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About
After discovering he's not really black like the rest of his family, likable dimwit Navin Johnson sets off on a hilarious misadventure that takes him from rags to riches and back again. The slaphappy jerk strikes it rich, but life in the fast lane isn't all it's cracked up to be and, in the end, all that really matters to Johnson is his true love.
Theatrical
Dec 14, 1979
DVD / Blu-ray
Apr 29, 1998
Box Office
$100.0M
Budget
$4.0M
Return
25.0x
Director
Writers
Producers
Music
Jack Elliott
Studio
Universal Pictures, Aspen Film Society
Keywords
Cast
Full credits →S
Steve Martin
Navin R. Johnson
B
Bernadette Peters
Marie Kimble Johnson
C
Catlin Adams
Patty Bernstein
M
Mabel King
Mother
R
Richard Ward
Father
C
Carl Gottlieb
Iron Balls McGinty
D
Dick Anthony Williams
Taj
B
Bill Macy
Stan Fox
M
M. Emmet Walsh
Madman
D
Dick O'Neill
Frosty
M
Maurice Evans
Hobart
H
Helena Carroll
Hester
R
Ren Woods
Elvira
P
Pepe Serna
Punk #1
S
Sonny Terry
Blues Singer
B
Brownie McGhee
Blues Singer
J
Jackie Mason
Harry Hartounian
G
Gene LeBell
Con Man
C
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner the Celebrity
L
Larry Hankin
Circus Hand (uncredited)
The Jerk Collection
The Jerk (1979) follows naive Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) as he leaves his poor Black family, becomes a millionaire with the "Opti-Grab" invention (which makes people cross-eyed), loses it all, an...
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Quotes
See all →Wealth's Journey: Rise and Fall
Taglines
From rags to riches... to rags.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Identity and Heritage in The Jerk
Taglines
He was a poor black sharecropper's son who never dreamed he was adopted.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
