Comic and Curb star was known for humorously morose takes
NEW YORK — Richard Lewis, an acclaimed comedian known for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while dressed in allblack, leading to his nickname “The Prince of Pain,” has died. He was 76.
Lewis, who revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2023, died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after suffering a heart attack, according to his publicist Jeff Abraham.
A regular performer in clubs and on late-night TV for decades, Lewis also played Marty Gold opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, in the ABC series Anything But Love and the reliably neurotic Prince John in Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men In Tights. He re-introduced himself to a new generation opposite Larry David in HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, kvetching regularly.
Comedy Central named Lewis one of the top 50 stand-up comedians of all time and he earned a berth in GQ magazine’s list of the “20th Century’s Most Influential Humorists.” He lent his humour to charity causes, including Comic Relief and Comedy Gives Back.
“Watching his stand-up is like sitting in on a very funny and often dark therapy session,” the Los Angeles Times said in 2014. The Philadelphia’s City Paper called him “the Jimi Hendrix of monologists.” Mel Brooks once said he “may just be the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy.”
Following his graduation from The Ohio State University in 1969, the New York-born Lewis began a stand-up career, honing his craft on the circuit with other contemporaries also just starting out like Jay Leno, Freddie Prinze and Billy Crystal.
He recalled Rodney Dangerfield hiring him for $75 to fill in at his New York club, Dangerfield’s. “I had a lot of great friends early on who believed in me, and I met pretty iconic people who really helped me, told me to keep working on my material. And I never looked back,” he told The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2010.
“I’m paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home. On my stationary bike, I have a rear-view mirror, which I’m not thrilled about,” he once joked onstage. To Jimmy Kimmel he said: “This morning, I tried to go to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I counted sheep but I only had six of them and they all had hip replacements.”
Lewis allowed audiences into his world and melancholy, pouring his torment and pain onto the stage. Fans favourably compared him to the ground-breaking comedian Lenny Bruce.
After getting sober from drugs and alcohol in 1994, Lewis put out his 2008 memoir, The Other Great Depression — a collection of fearless, essay style riffs on his life — and Reflections from Hell.
Lewis was the youngest of three siblings. His father died young and his mother had emotional problems. “She didn’t get me at all. I owe my career to my mother. I should have given her my agent’s commission,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.
Lewis quickly found a new family performing at New York’s Improv. “I was 23, and all sorts of people were coming in and out and watching me, like Steve Allen and Bette Midler. David Brenner certainly took me under his wing. To drive home to my little dump in New Jersey often knowing that Steve Allen said, ‘You got it,’ that validation kept me going in a big, big way.”
Lewis’ recurring role on
Curb Your Enthusiasm can be credited directly to his friendship with producer and series star Larry David. Both native Brooklynites — born in the same Brooklyn hospital — they first met and became friends as rivals while attending the same summer camp at age 13. He was cast from the beginning, bickering with David on unpaid bills and common courtesies.
He is survived by his wife, Joyce Lapinsky.