Richard Lewis was a stand-up comedian who rose to fame in the 1970s and '80s for his trademark dry, dark sense of humor, a trait he later parlayed into an acting career, starring in Robin Hood: Tights. He appeared in films such as “The Man Wearing a Clothes''. The actor, who had a recurring role as himself on HBO's “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76 years old.
His publicist, Jeff Abraham, said the cause was a heart attack. Mr. Lewis announced last year that he has Parkinson's disease.
Mr. Lewis was one of the best-known figures of the generation of comedians who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s, and his world-weary comedy style well reflected the urban malaise in which many of them made their living. He was characterized by his sarcastic wit. .
After finding success as a comedian in New York nightclubs, he became a regular on late-night talk shows, gaining acclaim for his tight routines as well as his casual, open affability as an interviewee. He appeared on “Late Night with David Letterman” 48 times.
And he was at the forefront of the stand-up comedy boom that accompanied the expansion of cable television in the late 1980s.
Nervous and self-deprecating, usually dressed all in black, Mr. Lewis walked around comedy club stages with his head bowed and his dark hair pulled as he talked about the struggles of life and love. He called himself the “Prince of Pain” and so did his legions of fans.
The titles of his many 1980s comedy shows say it all. “I'm in Pain,” “I'm Exhausted,” and “I'm Doomed.”
He built some of his anecdotes around the idea of the worst possible versions of everyday characters: a waiter from hell, a doctor from hell. In 2006, the Yale University Quotes Book honored him with the entry “______ from hell.''
He came naturally to his art. He never disguised his misery. But it was also born out of a keen attention to detail that causes anxiety and neurosis in everyday life.
“I'm really crazy. I'm obsessed with the show. But that's who I am,” he told the New York Observer in 2007. image. It's scary, but it's also exhilarating. I never work like this. ”
But it wasn't acting. Part of Mr. Lewis' appeal was his willingness to pick at his own wounds, given his unhappy childhood, unhappy dating life, and daily bouts of gaping self-doubt.
Even if it made it painful for him to open up, which it clearly did, it also facilitated his success. He was one of his most famous stand-up comedians in the late 1980s. He performed a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall in his 1989 performance, and in the two-and-a-half hour performance he received two standing ovations.
“When he got on stage, he wasn't playing a character,” Billy Crystal, who made Mr. Lewis a name in New York comedy circles in the 1970s, said in an interview Wednesday. “He just dragged himself into it. It was refreshing. Sometimes you can see the audience wanting to say, 'Slow down.' I'm sure it'll be fine. ”
Mr. Lewis soon entered the world of acting. He starred in the sitcom Anything But Love as Marty Gold opposite Jamie Lee Curtis from 1989 to 1992. The show won him critical acclaim and seemed to signal his transition to Hollywood stardom.
But a subsequent show, “Daddy Dearest,'' in which he played the son of fellow cartoonist Don Rickles, was a huge flop, and Mr. Lewis spent the next few years looking for bit parts and one-off roles. tv set.
He had a major role in Mel Brooks' comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), but otherwise appeared in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and Hugo Poole. (1997), and had to settle for bit roles in films such as “Full-Face'' (1997).
After two years of struggling to get acting roles, he returned to stand-up and toured the United States in “Richard Lewis: Magical Misery Tour,'' which aired as an HBO special in 1996. A new generation of comedy fans, and a new shot at bit parts on TV.
Many of his best television roles were on shows that shared his darkly humorous worldview, such as the animated series “The Simpsons” and “BoJack Horseman.”
Lewis has spoken openly about his struggles with alcohol, drugs and depression. He got sober in the mid-1990s and wrote his 2000 memoir, Another Great Depression: How He Overcame At Least 1 Million Addictions and Dysfunctions Every Day, and Found a Spiritual (Sometimes) Life I wrote about my own experience in “Iruka''. ”
He revised the book and republished it in 2008 with a new preface. He also wrote Reflections from Hell: Richard Lewis' Guide to How Not to Live (2015).
