The accusers are octogenarian and non-genarian.
The molester has been dead for years.
A new documentary puts the spotlight on Jerry Lewis: the beloved star of the "Picchiatello" films would have repeatedly stretched his hands to her co-stars.
All women knew Lewis when the comedian was at the height of his career in the 1960s.
The "Vanity Fair" investigation is accompanied by a short film called "The Dark Side of a Hollywood Icon" in which the actresses accuse Lewis of behaving like a rascal to them.
Famous for his humanitarian initiatives including a 'telethon' against muscular dystrophy, behind him about forty films as an actor, a dozen as a director and a lot of TV, the protagonist of "Nutty Professor" died in 2017 at the age of 91 .
From the beginning of his career, Lewis had sparked the laughter of the audience through silent gags, pantomimes and slapstick comedy, basing his humor mainly on the use of the body.
Lewis, however, was not just a clown: as claimed by the article and the film based on interviews conducted by Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick, the documentary makers of the Hbo series "Allen vs Farrow", his comedy would have hidden a dark side.
After years of dealing with harassment in the Catholic Church, Ziernig and Dick have expanded their exploration to Hollywood studios.
They got Hope Holiday, who starred with Lewis on "The Ladies Man", Jill St John, his costar on "Who's Minding the Store?", Anna Maria Alberghetti, who worked with him on "Cinderfella", Karen Sharpe. of "The Disorderly Orderly".
And then Oscar-nominated screenwriter Renée Taylor and singer Lainie Kazan.
Sharpe, who is now 87, says that in 1964, during a costume rehearsal, Lewis put his hands on her: "He began to groped me. He opened his pants. I was speechless."
The actress asserted herself and Lewis went on a rampage: "I understood then that it had never happened that someone said no to him", with the result, as we saw in the following days that, by order of the star, the actress she was ostracized from the entire production: "The order from the team was not to talk to me. Anyone who did would be fined."
Holiday, now 91, had met Lewis when she was just 13.
She was in her thirties when he invited her into her dressing room, locked the door and started masturbating, asking her to undress for him.
The actress's friends advised her to report him to the Screen Actors Guild but she didn't.
"He was a big shot at Paramount. I was too scared. So I kept my mouth shut."
Rebelling against harassment for Lewis' costars was difficult: by the late 1950s, his films had earned Paramount $ 100 million when admission to the cinema was less than 70 cents.
Lewis was untouchable: to the point that then production chief Barney Balaban once said that "if Jerry wanted to burn his studies" he would pass him the match.
