Jerry Lee Lewis: Lewis was born in Ferriday, Louisiana, to Elmo Kidd Lewis Sr. and Mary “Mamie” Herron Lewis. In Eastern Louisiana, where he was raised, he was part of a poor agricultural family. He learned to play the piano at a young age alongside his cousins Mickey Gilley (a future famous country music performer) and Jimmy Swaggart (later a popular televangelist). Likewise, now we can see people searching for Jerry Lee Lewis wife.
His musical instrument-obsessed parents had to pay a second mortgage on the family farm to afford it. Lewis was influenced by the radio, the music from the black juke joint across the tracks called Haney’s Big House, and his piano-playing cousin Carl McVoy (who subsequently recorded with Bill Black’s Combo).
Lewis’s debut appearance was on November 19, 1949, at a car dealership in Ferriday, when he played with a country and western band. His rendition of Sticks McGhee’s “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” was the show’s big smash. In a quote from the live CD By Request, More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth, Lewis credits Moon Mullican as a significant creative influence.
His mom sent him to Southwest Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas, so he could focus solely on singing Christian hymns. The night after Lewis’s bold boogie-woogie performance of “My God Is Real” at a church assembly; he was no longer associated with the school. Student body president Pearry Green recalled Lewis performing some “worldly” songs at a talent contest.
The following morning, Dean Green brought Lewis into his office to expel them. After that, he went home and began performing at bars in Ferriday and Natchez, Mississippi. He eventually became a part of the emerging new rock and roll sound and recorded his first demo in 1952 for Cosimo Matassa in New Orleans.
As he was already performing on the Louisiana Hayride country stage and radio show in Shreveport, he was turned down by the Grand Ole Opry when he visited there around 1955 and tried to build interest by playing in bars there.
When And Where Was Jerry Lee Lewis Born & Raised?
Upon entering this world on September 29, 1935, Jerry Lee Lewis was welcomed into the world in the small town of Ferriday, Concordia Parish, Louisiana. His father worked as a farmer, and the family was impoverished. His early exposure to the piano came from his two elder cousins, and his parents, recognizing their son’s budding musical talent, mortgaged the family farm to buy him a new instrument.
It wasn’t until November of 1949 that he made his debut in front of an audience. His mother wanted him to pursue a career in gospel singing, so she had him enroll at the Southwest Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas. A boogie-woogie cover of “My God is Real” got him kicked out of school after he played it. After returning to his hometown, he started performing at various night spots.
How Many Wives Does Jerry Lee Lewis Have?
Lewis had seven wives, including two with his teenage cousin and five with other bigamy partners. Six of his offspring came from his three marriages. Young Jerry Lee Lewis wed the preacher’s daughter Dorothy Barton when he was 16. They were together for 20 months as a couple, beginning in February 1952 and ending in October 1953.
The legality of Lewis’s second marriage to Jane Mitchum in September 1953, 23 days before his divorce from Barton was official, is in question. In October 1957, after being married for four years, he divorced. The couple has two children: Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. (1954–1973) and Ronnie Guy Lewis (b. 1956). Young Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. died at 19 when the Jeep he was driving flipped over in 1973.
On December 12, 1957, he wed his first cousin, once removed, Myra Gale Brown, who was 13 years old. Due to the delay in finalizing his divorce from Jane Mitchum, he married Brown on June 4, 1958. Brown filed for divorce in 1970, citing adultery and “every form of physical and emotional abuse imaginable” as reasons.
Steve Allen Lewis (born in 1959) and Phoebe Allen Lewis (born in 1961) are the couple’s offspring (b. 1963). Three-year-old Steve Allen Lewis tragically lost his life in a swimming pool accident in 1962. Their marriage lasted from October 1971 until June 8, 1982, making her his fourth wife.
Pate drowned in a friend’s swimming pool weeks before her divorce could be formalized. Their only child, Lori Lee Lewis, was born to them (b. 1972). In 1984, when Lewis was on trial for income tax evasion, Mary Kathy “K.K.” Jones of San Antonio, Texas, testified that she had lived with Lewis from 1980 to 1983.
Lewis’ sixth marriage to Shawn Stephens lasted just 77 days when she tragically passed herself from a methadone overdose in August 1983. Neither of the allegations that Lewis abused or maybe killed her by journalist Richard Ben Cramer can be substantiated. From April 1984 to June 2005, he happily married his sixth wife, Kerrie McCarver. Jerry Lee Lewis III was their only child (b. 1987).
Lewis and his family reportedly emigrated to Ireland in 1993 to escape IRS scrutiny. He has consistently disputed this. He was sued by German business Neue Constantin Film Production GmbH in 1993 for failing to show up to a concert in Munich while he was living in a rented house on Westminster Road in Foxrock, Dublin.
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Irish promoter Kieran Cavanagh settled Lewis’s tax troubles, and he moved back to the United States in 1997. Lewis and his family ranched in Nesbit, Mississippi. On March 9, 2012, Lewis married his seventh wife, Judy Lewis (née Brown, the ex-wife of the brother of Myra Gale Brown).
Lewis terminated his daughter’s authority as his manager and cut all relations with her the next day. Phoebe Lewis-Loftin had been working for him up until that point. Claiming that his daughter owed him “significant sums of money,” Lewis filed suit against her and her husband, Zeke Loftin, in 2017.
Lewis, his wife Judith Lewis, and their son Jerry Lee Lewis III all claimed Loftin defamed them on Facebook in the case. In their counterclaim, Lewis-Loftin and her husband accused Judith Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis III of meddling in their professional relationship.
U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers issued his decision in April 2019, finding that, except for the defamation allegations, most of the claims were time-barred due to a three-year statute of limitations. If you believe this is interesting, please discuss it with the other people you know. Visit Newswatchlist.com for the most recent news and updates regarding famous people.
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