Richard Lewis, the stand-up comedian who first rose to fame in the 1970s and 1980s with his trademark acerbic, dark sense of humor and later demonstrated this quality in an acting career that also included films such as Robin Hood : Men in Tights” belonged. and a recurring role as himself on the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76.
His publicist Jeff Abraham said the cause was a heart attack. Mr Lewis revealed last year that he was suffering from Parkinson's disease.
Mr. Lewis was among the best-known names of a generation of comedians who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s, distinguished by a suicidal, sarcastic wit that was well suited to the urban malaise in which many of them plied their trade.
After finding success as a comedian in New York nightclubs, he appeared regularly on late-night talk shows and was valued as an interview subject both for his tight routine and his easy-going, open friendliness. 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 rise of cable television in the late 1980s.
Neurotic and self-deprecating, usually dressed in all black, Mr. Lewis paced comedy club stages, hanging his head, tugging at his shock of black hair and talking about his struggles in life and love. He called himself the “Prince of Pain” and so did his legions of fans.
The titles of his numerous comedy specials from the 1980s say it all: “I'm in Pain”, “I'm Exhausted”, “I'm Doomed”.
He based some of his anecdotes on the idea of the worst version of an everyday character: the waiter from hell, the doctor from hell. In 2006, he was honored in the Yale Book of Quotations with an entry attributed to him for “the ______ from hell.”
He achieved his art naturally—his misery was not faked—but also through keen attention to the anxiety-inducing and neurosis-inducing details of everyday life.
“I'm such a weirdo – I'm so obsessed with the show, but that's me,” he told the New York Observer in 2007, according to Pictures. It's terrifying, but also exhilarating. I will never work like that.”
But it wasn't an act. Part of Mr. Lewis's appeal was his willingness to dig into his own wounds, drawing on his unhappy childhood, his unhappy dating life and his everyday bouts of gaping self-doubt.
If being so open caused him pain – and it clearly did – it also fueled his success. He was one of the most famous stand-up comedians of the late 1980s. He played a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall in 1989, receiving two standing ovations for two and a half hours of material.
“He didn't accept a role when he came on stage,” Billy Crystal, who invented Mr. Lewis on the New York comedy scene in the 1970s, said in an interview Wednesday. “He just dragged himself up there. It was refreshing. Sometimes you could see that the audience just wanted to say, 'Slow down.' That'll be OK.'”
Mr. Lewis soon turned to acting. From 1989 to 1992 he played the role of Marty Gold in the sitcom “Anything but Love” alongside Jamie Lee Curtis. The show earned him critical and audience acclaim and seemed to signal a step toward Hollywood stardom.
But his follow-up series, “Daddy Dearest,” in which he played the son of fellow comedian Don Rickles, was a bomb, and Mr. Lewis spent the next few years looking for supporting roles in films and single-episode roles on television.
He had a prominent role in Mel Brooks' comedy “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” (1993), but otherwise had to settle for smaller roles in films such as “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995) and “Hugo Pool” (1997). give.
After struggling to get acting roles for two years, he returned to stand-up, traveling the country with his show “Richard Lewis: The Magical Misery Tour,” which aired as an HBO special in 1996. It gave him new attention from a new generation of comedy fans and a new chance for supporting roles on television.
Many of his best TV roles came in shows that showcased his dark, humorous view of the world, such as the animated series “The Simpsons” and “BoJack Horseman.”
Mr Lewis spoke openly about his problems with alcohol, drugs and depression. He got sober in the mid-1990s and wrote about his experiences in his 2000 memoir, “The Other Great Depression: How I Overcome At Least a Million Addictions and Dysfunctions Every Day and (Sometimes) Find a Spiritual Life.”
He revised the book with a new foreword and republished it in 2008. He also wrote Reflections From Hell: Richard Lewis' Guide on How Not to Live (2015).
Beginning in 1999, he had a regular role on Curb Your Enthusiasm as a good friend and golfing buddy of Larry David, the show's star and creator. He played a semi-fictionalized version of himself, a grumpy Eeyore who made Mr. David's otherwise prickly self seem like Christopher Robin.
Mr. Lewis did not appear in every episode, but he appeared regularly, including in the current season, the series' last.
Richard Philip Lewis was born in Brooklyn on June 29, 1947, in the same hospital as his friend and future co-star Mr. David and just three days before him. His family soon moved to Englewood, New Jersey. His father, Bill Lewis, owned a kosher catering business, and his mother, Blanche (Goldberg) Lewis, performed in community theater and specialized in the Jewish mother characters in Neil Simon plays.
As Mr. Lewis often recounted in his stand-up performances, his family life was difficult. His father was never home and died when Richard was young. His mother was emotionally distant and had problems of her own.
“I owe my career to my mother,” he told The Washington Post in 2020. “I should have given her my agent commission.”
He attended Ohio State University and returned to New Jersey after graduating with a degree in marketing. While he tried his hand at being a comedian in the evenings and also wrote material for other comedians, during the day he worked as an advertising copywriter and as a clerk in a sporting goods store.
He was unhappy. One day he was at a deli with his friend and mentor, comedian David Brenner, lamenting his lack of success — and his lack of sleep.
“He said, 'What does it take to be a full-time comedian?'” Lewis told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1995. “I said a thousand dollars. He pulled out a check and handed it to me. I quit my job and never looked back.”
He made his stand-up debut in 1971 at a Greenwich Village club, and over the next decade he appeared in gigs with comedians such as Jay Leno, Richard Belzer, Elayne Boosler and Robert Klein.
He made his acting debut in 1979, starring in the television film “Diary of a Young Comic,” which aired on NBC as a replacement for “Saturday Night Live.”
As his career took off, Mr. Lewis moved to Los Angeles but often returned to his hometown.
“New York is my home – I have so many friends in Manhattan,” he told the New York Observer in 2007. “And tragically, so many relatives.”
He lived alone in a sprawling house above the Sunset Strip and remained proudly averse to a long-term relationship until he met Joyce Lapinsky, who worked in music publishing. They dated for several years before Mr. Lewis, considering marriage, took her to his psychiatrist. “This is as good as it gets,” he often recalled the therapist saying.
They married in 2005. She survives him along with his brother Robert.
Mr. Lewis first met Mr. David when the two went to the same summer camp in upstate New York, although they did not get along. (“We hated each other,” Mr. Lewis told The Washington Post.)
They reunited a decade later when they were both struggling with comics in New York. This time their friendship continued. When Mr. David, who helped create and write “Seinfeld,” decided to make a show based around his life, he asked Mr. Lewis to join him.
Mr. Lewis said yes, as long as it was a recurring role. He then appeared in 41 episodes, introducing him to another group of fans.
“Three generations come to my shows because of Curb,” he said in a 2014 interview with the website Street Roots. “The population: There's going to be a 13-year-old and then there's going to be a guy on a gurney saying, 'I wanted to see you before I die.'”
Mr Lewis suffered a series of injuries in the late 2010s that required back and rotator cuff surgery. His last stand-up show was at Zanies in Chicago in 2018.
In 2023, after filming the final season of Curb, he announced that he was suffering from Parkinson's disease. In a video statementHe said he would continue writing and acting as long as possible.
“I hope this doesn’t define me,” he said in an interview with Vanity Fair published Feb. 18. “I'm a recovered drinker who happens to have Parkinson's, but I'm a comedian and an actor,” and an author and a writer. So I just own it and wear it like that. When I finish this interview, of course I'm going to break down, cry and start screaming. But why show you everything?”
Orlando Mayorquin, Alex Traub and Michael S. Rosenwald contributed reporting.