R.I.P. Richard Lewis, star of Curb Your Enthusiasm

Richard Lewis, the surly staple of the American stand-up comedian scene and an actor known for his 20-year-long role as Larry David’s best friend on Curb Your Enthusiasm, died of a heart attack last night at his home in Los Angeles, his publicist Jeff Abraham confirmed to Deadline. He was 76 years old.

Lewis’ declining health had long been a concern. In April 2023, Lewis shared his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, a condition he had been living with for years before he shared the news. He also shared that he was retiring from performing standup at the same time.

Rising to prominence in the 1970s, Lewis, dressed in his trademark black suits, became a regular on late-night talk shows and at brickwall comedy clubs. He did practically everything a comedian aspires to do: He became a television regular, appeared in hit movies, and left behind a legacy as one of America’s most revered stand-up comics, all without losing the cloud of darkness that hangs over his humor.

Lewis was, above all else, one of the most self-deprecating and neurotic stand-ups in mainstream comedy. Often seen gesticulating wildly on stage as he delivered a motor-mouthed recollection of a failed sexual experience, Lewis was a comic’s comic who appealed to mass audiences and turned his shortcomings into comedy with theretofore unspeakable frankness. Hunched over, running his fingers through his voluminous black mane and neurotically scratching and rubbing his forehead, Lewis offered angst-ridden musings on modern life and self-absorbed reflections on his failings. His ability to connect with an audience, playing the role of an overexplaining chum, remained one of his signatures across his astonishing 50-year career, like listening to a self-loathing sibling describe every minor difficulty that stood between him and the task at hand.

That darkness was no act. Lewis was never shy about his struggles with substance dependency. It was the subject of his 2000 memoir The Other Great Depression, which detailed his alcoholism and addiction to cocaine. In 1994, he overdosed on cocaine and ended up in the hospital. After that, he committed himself to sobriety.

As recently as two years ago, Lewis was expressing his gratitude for his decision to give up drugs and alcohol. “August 3, 1994, I thought that I was near death from alcoholism,” he tweeted in 2021. ”Early the next day, I was rushed to the ER and turned my life around a day, sometimes a minute at a time. If you’re struggling, you can get help. I did.”

Lewis was born on June 29, 1947, at the same Brooklyn hospital three days before long-time friend and co-star Larry David. Raised in Englewood, New Jersey, by his father, the co-owner of a catering business, and his mother, a community theater actor, he was the youngest of three children.