All Time Best Comedian Richard Lewis Dies At 76.

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Richard Lewis: The Prince of Pain Departs

Richard Lewis, an acclaimed comedian noted for addressing his neuroses in passionate, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while wearing all-black, earning his nickname “The Prince of Pain,” has died. He was 76.

Lewis died in Los Angeles at his home on Tuesday night due to a heart attack, as confirmed by his publicist Jeff Abraham. Mr. Lewis, once disclosed that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2023

Decades in Comedy: From Clubs to Late-Night TV

Richards Lewis performed a lot in the clubs and was a regular performer on late-night TV shows for decades. He also played Marty Gold who was a co-lead to Jamie Lee Curtis in the ABC series, “Anything But Love” and the perennially 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.

“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 happy about,” he once stated onstage. To Jimmy Kimmel, he said: “This morning, I wanted to go to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I counted sheep but I only had six of them and they all had hip replacements.”

Influence and Accolades

Comedy Central voted Richard Lewis one of the top 50 stand-up comedians of all time and he received a slot on GQ magazine’s list of the “20th Century’s Most Influential Humorists.” He contributed his humor to charitable programs, like 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 remarked in 2014. The Philadelphia’s City Paper named him “the Jimi Hendrix of monologists.” Mel Brooks once suggested he “may just be the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy.”

Following his graduation from Ohio State University in 1969, the New York-born Richard Lewis began a stand-up career, building his ability on the circuit with other contemporaries also just starting like Billy Crystal, Jay Leno, and Freddie Prinze.

He recalls Rodney Dangerfield hiring him for $75 to fill in at his New York club, Dangerfield’s. “I had a lot of amazing friends early on who believed in me, and I met some famous individuals who supported me, and advised me to keep working on my music. And I never looked back,” he told The Gazette of Colorado Springs in Colorado, in 2010.

A Life of Grief and Humor

Unlike contemporaneous Robin Williams, Lewis welcomed audiences inside his realm of grief, spilling his agony and pain onto the stage. Fans positively likened him to the ground-breaking comic Lenny Bruce.

“I take great pains not to be mean-spirited,” Lewis told The Palm Beach Post in 2007. “I don’t want to take major handicaps that individuals have to overcome with no hope in sight. I keep away from that. That’s not humorous to me. Tragedy is humorous to certain humorists, but it’s not to me unless you can make a constructive point.”

Singer Billy Joel has speculated he was alluding to Lewis when he sang in “My Life” of an old acquaintance who “bought a ticket to the West Coast/Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.”

1988 Fresh Air interview: Comedian Richard Lewis

Lewis had two standing ovations during his two-and-a-half-long hours of the show at Carnegie Hall in 1989 as he appeared with six feet of yellow legal papers loaded with content and taped together for a 2½-hour show. The night was “the highlight of my career,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.

Signature Style: All-Black and “From Hell”

Lewis told GQ his signature appearance came unintentionally, noting his obsession for clothing in black stemmed from watching the television Western “Have Gun – Will Travel,” depicting a cowboy in all-black, when he was a youngster. He also popularized the idiom “from hell” — as in “the date from hell” or “the job from hell.”

“That simply came out of my thoughts one day and I kept saying it a lot for some reason. Same thing with black clothes. I genuinely felt comfortable from the early ’80s on and I never wore anything else. I never looked back.”

After getting clean from drugs and alcohol in 1994, Richard Lewis published his 2008 book, “The Other Great Depression” – a compilation of strong, essay-form comments on his life — and “Reflections from Hell.”

Lewis has one older brother and one older sister. They are three siblings. He was the youngest of all. His brother was 6 years older than him and his sister was 9 years older than him. His father died early and his mother had mental issues. “She didn’t get me at all. I owe my career to my mother. I should have sent her my agent’s commission,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.

“Looking back on it now, as a full-blown, middle-aged, functioning anxiety collector, I can admit without cringing that my parents had their fair share of tremendous qualities, yet, being human much of the day, had more than just a handful of flaws as well,” he stated in his memoir.

Richard Lewis quickly found a new family playing at New York’s Improv. “I was 23, and all sorts of people were going in and out and studying me, including Steve Allen and Bette Midler. David Brenner certainly took me under his wing. To come home to my modest dump in New Jersey regularly knowing that Steve Allen said, ‘You got it,’ that affirmation kept me going in a big, tremendous manner.”

His first large dramatic part came from a cameo in “Leaving Las Vegas,” which led the stage for his important appearance as Jimmy Epstein and played an addict struggling for his life in the film “Drunks.” He acted as Don Rickles’ son on one season of “Daddy Dearest” and a rabbi on “7th Heaven.”

Friendship with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”

Richard Lewis, Comedian Richard Lewis, Richard Lewis wife, — Richard Lewis, and his wife

Richard Lewis’s frequent participation in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” may be credited directly to his association with fellow comedian, producer, and series star Larry David.

Both native Brooklynites — born in the same Brooklyn hospital — they originally met and became friends as rivals while attending the same summer camp at age 13. He was cast from the outset, battling with David on late invoices and simple courtesies.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce Lapinsky.