In memoriam: Reasons to love Richard Lewis, and why he loved Chicago

CHICAGO — You have, no doubt, been made aware of the death of Richard Lewis.

The 76-year-old Brooklyn-born comic/actor/writer died Feb. 27 of a heart attack in his Los Angeles home. Almost immediately, remembrances from friends and fans created an internet avalanche and formal obituaries charted the course and provided the details of his distinctively prolific career.

Many knew Lewis primarily from his work on the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which made him a hit with a new generation and is the creation of his lifelong friend Larry David. Lifelong? Well, they were born at the same hospital, days apart, and a few years later became buddies when attending the same summer camp.

I am a fan of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” as I was the sadly short-lived “Anything But Love,” an ABC sitcom of the late 1980s and early '90s in which Lewis co-starred with Jamie Lee Curtis — and Chicago stage actress Holly Fulger — as a pair of writers for a fictional Chicago magazine.

But I was also thrown back in memory to a March night in 1984 at Zanies, the Old Town comedy club, where he made his first Chicago appearance. Also in the audience was my former Tribune colleague and friend Howard Reich, who told me on Thursday, “I last communicated with Richard just a couple of days ago, so his death is as much a shock to me as to the millions who similarly revered him.”

And there were millions too, fans of his stand-up career, a couple of books, innumerable appearances on late night talk shows, HBO specials, and his work in such movies as “Leaving Las Vegas.”

As Reich remembers, “The first time I reviewed him was that March 1984 night at Zanies. I was overwhelmed by his verbal brilliance and by his sheer profusion of comic scenarios. I’d never witnessed such an avalanche of humor so virtuosically delivered.”

Reich has not forgotten that night and many others. There are few writers who kept in closer touch with Lewis than did Reich. Over the decades, in reviews and lengthy interviews, he was able to insightfully capture the comic.

As he once wrote, Lewis was “the most dexterous emerging wordsmith in American comedy. More confessional than Woody Allen, more world-weary than Rodney Dangerfield, more maniacal than Lenny Bruce, Lewis dared to tell his audience secrets that most folks wouldn’t share with their shrinks.”

In my own interviews with Lewis, he long ago told me, “Chicago has been historically the nicest, most receptive city in the country for me. Basically, it’s the nightmares of Steve (Dahl) and Garry (Meier). … Really, I love those guys, love their show. I love every facet of the town.”

Though he would perform at such spacious local venues as the Vic and Park West — and he played a sold-out Carnegie Hall in New York in 1989 — he remained loyal to our city and especially to intimate, 100-seat Zanies.

When the club’s owner, Rick Uchwat, died in 2011, Lewis told me, “I’m heartbroken. My near 30-year run with Rick turned Chicago into my comedy town, and the shows there and the response is something that in many ways helped me achieve what I have. I can’t imagine being a comedian without Rick. I loved him like a brother.”

There remains on the wall of the Wells Street Zanies an 8 inch by 10 inch photo of the young Lewis, one of the hundreds who have played the club’s tiny stage. There is also a wonderfully evocative painting of him with the words “Jokes from HELL!”

“The last time I reviewed Richard — at what turned out to be his final stand-up engagement, again at Zanies, in January 2018 — he proved every bit as quick and incisive as ever, if not more so,” says Reich. “But now he was a man who had been dealt many harsh blows in life yet still found humor and joy in being alive.”

Those blows came in the form of difficult childhood familial bonds; hard tussles with drugs and alcohol, which he won by the mid-1990s; romantic troubles that ended with his happy marriage to Joyce Lapinsky in 2005. He was often beset by anxiety and depression and was ever dealing with various health problems, which included back surgery and a recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. But he did take joy in being alive.

One of those who knew Lewis best is Bert Haas, who recently retired after more than four decades as a manager and executive with Zanies. He told me, “Richard drove me crazy for almost three decades and I loved every minute of it. He was one of the kindest men I met. The first time I met him was after I returned from my grandmother’s funeral and without a word he just gave me a big hug. “Once, playing the Zanies in Nashville, he had complained about his room and the hotel upgraded him to the best suite where Al Gore had stayed as vice president. Richard was so excited, he was like a kid. He insisted on taking Rick (Uchwat) and me on a tour of the suite and he almost missed his flight home.

“He continued the stream-of-consciousness comedy pioneered by Lenny Bruce. Richard would take notes on stage with him because he was so prolific that it was impossible for him to remember all the material. One of the greatest comedy performances I ever witnessed was at Zanies in Vernon Hills when Richard did an hour-plus set and in the final five minutes pulled together three distinct themes he had been riffing on to reach a magnificent climax. It was absolutely awesome and transcended stand-up comedy.”

So, Richard Lewis is dead and memories flow and Reich says, “I believe Richard lifted the lives of anyone who saw him perform. … I hope he realized that.”