Jerry Lee Lewis, known for helping rock and roll go mainstream with his flashy piano performances — as well as for his numerous offstage controversies and seven marriages — has died at age 87. Lewis’s representative confirmed the news to the Associated Press after his death was erroneously reported two days prior. A cause of death was not reported, but Lewis had been too ill to attend his Country Music Hall of Fame induction on October 16. After being kicked out of a Christian college for playing popular music, Lewis started his career with famed label Sun Records in 1956. He became one of the label’s stars in the so-called “Class of ’55,†alongside Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison, with hits like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On†and “Great Balls of Fire†in 1957. Lewis was notable for bridging Southern rockabilly music with soul and rock and roll. His piano-playing style, which involved pounding the keys, sliding his hand down the keyboard, and even standing on the instrument, made him an early rock star and earned him the nickname the Killer.
Lewis’s career experienced a sharp downturn in the late 1950s amid reports of his marriage to his 13-year-old first cousin once removed, Myra Gale Brown. Lewis was 22 at the time of their marriage, and she was his third wife; she filed for divorce after over a decade, citing Lewis’s alleged abuse. Some have speculated that Lewis killed his fifth wife, Shawn Stephens, who died 77 days after their marriage, in 1983. Lewis’s seventh wife, Judith Lewis, was the ex-wife of Brown’s brother. They remained married until Lewis’s death. One of Lewis’s sons, Steven Allen, died in 1962, at age 3, by drowning, while another, Jerry Lee Lewis Jr., died in 1973 at age 19 in a car crash. Lewis was arrested, and later sued, for accidentally shooting his bass player, Norman Owens, in 1976, at Graceland, where he reportedly also threatened to kill Elvis. Lewis also had financial issues throughout his career, and in 2012 began a business dispute with his daughter and former manager, Phoebe Lewis-Loftin.
Despite a tumultuous personal life, Lewis’s legacy was secured in the later years of his life. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and played by Dennis Quaid in the 1989 movie Great Balls of Fire. He continued to perform even after a stroke in 2019, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this year. He is also the subject of Ethan Coen’s documentary Trouble in Mind, which screened at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. He was the last surviving member of not just Sun Records’ “Class of ’55,†but a generation of musical pioneers.