Sharpe, now 87, starred in 1964’sThe Disorderly Orderlyalongside Lewis and says that at one point during filming he summoned her to his office, where he “started moving in on” her: “He grabbed me. He began to fondle me. He unzipped his pants. Quite frankly, I was dumbstruck.”
The actressrecalls putting up her handand telling him, " ‘I don’t know if this is a requirement for your leading ladies, but this is something I don’t do’ " — a response that she says made the actor and comedian “furious.”
“I got the feeling that that never really happened to him,” Sharpe says, going on to allege that crew was not allowed to speak to her on-set of the film after the incident and that Lewis “never worked with me. He never spoke to me. The first take of what we did together was what went on film. And that was what everyone was going to see.”
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Jerry Lewis (left) and Karen Sharpe.Denise Truscello/WireImage; Kevin Winter/Getty Images
In the case of Holiday, now 91, she says she feared that her scenes would be cut entirely from 1961’sThe Ladies Manin retribution after Lewis allegedlysexually harassedher on set.
“The first day we were working, he said, ‘Can you come to the dressing room afterward? I want to discuss what we’re going to shoot tomorrow,’ " Holiday says. “I sit down and he presses a button, locks me in the dressing room with him. Then he starts to talk to me: ‘Y’know, you could be very attractive but you wear pants all the time. I have never seen you in a skirt. You have nice legs and you’ve got good boobs.’ Then he starts to talk to me about sex.”
Hope Holiday.
She alleges that Lewis then started to masturbatein front ofher, adding, “I was frightened … I just sat there and I wanted to leave so badly.”
On why she didn’t report Lewis' alleged actions to the Screen Actors Guild at the time, Taylor says, “He was very big at Paramount. I was under contract to him and to Paramount, and I didn’t want to shake the boat. Y’know, I figured I’ll just keep my mouth shut.”
“They said, ‘Well, how big is your p—y? Jerry has a salami and will use it on a girl,’ " she alleges. “They thought it was very funny and were boasting. I thought it was so gross. It was hard to laugh at Jerry’s jokes after that.”
Taylor admits that she thinks “it actually was a good thing that the executives boasted about him because it gave me warning to be on my guard.”
“I tend to be too trusting,“The Nannyalum adds.
Renée Taylor.David Buchan/Shutterstock
The documentary’saccompanying feature fromVanity Fairincludes interviews with several more women, including Anna Maria Alberghetti,Lainie Kazan, Jill St. John and Connie Stevens — the last of whom says she was “the only actress at [Lewis'] funeral.”
“I had heard that he was pretty rough on females,” she says. “He wasn’t on me.”
In Kazan’s case, she alleges that Lewis suggested getting her “nose fixed” and losing weight.
“He really came on to me, but he [also] wanted me to feel like gravel,” she adds. “He wanted me to feel less than.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
source: people.com
