Richard Lewis

Richard Philip Lewis was born on June 29, 1947, in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. He was the youngest of three children in a Jewish family that was not especially religious; his sister was nine years older and his brother six. His father, Bill, who died in 1971, co-owned Ambassador Caterers in Teaneck, New Jersey, and his mother, Blanche, acted in community theatre. With his siblings gone by the 1960s and his father busy, Lewis was often home alone with his mother, with whom there was friction. He told The Washington Post in 2014 that he suspected his birth had been a mistake.

Lewis was known as the class clown at Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, graduating in 1965. He went on to Ohio State University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in marketing in 1969. In November 2023 the university's Fisher College of Business gave him its Alumni Achievement Award.

Lewis first tried stand-up at a Greenwich Village open mic in 1971 and was performing regularly by 1972 while working as an advertising copywriter. David Brenner spotted him, introduced him to the Los Angeles comedy clubs and helped secure his first Tonight Show spot. In his early sets he laid taped-together legal pad sheets on the floor as reminders of his premises.

He co-wrote and starred in the NBC film Diary of a Young Comic (1979), then became a regular on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (22 appearances, 1974 to 1992), Late Night with David Letterman (48 appearances, 1982 to 1993) and The Howard Stern Show. His specials were I'm in Pain (Showtime, 1985), I'm Exhausted (HBO, 1988), I'm Doomed (HBO, 1990) and The Magical Misery Tour (HBO, 1997).

On television he co-starred with Jamie Lee Curtis in Anything but Love (ABC, 1989 to 1992), with Don Rickles in Daddy Dearest (1993) and with Kevin Nealon in Hiller and Diller (1998), and had recurring roles on Rude Awakening and 7th Heaven (as Rabbi Richard Glass). His films include The Wrong Guys (1988), Once Upon a Crime (1992), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993, as Prince John), Wagons East (1994, John Candy's last film), Drunks (1995), Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Hugo Pool (1997) and She's Funny That Way (2014).

From 2000 to 2024 he played a version of himself on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm opposite Larry David, appearing in the very first episode and returning for the twelfth and final season, most of which aired after his death.

Lewis met Joyce Lapinsky, who worked in music publishing, in 1998 at a Ringo Starr album release party. They became engaged in 2004 and married in 2005. He spoke openly about anxiety, depression, therapy and an eating disorder linked to body dysmorphia, as well as addiction to alcohol, cocaine and crystal meth. He stopped performing stand-up from 1991 to 1994 and said he got sober in 1994 after an emergency room visit for a cocaine overdose, remaining sober for almost 30 years.

Recovery was central to how Lewis spoke about his life. In January 2024 he wrote on X that faith had kept him sober almost 30 years and was helping him keep battling Parkinson's disease. He described laughter and music as what kept him sane, and his books The Other Great Depression and Reflections from Hell turned his struggles into frank, comic reflection.

Lewis helped define confessional, neurotic stand-up, influencing generations of comics who mined therapy and mental health for material. GQ named him one of the 20th century's most influential humorists and Comedy Central ranked him No. 45 among the 100 greatest stand-ups (2004). The Yale Book of Quotations (2006) credited him with popularising the phrase "the ____ from hell", a claim later folded into the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "The Nanny from Hell".

No. 45 on Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Standups of All Time (2004). Listed by GQ among the 20th century's most influential humorists. Entry in The Yale Book of Quotations for "the ____ from hell" (2006). Ohio State University Fisher College of Business Alumni Achievement Award (November 2023).

Books: The Other Great Depression (memoir, 2000; reissued 2008 with a new afterword) and Reflections from Hell: Richard Lewis' Guide on How Not to Live (2015, with images by artist Carl Nicholas Titolo). Specials: I'm in Pain (1985), I'm Exhausted (1988), I'm Doomed (1990) and Richard Lewis: The Magical Misery Tour (1997).

Lewis petitioned the editors of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations to include "the ____ from hell" and had his lawyer send tapes of him using it. Bartlett's general editor Justin Kaplan declined, saying the expression predated Lewis's first taped broadcast. Lewis told Entertainment Weekly he traced its popular use to his early Letterman appearances.

Lewis had several surgeries in his later years: a shattered right hand after falling from his roof in 2016, back surgery in 2019 and a shattered shoulder in 2020. In April 2023 he announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease two years earlier and would no longer perform stand-up, focusing instead on writing and acting. He died of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles on February 27, 2024, aged 76. Larry David, Cheryl Hines, Mel Brooks, Jamie Lee Curtis and HBO paid tribute. He is buried at Temple of Aaron Cemetery in Roseville, Minnesota.