Richard Lewis, Comic and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Star, Dead at 76
Actor dies of heart attack after revealing a battle with Parkinson’s disease last year
Richard Lewis, a stand-up comic who achieved fame in the 1980s by turning his neuroses into comedy gold and later experienced a renaissance in recent years thanks to Curb Your Enthusiasm, died on Tuesday at the age of 76. The cause of death was a heart attack, his publicist, Jeff Abraham, confirmed to Rolling Stone.
Last April, Lewis revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. “I’m under a doctor’s care, and everything is cool,” he said at the time. “I love my wife, I love little puppy dog, and I love all my friends and my fans.”
Lewis, who often dressed entirely in black, gained prominence by joking about his family and his own personal foibles. He quipped about his family’s annual inductions into a “Hall of Blame” in the mid-Eighties, according to The New York Times, and joked that at meals “if you can match any two symptoms, you get seconds.” On Comic Relief, he told the audience he had a rearview mirror on his stationary bike since he’s so paranoid.
He was a staple on late-night shows, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 22 times and on Late Night With David Letterman 44 times (and he would continue to appear on Letterman’s show when he moved to CBS.) As an actor, he appeared in comedies like Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) and dramas like Mike Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas (1995). But it was on Curb Your Enthusiasm, where he played a fictionalized version of himself — one who was perpetually tired of Larry David’s antics — which solidified his place in the cultural conversation.
This story is developing.
Actor dies of heart attack after revealing a battle with Parkinson’s disease last year
Richard Lewis, a stand-up comic who achieved fame in the 1980s by turning his neuroses into comedy gold and later experienced a renaissance in recent years thanks to Curb Your Enthusiasm, died on Tuesday at the age of 76. The cause of death was a heart attack, his publicist, Jeff Abraham, confirmed to Rolling Stone.
Last April, Lewis revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. “I’m under a doctor’s care, and everything is cool,” he said at the time. “I love my wife, I love little puppy dog, and I love all my friends and my fans.”
Lewis, who often dressed entirely in black, gained prominence by joking about his family and his own personal foibles. He quipped about his family’s annual inductions into a “Hall of Blame” in the mid-Eighties, according to The New York Times, and joked that at meals “if you can match any two symptoms, you get seconds.” On Comic Relief, he told the audience he had a rearview mirror on his stationary bike since he’s so paranoid.
He was a staple on late-night shows, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 22 times and on Late Night With David Letterman 44 times (and he would continue to appear on Letterman’s show when he moved to CBS.) As an actor, he appeared in comedies like Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) and dramas like Mike Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas (1995). But it was on Curb Your Enthusiasm, where he played a fictionalized version of himself — one who was perpetually tired of Larry David’s antics — which solidified his place in the cultural conversation.
This story is developing.
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