Los Angeles  - Comedy great Jerry Lewis appears at the top of every list of prominent American film artists never to receive an Oscar.

At the 81st annual Academy Awards on Sunday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will take an important step to rectify that injustice by awarding the
82-year-old legend the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Fans of the innovative comedian - and Lewis himself - may regard the award something as a slap in the face as it fails to recognize his unique cinematic contributions.

But they are probably used to being snubbed.

Born to Jewish parents in New Jersey in March 1926, Lewis has often been regarded as a comic genius and cinematic inspiration by legions of French critics and film lovers. But in his own country he is most often seen as a lowbrow, slapstick star whose film style was barely worthy of serious consideration.

Lewis first rose to prominence in the late 1940s as part of a comic double act in which Dean Martin played the straight man to his manic and zany characters. Among their most successful movies were My Friend Irma, The Stooge and Hollywood or Bust.

By 1957 Lewis went solo with movies such as The Geisha Boy, Cinderfella and The Ladies Man. But his most famous role came in the 1963 comedy The Nutty Professor. Lewis played a nerdish academic who develops a potion that makes him irresistible to women yet, at the same time, completely unbearable. It was a masterful movie, a perfect modern reworking of the Jekyll and Hyde story and the high-point of Lewis' creativity. But except for some French critics, no one really appreciated it at the time.

Undeterred, Lewis kept working with such jewels as The Patsy, The Family Jewels and Hook, Line and Sinker. He also got involved with and helped found the Muscular Dystrophy Association in 1952. The star-studded telethons he has organized since 1966 have raised some 2 billion dollars for the cause.

But his charitable efforts were sometimes overshadowed by his tendency to shoot his mouth off in violation of the immutable laws of political correctness. He compared having muscular dystrophy to being "half a person" and has made several derogatory comments about gays.

That has led many Oscar watchers to ponder whether Lewis will use his Oscar night platform to accept his award graciously, or to rail against the Academy for never recognizing his cinematic achievements.

The reasons for the snub are complicated, notes critic Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune. "Part of it relates to the age-old prejudice against comedy," he theorizes. "But I'm here to tell you: This is a matter of the wrong statuette for the right guy. Lewis should've won an Oscar a long time ago." (dpa)