RIP Sammy Petrillo

August 18th, 2009 at 09:07am Will Pfeifer

Over at his News from Me blog, Mark Evanier brings news that Sammy Petrillo died Saturday at the age of 75. 

Now, unless you’re a huge Jerry Lewis nerd (like me), you’ve probably never heard of Sammy Petrillo. But believe it or not, during the height of Jerry and Dean’s popularity in the 1950s, Petrillo made a living acting as a Jerry Lewis imitator. He worked with a number of Dean Martin-esque crooner/actors, most notably a guy named Duke Mitchell, and starred in a genuinely terrible (yet somehow fascinating) bit of low budget schlock called — believe it or not — BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA. Here’s the trailer, which should give you a taste of Sammy’s uncanny resemblance to a young Jerry Lewis.

Sammy didn’t have much of a career after splitting with Mitchell, but I find it amazing that Jerry Lewis was once so popular that someone would steal his schtick, lock stock and barrel, and use it in nightclubs and low-budget movies.  Duke Mitchell, in a way, had an even stranger career. Aside from BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA, one of the only other movies on his imdb.com resume is the 1978 cult crime classic MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE, which he wrote, produced, directed and starred in — and composed the music for.

Entry Filed under: actors, Deaths