Lewis’ prickly friendship with Larry David

Richard Lewis got off on the wrong foot with Larry David, said Ben Lazarus in The Spectator (U.K.). The comedian first met the future Curb Your Enthusiasm star at a summer camp when the two Brooklyn natives were 12. “I disliked him intensely,” he said. “He was cocky, he was arrogant. When we played baseball, I tried to hit him with the ball. We were archrivals. I couldn’t wait for the camp to be over just to get away from Larry. I’m sure he felt the same way.” Eleven years later, they met again on the New York City stand-up scene. They didn’t recognize each other at first. Then one evening, “it clicked. ‘You’re Richard Lewis!’ ‘You’re Larry David!’ I was yelling at him, he was yelling at me.” They’ve been friends ever since, and though they bicker endlessly on Curb, “in truth, he loves me and I’m his dearest friend.” But David, he says, does not like to “go deep” into expressions of feeling. In one of his favorite scenes from the show, Lewis tells his friend that he loves him, and David replies, “You are just a babbling brook of bullshit.” When the cameras are off, David has been a kind and supportive friend to Lewis, 76, who has been struggling with Parkinson’s disease. “When the chips are down— look, I’ve had a tough couple of years—he’s been there for me in spades. Without question, I couldn’t have a better friend.”