Home #Hwoodtimes Richard Lewis, comedian, who starred in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ has died at...

Richard Lewis, comedian, who starred in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ has died at 76

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Richard Lewis appears at the Bellagio July 27, 2005 in Las Vegas. (Photo Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Richard Lewis passed away at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after suffering a heart attack, according to his publicist Jeff Abraham.

Richard Lewis was a regular performer in clubs and on late-night TV for several decades.  Lewis rose to prominence in the 1980s and ’90s with appearances on The Tonight Show and the Late Show With David Letterman, which Lewis appeared 48 times.

Mr. Lewis on “The Tonight Show” in 1977. After finding success as a comedian in New York nightclubs, he became a regular on late-night talk shows. (Credit: Tom Ron/ NBC Universal, via Getty Images)

He played Marty Gold, the romantic co-lead opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, in the ABC series Anything But Love.  He played neurotic Prince John in Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men In Tights. For a new generation to discover this comedian, he played opposite Larry David in HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Mr. Lewis co-starred with Jamie Lee Curtis on the sitcom “Anything but Love,” from 1989 to 1992. (Photo Credit: ABC via Everette Collection)
Mr. Lewis with Larry David in a 2005 episode of Mr. David’s HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” He played a semi-fictionalized version of himself (Photo Credit: John P. Johnson/HBO)

He was among the best-known stand-up comedians of the late 1980s. He played a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall in 1989, receiving two standing ovations for two and a half hours of material.

Richard Philip Lewis was born on June 2, 1947, in Brooklyn, in the same hospital as his friend and future co-star, Mr. David, and just three days before him. His family soon moved to Englewood, N.J. His father, Bill Lewis, owned a kosher catering business, and his mother, Blanche (Goldberg) Lewis, acted in community theater, specializing in the Jewish mother characters in Neil Simon plays.

Mr. Lewis was open about his struggles with alcohol, drugs and depression. He became sober in the mid-1990s and wrote about his experience in his 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.”

He revised the book, with a new foreword, and republished it in 2008. He also wrote Reflections From Hell: Richard Lewis’ Guide on How Not to Live (2015).