Richard Lewis has passed away at age 76 according to reports.
Larry David said in a statement: “Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital and for most of my life he’s been like a brother to me. He had that rare combination of being the funniest person and also the sweetest. But today he made me sob and for that I’ll never forgive him.”
He’d been ill for some time, but he soldiered on, appeared in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as much as possible. He has only been on briefly, in one episode, this season, and I guess this explains why. Lewis had talked about his battle with Parkinson’s Disease, which really looked like it had wiped him out in recent years.
(He really flourished in the season about The Spite Store.)
Lewis was a hot shot comic from the 1970s. I just loved him, and was so thrilled when I’d bump into him in LA. He was very impressed that I remembered a little autobiographical film he’d made when he was young that helped put him on the map. (It was called “Diary of a Young Comic” and the promo is below.)
Even though he’d gotten the huge audience from “Curb,” Lewis was a cutting edge comic back in the day. He appeared on every late night show, and was a hit on the touring circuit.
In the late 80s, Lewis starred with Jamie Lee Curtis in a sitcom called “Anything But Love” that was too hip for its time. Lewis’s comedy was like that, acerbic and neurotic and totally relatable.
More to come…I’m really bummed, I know a lot of people are…And now “Curb Your Enthusiasm” really is over with him and Bob Einstein both gone.
