Richard Lewis, Comic and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Actor, Dies at 76

Richard Lewis, the slapstick comedian who first achieved fame within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s together with his trademark acerbic, darkish humorousness, and who later parlayed that high quality into an appearing profession that included motion pictures like “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and a recurring position as himself on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” died on Tuesday at his house 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 era of comedians who got here of age through the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, marked by a world-weary, sarcastic wit that mapped effectively onto the city malaise by which lots of them plied their commerce.

After discovering success as a comic in New York nightclubs, he turned a daily on late-night speak reveals, favored as a lot for his tight routine as for his informal, open affability as an interviewee. He appeared on “Late Night With David Letterman” 48 instances.

And he was on the forefront of the growth in stand-up comedy that got here with the growth of cable tv within the late Eighties.

Neurotic and self-deprecating, sometimes dressed all in black, Mr. Lewis paced the phases of comedy golf equipment, hanging his head, pulling at his shock of black hair, riffing on his struggles in life and love. He known as himself the “Prince of Pain,” and so did his legions of followers.

The titles of his many comedy specials from the Eighties inform all of it: “I’m in Pain,” “I’m Exhausted,” “I’m Doomed.”

He constructed a few of his anecdotal bits across the concept of the worst potential model of an on a regular basis determine: the waiter from hell, the physician from hell. In 2006, The Yale Guide 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 about the show, but that’s who I am,” he told The New York Observer in 2007. “I’m just so wired by my time onstage, my head is filled with images. It’s terrifying, but it’s also exhilarating. I’ll never not work like this.”

Nevertheless it 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 courting life and his on a regular basis bouts of gaping self-doubt.

If it brought on 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.

Mr. Lewis quickly moved into appearing. He starred as Marty Gold on the sitcom “Anything but Love,” reverse Jamie Lee Curtis, from 1989 to 1992. The present received him essential and widespread 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 subsequent a number of years looking for out bit components in motion pictures and single-episode roles on TV.

He had a distinguished position in Mel Brooks’s comedy “Robin Hood: Men 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 Misery Tour,” which was seen as an HBO particular in 1996. It introduced him new consideration from a brand new era of comedy followers, and a brand new shot at bit components in tv.

Lots of his finest TV roles have been on reveals that shared his dark-tinged, humorous tackle the world, just like the animated sequence “The Simpsons” and “BoJack Horseman.”

Mr. Lewis was open about his struggles with alcohol, medication and despair. He turned sober within the mid-Nineteen Nineties and wrote about his expertise in his 2000 memoir, “The Other Great Depression: How I’m Overcoming, on a Daily Basis, at Least a Million Addictions and Dysfunctions and Finding a Spiritual (Sometimes) Life.”

He revised the ebook, with a brand new foreword, and republished it in 2008. He additionally wrote “Reflections From Hell: Richard Lewis’ Guide on How Not to Live” (2015).

Starting in 1999, he had a daily position on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as 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 look like 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 2, 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 neighborhood 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 house and died when Richard was nonetheless younger. His mom was emotionally distant, with problems with her personal.

“I owe my career to my mother,” he told The Washington Post in 2020. “I should have given her my agent’s commission.”

He attended the Ohio State College and, after graduating with a level in advertising and marketing, returned to New Jersey. Whereas attempting his hand at comedy at evening and writing materials for different comedians on the facet, he labored day jobs as an promoting copywriter and a clerk at a sporting items retailer.

He was depressing. At some point 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 said, ‘What do you need to be a comic full time?’” Mr. Lewis advised The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1995. “I said a thousand dollars. He whipped out a check and gave it to me. I quit my job and I’ve never looked back.”

He made his stand-up debut in 1971, at a membership in Greenwich Village, and may very well be seen for the subsequent 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 Young Comic,” which appeared on NBC as a fill-in for “Saturday Night Live.”

As his profession took off, Mr. Lewis moved to Los Angeles, although he returned to his hometown steadily.

“New York is my home turf — 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 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. “This is as good as it gets,” 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 season camp in upstate New York, although they didn’t get alongside. (“We hated each other,” Mr. Lewis advised 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 position. He went on to look in 41 episodes, introducing him to one more cohort of followers.

“Because of ‘Curb,’ I’ve got three generations coming to my shows,” he mentioned in a 2014 interview with the web site Road Roots. “The demographic: There will be a 13-year-old and then there will be a guy on a gurney saying, ‘I wanted to see you before I die.’”

Mr. Lewis suffered a sequence 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 taking pictures the ultimate season of “Curbed,” he announced that he had Parkinson’s illness. In a video statement, he mentioned he would proceed to jot down and act so long as he might.

“I’m hopeful that this doesn’t define me,” he mentioned in an interview with Vanity Fair printed on Feb. 18. “I’m a recovered drunk 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 I wear it that way. Of course, when I finish this interview, I’ll break down and cry and start screaming. But why show you everything?”

Orlando Mayorquin and Alex Traub contributed reporting.