Posted on 09/06/2004 10:28:36 PM PDT by hole_n_one
Jerry Lewis telethon raises $59.4M
LOS ANGELES -- The Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon raised $59.4 million for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, but organizers said Monday that power outages and other disruptions from Hurricane Frances contributed to a decline over last year.
Donations totaled 1.8 percent less than last year's $60.5 million.
Television stations in the Florida cities of Jacksonville, Sarasota and Gainesville canceled broadcasts of the telethon completely. Other Florida stations showed only the national portions, preventing the broadcast of local segments during which most pledges are made.
Lewis, 78, was assisted during the 21 1/2 hour fund-raiser by Ed McMahon, and the broadcast featured performances by Elton John, Oprah Winfrey, Ray Romano, Tony Orlando and others.
Lewis said the late child poet Mattie Stepanek almost helped the telethon reach its goal. Stepanek, whose inspirational verse made him a best-selling writer, died in June at age 13 from a rare form of muscular dystrophy.
The boy was an advocate for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. His mother, Jeni, and Lewis appealed to telethon viewers to make up for lost contributions from Florida.
"Even now, Mattie continues to perform miracles," Lewis said in a statement after the telethon. "Without the love and hope that Mattie inspired in millions of Americans, there's no way we would have come so close to reaching our goal in the face of such overwhelming odds."
Only one other telethon in the 1980s failed to surpass the previous year's total.
The 39th annual telethon, based in Los Angeles, was shown on nearly 200 TV stations nationwide.
Is that a current pic?
Lewis has lost a ton of weight from last year. Glad to see they've corrected the dosage of the meds that were causing him to balloon.
Yep.
He looks alright. Must be that French diet.
That is too bad. A lot of stations don't even show it anymore. Jerry doesn't look well at all.
He's been off the medication for awhile now that caused him to appear grossly bloated last year.
He's 78 years old and suffers from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, the latter for which he took heavy doses of steroids which caused his bloating. Poor guy...he's been through a lot.
And at 78 (47 years older than me) he still has better hair than me!
On the bright side, the firefighters contribution totaled over 20 million dollars.
WOW. A diabetic on steroids. He's not long for this world. Maybe Oprah will carry on his good work.
At least a couple of the limousine liberals listed could provide "matching funds," I wonder if they will.
60 million dollars..... economy must not be as bad as the sKerry campaign claims it is.
Pray for Jerry Lewis. Here is someone who is knocking himself out to help children. It is nice to see someone with such decent goals -- it is much better than the usual vain Hollywood mentality one sees some people display. It seems hard to imagine that Lewis is almost 80 years old.
Prednisone while a miracle drug has the side effect of weight gain.
I've heard he has been off the steroid for 9 months.
Pulmonary fibrosis is often described as being fatal.
Jerry has been in bad health for about 3 years.
Hopefully the prognosis is optimistic.
I went ballistic yesterday. The local coverage (WCVB Channel 5 Boston) ended mid afternoon so they could carry the VJ Singh vs Tiger Woods golf tournament.
The lost the Boston market for 3 hours. Even as cheap as NEers are it might have helped match last year.
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