Acerbic Comedian and Character Actor Richard Lewis Passes Away at 76

The stand-up comedian Richard Lewis passed away on Tuesday at his Los Angeles home. He rose to fame in the 1970s and 1980s with his trademark dark and acerbic sense of humor, which he later used to launch an acting career that spanned films such as “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and an HBO recurring role as himself. He was seventy-six.
According to his spokesman Jeff Abraham, a heart attack was the reason. Mr. Lewis disclosed his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis last year.

Mr. Lewis was one of the most well-known figures of a generation of comedians that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, characterized by a sardonic, world-weary humor that resonated strongly with the urban misery in which many of them worked.
He started appearing on late-night talk programs after becoming successful as a comedian in New York nightclubs. He was liked for both his tight act and his easygoing, approachable demeanor while doing interviews. He made 48 appearances on “Late Night With David Letterman.”
Additionally, he led the surge in stand-up comedy that coincided with cable television’s growth in the late 1980s.
Mr. Lewis was a neurotic and self-deprecating man who usually wore all black. He would pace the stages of comedy clubs while drooping his head and tugging at his shock of black hair and riffing on his problems with love and life in general. Both he and his hordes of admirers referred to themselves as the “Prince of Pain.”
His several 1980s comedy specials include names like “I’m in pain,” “I’m exhausted,” and “I’m doomed,” which pretty much sum it all up.
He based part of his anecdotal material on the notion of the devilish rendition of a common person—the doctor from hell, the waiter from hell. He was recognized in 2006 with an entry for “the ______ from hell” that was attributed to him in The Yale Book of Quotations.
His painting was a natural gift to him; he didn’t pretend to be unhappy. It also resulted from his keen observation of the mundane but anxiety-inducing things of life.
He admitted to being a crazy person and being completely engrossed in the program to The New York Observer in 2007. “My experience on stage has simply wired me so much that my brain is racing with pictures. It’s thrilling as well as scary. I will always operate in this manner.
It wasn’t an act, however. Mr. Lewis’s openness to examine his personal scars, pulling from his terrible upbringing, unpleasant romantic life, and many episodes of glaring self-doubt, was a contributing factor in his popularity.
Being so honest must have hurt him, and it certainly did, but it also contributed to his success. In the late 1980s, he was one of the most well-known stand-up comedians. In 1989, he performed to a packed Carnegie Hall and was greeted with two standing ovations after two and a half hours of music.
Billy Crystal, who first saw Mr. Lewis on the New York comedy scene in the 1970s, said in an interview on Wednesday that “he didn’t assume a character when he walked up onstage.” He just dragged himself up to that point. It felt revitalizing. Sometimes, all audiences could seem to want to say was “Slow down.” Everything shall work out.
Mr. Lewis entered acting shortly after. He costarred with Jamie Lee Curtis in the comedy “Anything but Love” as Marty Gold from 1989 until 1992. He received both critical and popular praise for the play, which seemed to be a step toward Hollywood success.
However, the success of his second series, “Daddy Dearest,” in which he portrayed the son of fellow comedian Don Rickles, made Mr. Lewis spend the following several years looking for little roles in motion pictures and TV series with a single episode.
He had a significant part in Mel Brooks’s comedy “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” (1993), but he was only able to get tiny parts in movies like “Hugo Pool” (1997) and “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995).
He returned to stand-up after two years of failing to get acting parts. His performance, “Richard Lewis: The Magical Misery Tour,” was shown as an HBO special in 1996. He toured the nation with it. It gave him fresh recognition from a new generation of comedy enthusiasts and a second opportunity at television small roles.
His finest TV roles were on animated programs like “The Simpsons” and “BoJack Horseman,” which shared his darkly comedic outlook on the world.
Mr. Lewis was candid about his battles with depression, narcotics, and alcohol. In his 2000 book, “The Other Great Depression: How I’m Overcoming, on a Daily Basis, at Least a Million Addictions and Dysfunctions and Finding a Spiritual (Sometimes) Life,” he describes his experience after entering recovery in the middle of the 1990s.