Starting in 1999, he appeared regularly on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as a good friend and golf buddy of the show's star and creator, Larry David. He played a semi-fictionalized version of himself, a brooding Eeyore who makes Mr. David's prickly self look like Christopher Robin.
Although Mr. Lewis did not appear in every episode, he appeared regularly, including this season, the show's last.
Richard Philip Lewis was born in Brooklyn on June 2, 1947, in the same hospital as his friend and future co-star Mr. David, just three days before him. His family soon moved to Inglewood, New Jersey. His father, Bill Lewis, ran a kosher catering business, and his mother, Blanche (Goldberg) Lewis, was active in community theater, specializing in Jewish mother characters in Neil Simon plays. did.
As Mr. Lewis often talked about in his stand-up acts, his home life was difficult. His father was not at home and died when Richard was still young. His mother was emotionally distant and she had her own problems.
“I owe my career to my mother,” he told The Washington Post in 2020. “She should have let her agent work.”
He attended The Ohio State University and returned to New Jersey after graduating with a degree in marketing. He tried his hand at comedy at night and wrote material for other comedians on the side, while by day he worked as an advertising copywriter and a clerk at a sporting goods store.
He was miserable. One day, he was at a delicatessen with his friend and mentor, comedian David Brenner, complaining about his lack of success and his lack of sleep.
“He said, 'What does it take to be a cartoonist full-time?'” Lewis told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1995. He cut out a check and handed it to me. I quit my job and never looked back. ”
He made his stand-up debut at a Greenwich Village club in 1971, and over the next decade could be seen sharing work with comics such as Jay Leno, Richard Belzer, Elaine Boosler, and Robert Klein.
He made his acting debut in 1979, appearing in the made-for-television movie “Diary of a Young Comic'' as a stand-in for NBC's “Saturday Night Live.''
As his career took off, Mr. Lewis moved to Los Angeles, but returned to his hometown frequently.
“New York is my home turf. I have a lot of friends in Manhattan,” he told the New York Observer in 2007. “And, sadly, we have a lot of relatives.”
He lived alone in a vast house on the Sunset Strip and was proudly averse to long-term relationships until he met Joyce Lapinski, who worked in music publishing. The two dated for several years until Mr. Lewis, considering marrying her, took her to see a psychiatrist. “This is the best thing about this,” he remembered his therapist saying.
They married in 2005. She is survived by his brother Robert.
Mr. Lewis first met Mr. David when the two went to the same summer camp in upstate New York, but they did not get along. (“We hated each other,” Mr. Lewis told the Washington Post.)
Ten years later, the two met again while struggling as manga artists in New York. This time their friendship stuck. When David, who helped create and write “Seinfeld,” decided to create a show about his life, he asked Lewis to be involved.
Mr. Lewis said yes, as long as it was a recurring role. He went on to appear in his 41 episodes, introducing him to yet another set of fellow fans.
“Because of 'Curve,' I now have three generations coming to my shows,” he said in a 2014 interview with the website Street Roots. “Demographics: There's going to be a guy who has a 13-year-old kid and then gets on a stretcher and says, 'I wanted to see you before I die.'”
Lewis suffered a series of injuries in the late 2010s that required back and rotator cuff surgery. He performed his last stand-up show at Zanie's in Chicago in 2018.
In 2023, after filming the final season of Curbed, he announced that he had Parkinson's disease.in video statementhe stated that he would continue writing and acting as long as he could.
“I hope this doesn't define me,” he said in a Vanity Fair interview published on February 18. “I'm a recovered drunk who happens to have Parkinson's disease, but I'm also a comedian and an actor,” and a writer and author. So I own it and wear it that way. Of course, after this interview is over, I'm going to break down and start screaming. But why show everything? ”
orlando mallorquin, alex traub and Michael S. Rosenwald contributed reporting.
