At Cannes Film Festival, Jerry Lewis still not laughing at female comedians

CANNES, France – Ladies? Don’t make him laugh.

Asked who his favourite female comics were Thursday at a Cannes Film Festival press conference, Jerry Lewis listed Cary Grant and Burt Reynolds. He then added: “I don’t have any.”

In 1998, Lewis famously said that watching women do comedy “sets me back a bit” and that he has trouble with the notion of would-be mothers as comedians.

Asked Thursday if he had changed his mind at all because of performers like Melissa McCarthy and Sarah Silverman, Lewis said of women performing broad comedy: “I can’t see women doing that. It bothers me.”

“I cannot sit and watch a lady diminish her qualities to the lowest common denominator,” he said. “I just can’t do that.”

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