Jerry Lewis Disinherited His 6 Sons – His Daughter Became Homeless & Slept on a Metal Bench Yet Son Still Loves Him

Jerry Lewis gained indelible fame for his comedy style and had a cult following during his heydays. However, he was an entirely different man at home, and his children did not know what to expect of him whenever he stepped in the front door. Additionally, he never once acknowledged his daughter despite her being homeless and poor. Even so, his son still loves him

Jerry Lewis was a renowned American comedian, singer, and actor whose contributions to comedy made him a global asset in pop culture. His uninhibited and volatile sense of comedy style earned him the title of “The King of Comedy,” and he went on to wow crowds with his distinctive voice, physical stunts, pratfalls, and facial expressions for years on end.

Many who knew Lewis remember him as a wild comedian who used his raw, edgy energy to create a distinctively successful career and even pave the way for future comics, such as Richard Pryor, Jim Carrey, and Steve Martin, among many others.

Besides comedy, Lewis was also an actor and was significantly recognized for playing a variety of characters, including Seymour in “My Friend Irma,” Melvin Jones in “Sailor Beware,” Myron Mertz in “Scared Stiff,” Eugene Fullstack in “Artists and Models” and Malcolm Smith in “Hollywood or Bust,” among many others

A jack of many trades, Lewis was also a producer. His production works include the films “The Delicate Delinquent,” “Rock-A-Bye Baby,” “The Geisha Boy,” “The Bellboy,” “Cinderfella,” “The Errand Boy,” and “The Ladies Man.”

Sadly, his wholesome persona on stage ended there, and when he set foot in his house, he was an entirely different person. Lewis was a family man, married to his wife Patti Palmer, a singer with composer and keyboardist Ted Fio Rito. The two wed in October 1945 and were parents to six sons, Gary, Scott, Christopher, Anthony, Joseph, and Ronald, who was adopted.

Comedian Jerry Lewis, his wife Patti and four sons, (left to right) Ronald, Christopher, Scott, and Gary, for an episode of the CBS celebrity interview program ‘Person to Person,’ California, September 1958. | Source: Getty Images

However, despite the blessing of family, the “Living It Up” actor was a horrible husband to Palmer and an even worse father to his six boys. He openly and proudly pursued extra-marital relationships and even gave unapologetic interviews about his infidelity. He once revealed his affairs with Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe to People Magazine in 2011.

The comedian was not any better of a father to his children. One of his sons, Anthony, opened up about his and his sibling’s childhood and the emotional instability they underwent at the hands of their father.

American actor and comedian Jerry Lewis sitting on a couch with wife, Patti Palmer, and their two sons, Gary and Ronald. circa 1960 | Source: Getty Images

Anthony revealed that when his father would come home and park in front of the front door, his mother would announce on the intercom that their father was home, and the kids would scatter in different directions, afraid of what awaited them once he came in. Anthony says every night, Lewis would come home a different man, and they never knew which Jerry Lewis would go home on what night:

“We could never predict his behavior on a given day.”

Anthony vividly remembers there being physical abuse on several occasions by his father. However, emotional abuse was a constant in the Lewis home. Despite living like royalty in Bel-Air, Hollywood’s highest echelon, the kids did not know peace and lived in fear of their father.

Palmer eventually filed for divorce in 1980 after 38 years of marriage. In the court papers, she complained bitterly about Lewis’s extravagant spending habits, which put the family’s finances in the wrong places.

Most bills started going unpaid, forcing Palmer to sell her jewelry and dispense her live-in help. She revealed that her husband would pay for airplane tickets for friends to meet him for vacations and also purchased hundreds of suitcases and tape recorders when he still had hundreds more that he didn’t use.

Palmer also complained about his open disregard for their union. She had endured years of infidelity from her husband and had finally had enough of his wayward ways. In the papers filed in September 1980, Palmer requested a legal separation and 450,000 dollars a year to support herself and her youngest son, Joseph Christopher, who was only 16 then. The divorce became final in 1983.

Following the separation, the “Jumping Jacks” actor became estranged from his children. Anthony filed a lawsuit against his father on behalf of his mother. He was suddenly faced with the choice of either letting his mother go on the streets or suing his father, and he chose the latter, a decision that resulted in his father disinheriting him. He would say:

“He wanted nothing to do with me.”

It was not enough that Lewis was mean and emotionally abusive to his children. Still, he outright refused to acknowledge his daughter, Suzan Lewis, born of one of his numerous extra-marital affairs. Lewis and Suzan’s mother, model Lynn Dixon met at the Copacabana after they were introduced by “Mr. Television,” Milton Berle.

In her book “Jerry Lewis, My Father — Is Always in My Mirror,” Suzan writes that her parents had fun together and had numerous passionate evenings. They shared friends, and he even brought her to the set of one of his movies and told her he wanted to marry her. “Pick some engagement rings,” he said as he picked an eight-carat round diamond.

They never walked down the aisle, as Lewis was still married to Palmer. They did, however, have a baby together, one that Lewis refused to acknowledge, despite the similarities in their walk, mannerisms, and even the DNA tests proving she was indeed the comic’s daughter. The DNA test at a Boston paternity lab posted an 88.7% match with Lewis’s eldest son.

