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Richard Lewis, the humorist who first achieved fame within the Seventies and ’80s together with his trademark acerbic, darkish humorousness, and who later parlayed that high quality into an appearing profession that included films like “Robin Hood: Males in Tights” and a recurring function as himself on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” died on Tuesday at his dwelling in Los Angeles. He was 76.
His publicist, Jeff Abraham, mentioned the trigger was a coronary heart assault. Mr. Lewis announced last year that he had Parkinson’s disease.
Mr. Lewis was among the many best-known names in a technology of comedians who got here of age in the course of the Seventies and ’80s, marked by a world-weary, sarcastic wit that mapped properly onto the city malaise during which lots of them plied their commerce.
After discovering success as a comic in New York nightclubs, he turned a daily on late-night discuss exhibits, favored as a lot for his tight routine as for his informal, open affability as an interviewee. He appeared on “Late Night time With David Letterman” 48 occasions.
And he was on the forefront of the increase in stand-up comedy that got here with the enlargement of cable tv within the late Eighties.
Neurotic and self-deprecating, usually dressed all in black, Mr. Lewis paced the levels of comedy golf equipment, hanging his head, pulling at his shock of black hair, riffing on his struggles in life and love. He referred to as himself the “Prince of Ache,” and so did his legions of followers.
The titles of his many comedy specials from the Eighties inform all of it: “I’m in Ache,” “I’m Exhausted,” “I’m Doomed.”
He constructed a few of his anecdotal bits across the concept of the worst doable model of an on a regular basis determine: the waiter from hell, the physician from hell. In 2006, The Yale E book of Quotations honored him with an entry for “the ______ from hell,” credited to him.
He got here by his artwork naturally — there was no faking his distress — but additionally by way of astute consideration to the anxiety-inducing and neurosis-triggering particulars of on a regular basis life.
“I’m such a madman — I’m so obsessed in regards to the present, however that’s who I’m,” he told The New York Observer in 2007. “I’m simply so wired by my time onstage, my head is full of pictures. It’s terrifying, however it’s additionally exhilarating. I’ll by no means not work like this.”
But it surely wasn’t an act. A part of Mr. Lewis’s enchantment was his willingness to poke into his personal wounds, drawing on his sad childhood, his sad relationship life and his on a regular basis bouts of gaping self-doubt.
If it precipitated him ache to be so open — and it clearly did — it additionally fueled his success. He was among the many best-known stand-up comedians of the late Eighties. He performed a sold-out present at Carnegie Corridor in 1989, receiving two standing ovations for 2 and a half hours of fabric.
“He didn’t assume a personality when he walked up onstage,” Billy Crystal, who got here up with Mr. Lewis on the New York comedy scene within the Seventies, mentioned in an interview on Wednesday. “He simply type of dragged himself up there. It was refreshing. Generally you could possibly see audiences simply wish to say, ‘Decelerate. It’s going to be OK.’”
Mr. Lewis quickly moved into appearing. He starred as Marty Gold on the sitcom “Something however Love,” reverse Jamie Lee Curtis, from 1989 to 1992. The present received him important and standard acclaim and appeared to sign a transfer to Hollywood stardom.
However his follow-up present, “Daddy Dearest,” on which he performed the son of his fellow comedian Don Rickles, was a bomb, and Mr. Lewis spent the following a number of years looking for out bit components in films and single-episode roles on TV.
He had a outstanding function in Mel Brooks’s comedy “Robin Hood: Males in Tights” (1993), however in any other case he needed to accept small roles in movies like “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995) and “Hugo Pool” (1997).
After two years of struggling to get appearing roles, he returned to stand-up, touring the nation together with his present “Richard Lewis: The Magical Distress Tour,” which was seen as an HBO particular in 1996. It introduced him new consideration from a brand new technology of comedy followers, and a brand new shot at bit components in tv.
Lots of his finest TV roles have been on exhibits that shared his dark-tinged, humorous tackle the world, just like the animated collection “The Simpsons” and “BoJack Horseman.”
Mr. Lewis was open about his struggles with alcohol, medicine and melancholy. He turned sober within the mid-Nineties and wrote about his expertise in his 2000 memoir, “The Different Nice Despair: How I’m Overcoming, on a Day by day Foundation, at Least a Million Addictions and Dysfunctions and Discovering a Religious (Generally) Life.”
He revised the guide, with a brand new foreword, and republished it in 2008. He additionally wrote “Reflections From Hell: Richard Lewis’ Information on How To not Reside” (2015).
