Richard Lewis, a stand-up comedian who achieved fame within the Nineteen Eighties by turning his neuroses into comedy gold and later skilled a renaissance lately because of Curb Your Enthusiasm, died on Tuesday on the age of 76. The reason for demise was a coronary heart assault, his publicist, Jeff Abraham, confirmed to Rolling Stone.
Final April, Lewis revealed that he had been identified with Parkinson’s. “I’m beneath a health care provider’s care, and every part is cool,” he stated on the time. “I like my spouse, I like little pet canine, and I like all my buddies and my followers.” He additionally revealed on the time that he could be retiring from standup comedy to deal with writing and appearing.
Lewis, who typically dressed solely in black and embraced the title “The Prince of Ache,” gained prominence by joking about his household and his personal private foibles. He quipped about his household’s annual inductions right into a “Corridor of Blame” within the mid-Eighties, in response to The New York Instances, and joked that at meals “in case you can match any two signs, you get seconds.” On Comedian Aid, he informed the viewers he had a rearview mirror on his stationary bike since he’s so paranoid.
He was a staple on late-night reveals, showing on The Tonight Present Starring Johnny Carson 22 occasions and on Late Evening With David Letterman 44 occasions (and he would proceed to look on Letterman’s present when he moved to CBS.) As an actor, he appeared in comedies like Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Males in Tights (1993) and dramas like Mike Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas (1995). Nevertheless it was on Curb Your Enthusiasm, the place he performed a fictionalized model of himself — one who was perpetually uninterested in Larry David’s antics — which solidified his place within the cultural dialog.
Lewis, like David, grew up round New York Metropolis at across the similar time. Lewis, who was born in Brooklyn on June 29, 1947 and grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. He first met David at summer season camp after they have been each 12. Lewis informed Howard Stern he hated David then.
His father was a caterer, and his mom was an actress. Lewis began doing standup after his father’s demise in 1971, acting at New York’s Improvisation and Pips. Inside a couple of years, he grew to become a Tonight Present common, and by 1979, he starred in his personal TV film a few standup comic referred to as Diary of a Younger Comedian on NBC. After he and David each ventured into standup comedian, the 2 males appreciated one another’s work and have become buddies.
Nevertheless it was Letterman whom Lewis credited with serving to elevate his profession initially. “David Letterman set me off,” Lewis informed Vulture in 2017. “He referred to as me into his workplace when he acquired his late night time present in ‘82. I used to be doing a whole lot of standup reveals however he informed me I used to be transferring round an excessive amount of on stage. He informed me to maneuver again to New York and write for his present and I might nonetheless be a comic too. I informed him, ‘No David, I simply moved. I can’t.’ He stated, ‘I’ll let you know what. You may come on the present as typically as you need however you’ll by no means be doing standup, not on my present.’ … I by no means did standup on tv from 1982 on due to Letterman. Each time his present would say, ‘Let Richard do 5 minutes,’ and Dave would say no. ‘Richard doesn’t do standup on tv. He sits down.’ That was due to Dave.”
Within the late Eighties, he starred reverse Jamie Lee Curtis on ABC’s Something however Love, which ran 4 seasons. He starred reverse Kevin Nealon on ABC’s Hiller and Diller for a season within the late Nineties, and he made visitor appearances on seventh Heaven, ‘Til Demise, and The Simpsons and in Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff” video.
The CableACE Awards nominated him for Writing in a Comedy particular for his The I’m Exhausted Live performance in 1989, and the Display screen Actors Guild included him in its nomination for Excellent Efficiency by an Ensemble in a Comedy Sequence for Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2006.
Offscreen, Lewis struggled with an dependance on alcohol. He managed to take management of his dependancy virtually 30 years in the past. “August 3, 1994, I believed that I used to be close to demise from alcoholism,” he tweeted in 2021. “Early the subsequent day I used to be rushed to the ER and turned my life round a day, generally a minute at a time. When you’re struggling, you will get assist. I did.” He wrote about his wrestle with sobriety in his 2000 memoir, The Different Nice Melancholy.
The best way he noticed it, his comedy profession was a privilege, and he was grateful for it. “I’m principally ineffective at every other endeavor and nonetheless have a necessity to specific my most non-public emotions — hopefully for laughs,” he informed Vulture. “However I’ve been very blessed. … I acquired a evaluate as soon as in The New York Instances and — I’m boasting — it stated I used to be a transitional hyperlink between the older technology of comedians and the brand new edgy ones. I’m someplace linked between Alan King and Gilbert Gottfried. I don’t know. I’m simply actually fortunate.”
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