Sammy Petrillo is best known as the most startlingly accurate Jerry Lewis impersonator ever, the man who starred as half of the Martin & Lewis knockoff team that was the focus of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952). In fact, Petrillo wasn’t a Jerry impersonator intentionally — it was something he fell into, by dint of the fact that he looked identical to, and could sound incredibly like, the Martin & Lewis-era Jerry. Sammy’s career has been spotty, but there were a few more fascinating moments in the peripheral limelight after Brooklyn Gorilla. In an interview I conducted with Sammy back in 1997, he spoke about these cult items.
First, the prank phone call LP he released in the early 1960s:
And also his starring/scripting turn in Doris Wishman’s mind-blowingly weird sex movie Keyholes are for Peeping(1972):
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