Suzan says she had several encounters with her father, once at the theatre, where he approached her and asked how his daughter was doing. A second one was when he had the perpetrators of a mugging involving her arrested. However, that was about it. Even when life dealt her a bad hand, Lewis refused to acknowledge her.

At one point in her life, she had a head-on collision leaving her almost dead. Left incapacitated, her husband filed for divorce, which led to a myriad of other troubles — lousy health, no money, and even homelessness. She wanted to reconnect with her dad, but Lewis did not want to play dad to her.

Lewis Married Again a Month after His First Divorce Became Final
Less than a month after Lewis and Palmer divorced, Lewis married his second wife, Sandra “SanDee” Pitnick. Pitnick, a professionally trained Ballerina and stewardess, met the comic after she won a bit part in a dancing scene in his film “Hardly Working.” They married in February 1983 in Key Biscayne, Florida, and years later, adopted a daughter, Danielle.

Unlike his estranged relationship with his other kids, Lewis loved his daughter Danielle. When asked what he was most proud of during one of his last interviews, he said it was his daughter, adding:

“I don’t have to do anything for her to love me. She loves me already.”

His love for his second wife and daughter remained strong until his demise in 2017. In a twist of fate, the comedian disinherited all his children from his first wife and left his estate, estimated at $50 million, to Pitnick and Danielle.

In his will, the comic noted that he intentionally excluded his sons Gary, Ronald, Anthony, Christopher, Scott, Joseph, and all their descendants from benefiting from his estate. Comparing Lewis’ relationship with his older children and with Danielle is like comparing day and night.

While Anthony remembers a father that would abuse him and his siblings emotionally, Danielle remembers a loving dad that was always chipper and happy. She remains amazed at the impact her father had on people.

Lewis’s death was sad for her and her mother, but lucky for her, she has plenty of beautiful memories of her dad and his movies to keep his memory alive. She still wore one of his necklaces — a gold chain with a star of David pendant and the name Jerry engraved on it — given to her by her mother.

Speaking to KTNV Channel 13 Las Vegas, she confessed how tough it had been accepting his death and the emptiness her father’s passing had left behind:

“It’s definitely tough, and it’s definitely very surreal to think like a year ago he was here.”

Danielle had a wonderful childhood filled with love and memories, a far cry from Lewis’s relationship with his sons. The severity of the situation became even more pronounced when three of them, Anthony, Gary, and Ronald, were not invited to his funeral.

What Was the Children’s Reaction to Being Left Out of the Will?

Lewis’s decision to leave his sons and illegitimate daughter out of his will did not sit well with his sons, but they had no qualms about it. After all, it was his money, and they had no claim to it outside of their father’s will.

Anthony disclosed that he knew he was getting nothing from his father, but what truly irked him was Lewis’s decision to exclude his grandchildren from his will:

“I knew I wasn’t going to get anything, but the real sticking point, the dagger in my heart, is for the grandchildren.”

And while the exclusion did not vex his sons, it came unexpectedly to Suzan. In 2017, Suzan was homeless in Philadelphia and hoped the positive DNA test could have counted for something.

When Inside Edition reached out to Suzan to ask about how her father’s decision to leave her and her half-brothers out of the will had affected her, she said she’d hoped he would’ve considered her situation:

“I think that I would deserve something. Especially in my situation.”

She told the publication that she lived on the streets and carried her belongings in shopping bags. She got around by bus and cleaned her clothes at a laundromat.

When night fell, she would head out to her storage locker, where she kept her possessions, and figure out how to sleep. She and a friend, Dave, slept on a shared metal bench with a mattress made of cardboard and newspaper.

She would eat at a nearby Chinese restaurant when she scraped together enough money to afford a meal and use public restrooms, hotels, and restaurants to clean up. She was out of touch with Lewis all her life and only learned he had died from a friend. Asked how she had ended up on the streets, she said it was just something that happened.

Despite her situation and her dad’s outright refusal to acknowledge her, she always tried looking at the bright side and saw no point in being negative. She mused over how miserable looking at the negative would make her.

Soon after her father’s demise, Suzan felt there was time to challenge her father’s will, saying that people thought she had a chance to claim. However, she needed a lawyer. Today, it remains unclear whether she did challenge her father’s will.

Despite Palmer being responsible for Lewis’ first bookings and early fame, Palmer was also excluded from “The Bellboy” actor’s will and spent the last leg of her life in a nursing home in Las Vegas. Palmer passed away on January 15, 2021.

And despite the bad relationship with her children’s father, Palmer remained a doting mom to them. Gary recalled how colorful his childhood had been because of his mother, saying:

“She was always singing songs around the house and playing the piano, and I know that is where I got my love of music from.”

Gary also explained that his mother was never sick and loved humming her way through the days. She lived a full life and died at 99.

Despite the inexistent relationship between Lewis and his sons, some still wish they had taken a different path in curating a relationship with their dad. And despite Anthony being at loggerheads with his dad for most of his adult life, he still wishes he had a second chance to make things right with his dad because the truth remains that he did love his father.