My friend Douglas Abramson wrote to me about the lack of an obit for Richard Lewis on this site…
This isn't one of those emails screeching because you haven't posted an obit. You have repeatedly posted your criteria for doing an obit in words small enough for even me to understand, after the second or third time. I am curious as to when you remember seeing him beginning to show up in the L.A. comedy clubs.
From reading his obituaries, I think he started in the N.Y.C. scene in the early 70s and was established enough that Billy Joel says that the nameless friend in the first verse of "You May Be Right," who: "Now gives them a stand-up routine in L.A." was Lewis and that song was released in the Fall of 1978. I don't think I came across him on cable until the mid-80s. For a contemporary and equal of Leno, Letterman, Crystal and Prinze, he seems to have taken a long time to catch on with the suits and the public.
Yeah. I barely knew Richard Lewis…certainly not well enough to call him a friend or have any first-hand insights into the man. Well, I have one but I think anyone could perceive this if they saw him perform: He was utterly honest. The guy he was onstage willing to blab on and on about his most private neuroses was the guy he was offstage. I think sometimes his willingness to bare all — to even force you to listen to aspects of his life that seemed too private to share with strangers — made some people uncomfy. That might have inhibited his marketability a bit.
He and I once picketed together for a while in one of the many Writers Guild strikes of my life. We were outside the Century Plaza Hotel, marching with signs because some sort of network affiliate conference was going on inside. It was hundred and umpteen degrees with no shade and everyone else was in t-shirts and shorts and light colors. Richard was dressed, as he usually was, head to toe in black and he was sweating like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News. He was actually very funny, kvetching about how hot it was and how foolish it was a dress as he did. He said "Remind me when I get to hell to abandon this look" and everyone around us laughed.
But we talked a while as we carried our signs and that's when I came to the above conclusion: Same guy offstage as he was on. What a shame to lose both of those men.