Starting in 1999, he had a daily function on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as an excellent pal and golf buddy of Larry David, the present’s star and creator. He performed a semi-fictionalized model of himself, a dour Eeyore who made Mr. David’s in any other case prickly self seem to be Christopher Robin.
Mr. Lewis didn’t seem in each episode, however he appeared recurrently, together with within the present season, the present’s final.
Richard Philip Lewis was born on June 29, 1947, in Brooklyn, in the identical hospital as his pal and future co-star, Mr. David, and simply three days earlier than him. His household quickly moved to Englewood, N.J. His father, Invoice Lewis, owned a kosher catering enterprise, and his mom, Blanche (Goldberg) Lewis, acted in group theater, specializing within the Jewish mom characters in Neil Simon performs.
As Mr. Lewis typically associated in his stand-up act, his household life was troubled. His father was by no means dwelling and died when Richard was nonetheless younger. His mom was emotionally distant, with problems with her personal.
“I owe my profession to my mom,” he told The Washington Post in 2020. “I ought to have given her my agent’s fee.”
He attended the Ohio State College and, after graduating with a level in advertising, returned to New Jersey. Whereas attempting his hand at comedy at night time and writing materials for different comedians on the aspect, he labored day jobs as an promoting copywriter and a clerk at a sporting items retailer.
He was depressing. Someday he was in a delicatessen together with his pal and mentor, the comic David Brenner, complaining about his lack of success — and his lack of sleep.
“He mentioned, ‘What do it’s good to be a comic book full time?’” Mr. Lewis instructed The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1995. “I mentioned a thousand {dollars}. He whipped out a examine and gave it to me. I stop my job and I’ve by no means appeared again.”
He made his stand-up debut in 1971, at a membership in Greenwich Village, and could possibly be seen for the following decade sharing billings with comics like Jay Leno, Richard Belzer, Elayne Boosler and Robert Klein.
He made his appearing debut in 1979, starring within the made-for-TV film “Diary of a Younger Comedian,” which appeared on NBC as a fill-in for “Saturday Night time Reside.”
As his profession took off, Mr. Lewis moved to Los Angeles, although he returned to his hometown ceaselessly.
“New York is my dwelling turf — I’ve so many mates in Manhattan,” he told The New York Observer in 2007. “And, tragically, so many relations.”
He lived alone in a sprawling home above the Sundown Strip and remained proudly averse to long-term relationships till he met Joyce Lapinsky, who labored in music publishing. They dated for a number of years earlier than Mr. Lewis, contemplating marriage, introduced her to his psychiatrist. “That is pretty much as good because it will get,” he typically recalled the therapist saying.
They married in 2005. She survives him, alongside together with his brother, Robert.
Mr. Lewis first met Mr. David when the 2 went to the identical summer time camp in upstate New York, although they didn’t get alongside. (“We hated one another,” Mr. Lewis instructed The Washington Publish.)
They reconnected a decade later, after they have been each struggling comics in New York. This time, their friendship caught. When Mr. David, who helped create and write “Seinfeld,” determined to make a present constructed round his life, he requested Mr. Lewis to affix him.
Mr. Lewis mentioned sure, so long as it was a recurring function. He went on to seem in 41 episodes, introducing him to one more cohort of followers.
“Due to ‘Curb,’ I’ve acquired three generations coming to my exhibits,” he mentioned in a 2014 interview with the web site Road Roots. “The demographic: There will likely be a 13-year-old after which there will likely be a man on a gurney saying, ‘I wished to see you earlier than I die.’”
Mr. Lewis suffered a collection of accidents within the late 2010s, requiring surgical procedure on his again and his rotator cuff. He carried out his final stand-up present in 2018 at Zanies in Chicago.
In 2023, after capturing the ultimate season of “Curb,” he announced that he had Parkinson’s illness. In a video statement, he mentioned he would proceed to write down and act for so long as he may.
“I’m hopeful that this doesn’t outline me,” he mentioned in an interview with Vanity Fair printed on Feb. 18. “I’m a recovered drunk who occurs to have Parkinson’s, however I’m a comic and an actor and an writer and a author. So I simply personal it and I put on it that manner. After all, once I end this interview, I’ll break down and cry and begin screaming. However why present you all the pieces?”
Orlando Mayorquin, Alex Traub and Michael S. Rosenwald contributed reporting.
