Richard Lewis Was TV's Most Charming and Indomitable Hard-Luck Case

It's impossible to describe comedian Richard Lewis without using "dark." It's also just as difficult to talk about him without smiling. Watch his stand-up performances and marvel at the way he'd screw his face into countless pained expressions set under that unwieldy mop of dark hair. His clothes were dark — black, in fact, his trademark — worn diligently as though every day he was attending a wake where everyone in attendance just happened to be laughing hysterically.

Lewis' humor was dark, too, rife with internalized observations of self-doubt and ennui. His material stemmed from dark things, such as his well-documented addictions to alcohol and drugs. He picked apart his personal woes for the gratification of his audiences, but the sharp ones in attendance were in on the joke — we could laugh at Richard Lewis because he wanted us to, invited us to, because he also found his schtick funny. He cut a gloomy figure, a slouching scarecrow of neuroses and ticks, yet Richard Lewis remained sanguine about life, at least in full view of his fans, a complex array of foibles and shortcomings that became both his act and his gift. Even in death, he casts a shadow that, paradoxically, makes TV a brighter, better place.

Here's a random line from Lewis that sums up his sense of humor succinctly: "How you doin'? I hate that I'm Richard Lewis, but you're watching Comedy Central," said during one of his many appearances on The Daily Show, in a celebrity ident recorded for the channel in 1998. Who would introduce themselves to millions of viewers in such a self-deprecating way? A self-styled "Prince of Pain," that's who, so dubbed for the free-associative, confessional-styled material in which Lewis and his addictions were the butt of his rapid-fire jokes. Sure, there would come the standard-grade yuks about airport bathrooms (found in arguably his greatest special for HBO, The Magical Misery Tour), but somehow, the subject of his stand-up would always gravitate back to Richard Lewis, Hollywood's most indomitable hard-luck case.

In his profusely titled 2000 memoir, The Other Great Depression: How I'm Overcoming, on a Daily Basis, at Least a Million Addictions and Dysfunctions and Finding a Spiritual (Sometimes) Life, Lewis wrote, "Martyrdom can be a trip. Sometimes entertaining. Even fun if I'm sober enough to appreciate the laughs." His act was a full-time riff on his life. As his acting career took off, Lewis the person became Lewis the persona, an array of characters defined by him, not the other way around.

It's no wonder that his most enduring role might be in HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm as "Richard Lewis," a blemished but otherwise uncracked mirror reflection of Richard Lewis, the real guy. Lewis' work with long, long, longtime friend Larry David (they were born in the same hospital three days apart, as the legends go) has cemented the comedian's legacy, not just because of the tremendous popularity of David's show but how much it is improved by Lewis' performance. Whenever he shares the screen with David, the results are social agony and comic ecstasy, a yin/yang situation in which Lewis' "one day at a time" spiritualism scrapes against David's anarchic misanthropy. Curb Your Enthusiasm is consistently hilarious, made even more so by Lewis' contributions.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947 to a caterer father and an actress mother, Lewis grew up in a periodically tumultuous home. Describing himself in The Other Great Depression as "self-made," he put himself on a path that inevitably led to show business, making his first big splash in the 1970s at Budd Friedman's Improvisation Comedy Club, the genesis point for future all-stars like Rodney Dangerfield, Jay Leno, and Andy Kaufman. It was among Improv's titans and untested alike that Lewis honed his act. "I always tell comics, 'Hang out with people on your level and those just above you,'” he said to Vanity Fair in early February. "You've got to see the craft that's good, and you have to be able to feel less alone if you're with a group of people that are still trudging along to try to find a way onstage."

Richard Lewis' convictions (and, he would admit, his connections) brought him to the arena of late-night talk shows. His first appearance on the talk show circuit was in 1974 as a recurring guest on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, but it was on David Letterman's Late Night and Late Show that Lewis would found himself most at home and would later attribute to his overall success as a comic. "Dave really wanted his guests to score," Lewis posted on X (formerly Twitter) in 2022. "He was the kickstart for my career." (Letterman would observe, "You seem like a troubled sort," during Lewis' debut on his program, to which Lewis chuckled in tandem with an appreciative audience. His brand was already taking shape.)

