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(JTA) — Comic Richard Lewis, who parlayed his neurotic Jewish character and self-deprecating humor right into a 50-year profession as a standup and actor, died Wednesday. He was 76.
Lewis had been in in poor health well being for numerous years and final April introduced that he had been identified with Parkinson’s illness two years earlier. Though he thought-about himself retired as a standup, he appeared once more as a daily within the present season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” taking part in a model of himself within the HBO present created by and starring his childhood pal Larry David.
“Richard and I had been born three days aside in the identical hospital and for many of my life he’s been like a brother to me,” David stated in an announcement launched by HBO. “He had that uncommon mixture of being the funniest particular person and likewise the sweetest. However in the present day he made me sob and for that I’ll by no means forgive him.”
Lewis’ sensibility, in golf equipment and on display screen, might be as darkish because the funereal fits he usually wore. In a signature joke, he spoke about an uncle who was so miserable that he would sit at dwelling listening to the soundtrack of “The Pawnbroker,” the grim 1964 movie a couple of Holocaust survivor.
He is also credited with the tagline “from Hell,” as in “the ex-wife from Hell.” When the “Yale E book of Quotations” gave him credit score for the catchphrase in 2022, he tweeted, “The place is my Nobel Prize?”
Lewis additionally appeared in numerous movies, together with “Robin Hood: Males in Tights,” Mel Brooks’ 1993 parody, during which he performed a particularly Jewish-seeming Prince John.
Lewis was born in Brooklyn and raised in Englewood, New Jersey, the son of a caterer and an actress in neighborhood theater. “My father was so nicely often called a caterer and so booked up that he was truly booked on the weekend of my bar mitzvah so I needed to have my social gathering on the Tuesday,” he as soon as advised an interviewer.
After incomes a level in advertising at Ohio State College, he started writing and recurrently performing stand-up comedy in 1972. The Jewish comedians Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce had been apparent function fashions, though Lewis proved influential in his personal proper: Comedy Central ranked him #45 on its checklist of “100 Best Standups of All Time” in 2004.
Within the 1989 sitcom “Something However Love,” which ran for 4 seasons, Lewis establishes his character as Jewish within the first minutes of the pilot. Lewis advised a British weekly, the Jewish Telegraph, in 2011 that he was not a synagogue-goer however that he consciously infused his Jewish identification into his comedy — and that he considered comedy as a deeply Jewish act.
“I’ve an amazing love affair for being a Jew,” he stated on the time. “I’m so proud to be a part of this individuals. I wish to be a part of anything.” He added, “Due to what the Jews have gone by means of since actually Day One, one of many survival mechanisms was to speak about all of the hell that we’ve been by means of. It’s a lot funnier being a Jew than anything. If we don’t discover humor then we’re in serious trouble.”
Lewis struggled with habit points for years, proudly explaining in 2016 that he was “22 years sober” and that he mentored these within the restoration neighborhood.
That very same 12 months, Lewis acknowledged that his well being had taken a toll on his performing, however that he would proceed to put in writing, act and do the occasional stand-up gig.
“I’ve discovered to simply accept the truth that I’m not like I was,” he stated. “I attempt to keep wholesome and sober and to provide again. I’ve acquired plenty of assist. I’ve lived by means of plenty of tsuris. The artwork of getting old is being grateful for being alive and having some laughs and serving to different individuals.”
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