Humorously morose comic Richard Lewis, who lately starred on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' dies at 76

NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Lewis, an acclaimed comic recognized for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes whereas wearing all-black, resulting in his nickname “The Prince of Ache,” has died. He was 76.

Lewis, who revealed he had been recognized with Parkinson’s illness in 2023, died at his residence in Los Angeles on Tuesday night time after struggling a coronary heart assault, based on his publicist Jeff Abraham.

An everyday performer in golf equipment and on late-night TV for many years, Lewis additionally performed Marty Gold, the romantic co-lead reverse Jamie Lee Curtis, within the ABC collection “Something However Love” and the reliably neurotic Prince John in “Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Males In Tights.” He re-introduced himself to a brand new era reverse Larry David in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” kvetching often.

“I am paranoid about every part in my life. Even at residence. On my stationary bike, I’ve a rear-view mirror, which I am not thrilled about,” he as soon as joked onstage. To Jimmy Kimmel he mentioned: “This morning, I attempted to go to mattress. I could not sleep. I counted sheep however I solely had six of them and so they all had hip replacements.”

Comedy Central named Lewis one of many prime 50 stand-up comedians of all time and he earned a berth in GQ journal’s listing of the “twentieth Century’s Most Influential Humorists.” He lent his humor for charity causes, together with Comedian Reduction and Comedy Offers Again.

“Watching his stand-up is like sitting in on a really humorous and sometimes darkish remedy session,” the Los Angeles Instances mentioned in 2014. The Philadelphia’s Metropolis Paper referred to as him “the Jimi Hendrix of monologists.” Mel Brooks as soon as mentioned he “could be the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy.”

Following his commencement from The Ohio State College in 1969, the New York-born Lewis started a stand-up profession, honing his craft on the circuit with different contemporaries additionally simply beginning out like Jay Leno, Freddie Prinze and Billy Crystal.

He recalled Rodney Dangerfield hiring him for $75 to fill in at his New York membership, Dangerfield’s. “I had numerous nice mates early on who believed in me, and I met fairly iconic individuals who actually helped me, advised me to maintain engaged on my materials. And I by no means appeared again,” he advised The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2010.

Not like modern Robin Williams, Lewis allowed audiences into his world and melancholy, pouring his torment and ache onto the stage. Followers favorably in contrast him to the ground-breaking comic Lenny Bruce.

“I take nice pains to not be mean-spirited,” Lewis advised The Palm Seashore Publish in 2007. “I don’t wish to take actual handicaps that folks have to beat with no hope in sight. I keep away from that. That’s not humorous to me. Tragedy is humorous to different humorists, but it surely’s to not me, except you can also make some extent that’s useful.”

Singer Billy Joel has mentioned he was referring to Lewis when he sang in “My Life” of an outdated pal who “purchased a ticket to the West Coast/Now he offers them a stand-up routine in L.A.”

In 1989 at Carnegie Corridor, he appeared with six toes of yellow authorized sheets crammed with materials and taped collectively for a 2½-hour set that led to 2 standing ovations. The night time was “the spotlight of my profession,” he advised The Washington Publish in 2020.

Lewis advised GQ his signature look got here by the way, saying his obsession with dressing in black got here from watching the tv Western “Have Gun – Will Journey,” with a cowboy in all-black, when he was a child. He additionally popularized the time period “from hell” — as in “the date from hell” or “the job from hell.”

“That simply got here out of my mind someday and I stored repeating it loads for some motive. Identical factor with the black garments. I simply felt actually snug from the early ’80s on and I by no means wore the rest. I by no means appeared again.”

After getting sober from medication and alcohol in 1994, Lewis put out his 2008 memoir, “The Different Nice Melancholy” — a group of fearless, essay type riffs on his life — and “Reflections from Hell.”

Lewis was the youngest of three siblings — his brother was older than him by six years, and his sister by 9. His father died younger and his mom had emotional issues. “She didn’t get me in any respect. I owe my profession to my mom. I ought to have given her my agent’s fee,” he advised The Washington Publish in 2020.

“Wanting again on it now, as a full-blown, middle-aged, functioning anxiousness collector, I can admit with out cringing that my mother and father had their justifiable share of great qualities, but, being human a lot of the day, had greater than only a handful of flaws as properly,” he wrote in his memoir.

Lewis rapidly discovered a brand new household acting at New York’s Improv. “I used to be 23, and all types of individuals have been coming out and in and watching me, like Steve Allen and Bette Midler. David Brenner definitely took me beneath his wing. To drive residence to my little dump in New Jersey usually understanding that Steve Allen mentioned, ‘You bought it,’ that validation stored me getting in an enormous, huge manner.”

He had a cameo in “Leaving Las Vegas,” which led to his first main dramatic position as Jimmy Epstein, an addict preventing for his life within the indie movie, “Drunks.” He performed Don Rickles’ son on one season of “Daddy Dearest” and a rabbi on “seventh Heaven.”

Lewis’s recurring position on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” could be credited on to his friendship with fellow comic, producer and collection star Larry David. Each native Brooklynites — born in the identical Brooklyn hospital — they first met and have become mates as rivals whereas attending the identical summer season camp at age 13. He was solid from the start, bickering with David on unpaid payments and customary courtesies.

He’s survived by his spouse, Joyce Lapinsky.