- Sammy Petrillo
Sammy Petrillo (born October 24, 1934) is a nightclub and movie comedian.As a teenager, Sammy Petrillo looked and sounded exactly like a version of
Jerry Lewis . He began his show business career playing Lewis's baby in a sketch on the "Colgate Comedy Hour " television series. Lewis noticed the attention Petrillo was getting, and signed him to a personal contract, only to deliberately keep the young comic idle and deprive him of further opportunities. Petrillo's father had the contract annulled, on the grounds that Sammy was legally a minor.Petrillo then teamed with singer
Duke Mitchell for a successful nightclub act approximating the wildly popularMartin and Lewis team. In 1952 Mitchell and Petrillo were hired by movie producer Jack Broder to star opposite screen legendsBela Lugosi andCheeta in a low-budget, jungle-themed comedy. "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla " (also known as "The Boys From Brooklyn") presents Mitchell and Petrillo in their prime, and Petrillo's mimicry of Jerry Lewis is often uncanny.Mitchell and Petrillo returned to nightclub work, but Lewis threatened to boycott anyone who booked them. Club owners caved in, not wishing to spoil their chances of someday hiring Martin and Lewis. With fewer places to perform, Duke and Sammy amicably dissolved their professional relationship, but remained close friends.
Sammy Petrillo offered comedy relief in a handful of low-low-budget features: "Shangri-La" (a nudist exploitation film), "
The Brain That Wouldn't Die " (a science-fiction film), and "Keyholes Are for Peeping" (asoft-core sex comedy directed byDoris Wishman ). Petrillo was also interviewed for the 1997 documentary "Bela Lugosi : Hollywood's Dracula".External links
* [http://www.wfmu.org/LCD/21/petrillo.html Sammy Petrillo Speaks Out; illustrated by Ward Sutton]
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* [http://www.hermancohen.com/interviews-cohen3.html Interview with producer of "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla"]
* [http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=56411 New York Times Filmography]
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