Laughs, love and basketball - three things for which Richard Lewis never lost his enthusiasm

For New York Knicks’ fans of a certain vintage, there is perhaps no greater moment than Willis Reed hobbling on to the court for Game 7 against the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1970 NBA finals. With a pronounced limp from a muscle tear in his right thigh rendering the captain almost ineffective, the shock of his appearance in the starting line-up still electrified the Madison Square Garden crowd and inspired the team to a famous victory. On the dating circuit, Richard Lewis, a diehard supporter, used to recite word for word Marv Albert’s famous commentary from that evening in an effort to woo women. A bizarre approach that somehow occasionally worked.

“My impression is so dead-on that an ex of mine from Amsterdam who quite frankly thought that a ‘Knick’ was some sort of a ‘dent in a windmill’ was nonetheless so moved by my ‘Reed routine’ she couldn’t wait to engage in passionate lovemaking,” wrote Lewis, “although seconds afterward she readily admitted not knowing why and chalked it up to being ‘possessed’.”

In an equal parts funny and poignant 1991 essay for the New York Times about the extent of his sporting devotion, Lewis admitted then that he lived for just two things, the prospect of the Knicks winning another championship and him finding a woman “who won’t inevitably find the right moment to pour lamb’s blood over my head in front of close friends”. As was pointed out after his death from a heart attack at 76 last week, he eventually found love with Joyce Lapinsky, whom he first met at his buddy Ringo Starr’s album release party. But, having battled Parkinson’s in recent years, he departed the stage without seeing one more title banner raised at his beloved Garden.

In the summer of 1947, Lewis was born three days before Larry David at the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital. Thirteen years later, the pair crossed paths and swords for the first time on the basketball court of a summer camp at the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson. Shorter in stature, Lewis resented David’s lanky, imposing frame, and consoled himself that he was a much better shooter than the rival he immediately despised. More than a decade down the line, when cutting their teeth as neophyte stand-ups in the comedy clubs of the Village, the pair met again, became best friends, and could never agree on who was the superior baller.

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“I was a better player,” said David. “I had more moves. I was harder to guard. Oh, and I could go left and right. And put up a jump shot. And I was a much better rebounder.”

The entertainingly fractious edge to their relationship featured prominently, in exaggerated form, throughout Curb Your Enthusiasm, the final entry on Lewis’s eclectic acting resume. More renowned for an especially neurotic brand of stand-up that sold out venues as big as Carnegie Hall before he hung up the mic in 2018, he had a memorable cameo in Leaving Las Vegas, a recurring role as a rabbi in Seventh Heaven, and a star turn opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in a long-running ABC sitcom called Anything but Love. Then there was his unique take on Prince John, a mole mysteriously touring his face, in Mel Brooks’s Robin Hood – Men in Tights.

Once described by Brooks as “the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy”, he attained fame of sufficient wattage to gain a courtside seat on Celebrity Row at the Garden, a coveted spot in between Spike Lee and Peter Falk, and to inspire the opening verse of Billy Joel’s My Life. He fronted a television campaign promoting the NBA that made fun of his ongoing search for love, and when he was invited to meet Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, the then president only wanted to talk to him about his performance as co-commentator on the previous night’s televised game between the Knicks and the Washington Bullets.

Basketball coursed through every stage of his life. One of his earliest memories was his father bringing his mother to a Knicks’ game. In The Other Great Depression, a searingly honest memoir about his struggles with mental health and addiction, he recalled that the first time he took opium as a student at Ohio State University in the 1960s, it made him crave the chance to shoot hoops. For the longest time, he was a regular at the star-studded, storied weekly pickup game hosted by the late Garry Shandling at his home in Brentwood. And, after his death, one of many Lewis clips to go viral was an interview with Conan O’Brien in which he riffed, ahem, at length about the time he was startled by Shaquille O’Neal’s impressive genitalia in the Lakers’ locker room.

Twenty-five years ago, his alma mater listed him in its media guide as one of the institution’s most distinguished alumni. A massive compliment undone by the fact they gave his occupation as, “actor, writer, comedian, drunk”. Quite the hurtful sideswipe because, after years of alcohol and drug abuse, Lewis, with an assist from Ringo, got clean and stayed clean for the last three decades of his life. Moreover, he helped others walk the same path and, in typically hilarious fashion, the very latest episode of Curb featured him using the confessional platform afforded by an AA meeting to workshop new material for a potential comedy special. Still mining the dark side for laughs. His life’s work. His epitaph.