Lewis toured with new material for almost a decade and occasionally appeared in guest spots on long-forgotten TV series like House Calls and Riptide. In 1978, he landed a co-starring role in the Barry Levinson-produced Harry, an ABC sitcom that starred Alan Arkin, Holland Taylor, and himself as the nigh-pseudonymized "Richard Breskin." Neurotic, morose, and ladling personal issues onto anyone within earshot, Breskin became the first of many similar roles that effectively tapped into what made the comedian tick. Seven episodes of Harry were filmed; only four would ever air.

Even this early in his career, it's clear Lewis had a spark that made him appealing to a broader television audience despite the storm clouds hanging over his head. In the premiere episode of Harry, "Meet Mr. Porschak," Lewis' shuffle was a glide. His nervous banter rang across the series's dingy location (a hospital purchasing department, the lousiest location imaginable for any sitcom), and his effusive gestures and wide-eyed pronouncements made the laconic Arkin seem almost sleepy by comparison.

The unceremonious axing of Harry would become a dreary recurring theme in Lewis' television career — Daddy Dearest, a bawdy Fox sitcom helmed alongside Don Rickles, and ABC’s Hiller and Diller with Kevin Nealon fared only slightly better, both amounting to a meager 13 episodes each — but his swings weren't all misses. Anything But Love, a charmingly rendered sitcom about two magazine staffers navigating a will-they/won't-they situation in Chicago where he co-starred with Jamie Lee Curtis, was Lewis' biggest TV hit as a star, reaching 56 episodes over four seasons.

Revisiting earlier episodes of Anything But Love, it's easy to appreciate why. Forget that treacly romantic sitcoms were a dime a dozen, and the network competition was fierce. And it's true: the series's run was always on a tightrope, with ABC unhappy with its initial supporting cast and format, moving around time slots, and goosing ratings with guest stars like John Ritter (whose company produced the show) to stir up goopy melodrama. At the tumultuous epicenter were Curtis and Lewis, whose lively romantic chemistry built over time. "I thought he was handsome. He made me laugh," Curtis recently posted on Instagram, remembering how she first met her co-star. "He got the part when I snort laughed [sic] when he mispronounced the word Bundt cake."

Anything But Love ended, and Lewis languished in bit roles, culminating with 1997's Magical Misery Tour, a comeback of sorts where the refreshed and sober comedian found a second lease on comic life. Between these career highlights, Lewis appeared in a 1994 episode of Tales From the Crypt titled "Whirlpool," in which he played Vern Caputo, a blustery editor of the fictionalized Crypt comic magazine. Rita Rudner starred as a comic strip artist who takes enough of his abuse and finds herself, in true anthologized crime/horror fashion, caught in a perpetual loop of rejection, retribution, and murder.

His performance in Crypt is a truly fascinating part of an especially perfunctory episode. It's interesting to see Lewis chew the scenery in a way that doesn't reflect on his public persona but rather exemplifies the stiff he could have been in another, perhaps more peaceful life. As it happened, Richard Lewis' life was one of pratfalls and close calls, cracking wise and wising up. And, early on, an epiphany.

One anecdote in The Other Great Depression explains who Richard Lewis was and how lucky we were to have him more clearly than any extended essay about him ever could. He's little, hearing noises outside his bedroom door that make him feel sad and frightened. He closes his eyes, and — well, here's what he wrote:

"I was getting lost, real lost, and as I reached out for help the only thing that answered the call was this candle. There was a candle in my belly, thank God. And I came to realize, in miraculous fashion, [that if] the candle ever went out, I would probably either feel dead or be dead."

Richard Lewis might have left us this week, but his candle still burns.

Jarrod Jones is a freelance writer currently settled in Chicago. He reads lots (and lots) of comics and, as a result, is kind of a dunderhead.