Renowned Comedian and Curb Your Enthusiasm Star: Richard Lewis Dies at 76

Larry David’s co-star in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ and a well-known standup comedian, Richard Lewis dies at the age of 76. Last year, in April, Lewis shared with his audience that he had Parkinson’s disease and due to this he is going to retire from standup comedy. On Tuesday night he died peacefully in his home in Los Angeles. His publicist Jeff Abraham shared that he suffered a heart attack. His self-deprecating humor has been the most popular of his punning styles.

Abraham said in his exclusive statement, “His wife, Joyce Lapinsky, thanks everyone for all the love, friendship, and support and asks for privacy at this time.” David said, “Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital and for most of my life he’s been like a brother to me,” he also mentioned, “He had that rare combination of being the funniest person and also the sweetest. But today he made me sob and for that, I’ll never forgive him.”

The romantic co-lead opposite of Lewis in the ABC series ‘Anything But Love’, Jamie Lee Curtis said, “He also is the reason I am sober. He helped me. I am forever grateful to him for that act of grace alone. He found love with Joyce and that, of course, besides his sobriety, is what mattered most to him. I’m weeping as I write this. Strange way of saying thank you to a sweet and funny man. Rest in laughter, Richard.”

He was a highly appreciated comedian and he often explored his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while he dressed in all black, all the time. He led his stage time with his equally famous nickname ‘The Prince of Pain’. He has been a regular performer in clubs and on late-night TV shows for several decades. Lewis is also seen in the role of the reliably fixated Prince John in Mel Brooks’s “Robin Hood: Men In Tights”.

The new generation knows for his screen time with Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Previously, he joked about it, once he said on stage, “I’m paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home. On my stationary bike, I have a rear-view mirror, which I’m not thrilled about.” Once Lewis said to Jimmy Kimmel, “This morning, I tried to go to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I counted sheep but I only had six of them and they all had hip replacements.”

About his works, Mel Brooks once said, “Watching his stand-up is like sitting in on a very funny and often dark therapy session,” the Los Angeles Times said in 2014. Philadelphia’s City Paper called him “the Jimi Hendrix of monologists”. “May just be the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy,” He added. After the news went online, everyone started to convey their condolences to his family and people close to him, a fellow comedian, Bill Burr wrote Lewis was a true original in comedy, on Twitter (X), he wrote, “An absolutely fearless comedian who did and said what he wanted”.