Comedian Jerry Lewis back home from hospital

LOS ANGELES, June 21 (Reuters) Comedian Jerry Lewis is back home in San Diego after spending a week in the hospital undergoing treatment for a minor heart attack and a case of pneumonia, his publicist said.

The 80-year-old entertainer was released from the hospital on Saturday and is recuperating aboard the yacht in San Diego where he makes his home during the summer, his Las Vegas-based spokeswoman Candi Cazau told Reuters.

''He is doing remarkably well,'' Cazau said, adding that Lewis remains on medication for a ''mild case'' of pneumonia but has kept busy preparing for the annual benefit he hosts for muscular dystrophy research in early September.

''He is up and around and conducting business for his telethon from his yacht,'' she said.

Lewis fell ill on June 11 near the end of a cross-country commercial airline flight from New York City and was taken to an undisclosed hospital after his plane landed in San Diego.

While hospitalized, the veteran performer underwent an angiogram that determined he had a clogged artery, and doctors inserted a shunt, Cazau said.

Although the early September telethon is going on as scheduled, a Lewis' four-night comeback appearance next month at the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has been canceled, she said.

However, Lewis is pressing ahead with plans to transform his classic comedy film ''The Nutty Professor'' into a stage production that he hopes to premiere at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego early next year and eventually take to Broadway.

REUTERS SY RAI1015