In 2008, he reprinted the book after making revisions and adding a new preface. “Reflections From Hell: Richard Lewis’ Guide on How Not to Live” (2015) is another book he authored.
He began playing a regular part on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in 1999. He was Larry David’s (the show’s creator and star) close friend and golf partner. His portrayal of himself was semi-fictionalized; he was a sullen Eeyore who turned Mr. David’s normally spiky persona into Christopher Robin.
While Mr. Lewis did not appear in every episode, he did often appear, even in the last season of the program, which is now airing.
On June 29, 1947, in Brooklyn, Richard Philip Lewis was born three days earlier than his buddy and eventual co-star, Mr. David, at the same hospital. Englewood, New Jersey, was soon the family’s new home. His mother, Blanche (Goldberg) Lewis, performed in community theater and specialized in playing Jewish mothers in Neil Simon productions. His father, Bill Lewis, had a kosher catering company.
Mr. Lewis’s familial life was turbulent, as he often revealed in his stand-up routine. Richard’s father passed away while he was still a little boy and was never home. His mother had her own problems and was emotionally aloof.
“My mother is the reason I am successful,” he said to The Washington Post in 2020. “I ought to have given her the commission from my agent.”
After attending Ohio State University and earning a marketing degree, he left for New Jersey. He held day jobs as an advertising copywriter and a sports goods shop clerk, and at night he tried his hand at comedy, penning material for other comedians on the side.
He was quite unhappy. He once complained about his lack of success and sleep deprivation to comic David Brenner, his buddy and mentor, when they were at a delicatessen.
“What do you need to be a comic full-time?” he said. The Philadelphia Inquirer was informed by Mr. Lewis in 1995. “A thousand bucks, I replied. He produced a check quickly and handed it to me. I left my work, and I haven’t turned back.
In 1971, he made his stand-up debut in a Greenwich Village club. Over the next ten years, he shared billboards with comedians like as Jay Leno, Richard Belzer, Elayne Boosler, and Robert Klein.
In 1979, he made his acting debut as the lead in the television film “Diary of a Young Comic,” which NBC aired as a stand-in for “Saturday Night Live.”
Mr. Lewis relocated to Los Angeles as his career took off, but he still made regular trips back to his birthplace.
“I love Manhattan and New York is my home turf,” he said in a 2007 interview with The New York Observer. “And, sadly, so many family members.”
Before he met music publishing executive Joyce Lapinsky, he proudly avoided long-term partnerships and lived alone in a huge property above the Sunset Strip. After dating for a few years, Mr. Lewis took her to see his doctor in order to discuss marriage. “This is as good as it gets,” he remembered the therapist telling him again.
In 2005, they tied the knot. She and his brother Robert both pass away before him.
Although they didn’t get along, Mr. Lewis and Mr. David originally met while attending the same summer camp in upstate New York. According to Mr. Lewis, “we hated each other.” The Washington Post
A decade later, as struggling comedians in New York, they got back in touch. They remained pals this time. Mr. Lewis was invited to join Mr. David when the latter, who was involved in the writing and creation of “Seinfeld,” sought to develop a program centered on his life.
Yes, Mr. Lewis said, if it was a regular position. He later made appearances in 41 episodes, which brought him into contact with a new group of admirers.
“Three generations are coming to my shows because of ‘Curb,’” he said in a 2014 interview with Street Roots. “The demographic consists of a 13-year-old and a man on a stretcher who says, ‘I wanted to see you before I die.’”
Mr. Lewis had to have surgery on his rotator cuff and back in the late 2010s due to a series of injuries. In 2018, he gave his last stand-up performance at Chicago’s Zanies.
After filming “Curb’s” last season in 2023, he revealed he had Parkinson’s illness. He said in a video message that he will go on acting and writing for as long as possible.
In a Feb. 18 interview with Vanity Fair, he said, “I hope that this doesn’t define me.” “In addition to being a comedian, actor, author, and writer, I’m a Parkinson’s disease survivor. I just wear it that way because I own it. It goes without saying that I will shout and weep when this interview is over. However, why reveal everything to you?


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