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 house in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening after struggling a coronary heart assault, based on his publicist Jeff Abraham.
A daily 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 technology reverse Larry David in HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, kvetching frequently.
“I’m paranoid about all the pieces in my life. Even at house. On my stationary bike, I’ve a rear-view mirror, which I’m not thrilled about,” he as soon as joked onstage. To Jimmy Kimmel he stated: “This morning, I attempted to go to mattress. I couldn’t sleep. I counted sheep however I solely had six of them they usually all had hip replacements.”
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Comedy Central named Lewis one of many prime 50 stand-up comedians of all time and he earned a berth in GQ journal’s record of the “twentieth Century’s Most Influential Humorists.” He lent his humour for charity causes, together with Comedian Aid and Comedy Offers Again.
“Watching his stand-up is like sitting in on a really humorous and sometimes darkish remedy session,” the Los Angeles Occasions stated in 2014. The Philadelphia’s Metropolis Paper known as him “the Jimi Hendrix of monologists.” Mel Brooks as soon as stated he “may 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 a number of nice associates early on who believed in me, and I met fairly iconic individuals who actually helped me, informed me to maintain engaged on my materials. And I by no means seemed again,” he informed The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2010.
Not like up to date Robin Williams, Lewis allowed audiences into his world and melancholy, pouring his torment and ache onto the stage. Followers favourably in contrast him to the ground-breaking comic Lenny Bruce.
“I take nice pains to not be mean-spirited,” Lewis informed The Palm Seaside Publish in 2007. “I don’t wish to take actual handicaps that individuals have to beat with no hope in sight. I keep away from that. That’s not humorous to me. Tragedy is humorous to different humourists, but it surely’s to not me, until you may make a degree that’s useful.”
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Singer Billy Joel has stated he was referring to Lewis when he sang in My Life of an previous good friend who “purchased a ticket to the West Coast/Now he provides them a stand-up routine in L.A.”
In 1989 at Carnegie Corridor, he appeared with six ft of yellow authorized sheets stuffed with materials and taped collectively for a 2½-hour set that led to 2 standing ovations. The evening was “the spotlight of my profession,” he informed The Washington Publish in 2020.
Lewis informed 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 in the future and I stored repeating it lots for some cause. Similar factor with the black garments. I simply felt actually snug from the early ’80s on and I by no means wore anything. I by no means seemed again.”
After getting sober from medication and alcohol in 1994, Lewis put out his 2008 memoir, The Different Nice Despair — a group of fearless, essay model 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 informed The Washington Publish in 2020.
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“Trying again on it now, as a full-blown, middle-aged, functioning anxiousness collector, I can admit with out cringing that my dad and mom had their justifiable share of super qualities, but, being human a lot of the day, had greater than only a handful of flaws as nicely,” he wrote in his memoir.
Lewis shortly discovered a brand new household acting at New York’s Improv. “I used to be 23, and all kinds of individuals had been coming out and in and watching me, like Steve Allen and Bette Midler. David Brenner definitely took me underneath his wing. To drive house to my little dump in New Jersey typically understanding that Steve Allen stated, ‘You bought it,’ that validation stored me getting into an enormous, massive approach.”
He had a cameo in Leaving Las Vegas, which led to his first main dramatic position as Jimmy Epstein, an addict combating 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 will 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 associates as rivals whereas attending the identical summer time camp at age 13. He was solid from the start, bickering with David on unpaid payments and customary courtesies.
