colourful personal life. He wouldn't strike you as a typical lady's man but he once had a steamy affair with Marilyn Monroe. He was married twice and had seven children, as well as at least one love child.
He was also known to have had a difficult character, even once threatening Joan Rivers, who took it so seriously that she hired bodyguards.

He was also well-known for his philanthropy, raising more than $2billion for Muscular Dystrophy Foundation.
But he remained modest about his charity work. "The important thing is that I do it, not the why," he once told The New York Times.
"Sadly I can confirm that today the world lost one of the most significant human beings of the 20th century," his manager Mark Rozzano said in a press statement released last night.
Asked in 2013 if he ever thought about retiring, Jerry responded with a simple but stern: "Why?"