Nancy Lewis, the Pythons’ ticket to America, dies at 76

Nancy Lewis, whose single-minded belief that Americans would find a quirky British comedy troupe amusing was instrumental in getting that troupe’s breakthrough show, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” broadcast on American television, died Dec. 20 in Manhattan. She was 76.

Her husband, actor Simon Jones, said the cause was leukemia.

Lewis was head of publicity for Buddah Records, an American company, when in 1971 it struck a distribution deal with the British label Charisma Records that included two albums by Monty Python, which had become famous in Britain on the BBC in 1969 but was virtually unknown in the United States.

She championed the albums and then the television series, finally getting it on the air on PBS in 1974 and Lewis became the Pythons’ American manager.

The next year, when ABC broadcast an edited compilation of the show in its weekday late-night slot, she urged the troupe to go to court to try to stop a second such broadcast, since the editing ruined much of the Pythonesque humor, which relied on running gags, incongruity and absurdity. The suit didn’t stop the second broadcast, but on appeal it did establish that the Pythons owned the copyright to the “Flying Circus” episodes, an important precedent.

Michael Palin, one of the troupe’s six members, posted a tribute to Lewis on his blog after her death.

“Python benefited so much from her quiet, persistent enthusiasm,” he wrote.