Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Richard Lewis (comedian)" in English language version.
Richard Lewis, June 29, 1947
His childhood was lonely, with his mother, Blanche, in 'her own world' and his father, Bill, off 'turning a gymnasium into a winter wonderland for a wedding,' Lewis was often left to amuse himself. After earning a marketing degree from Ohio State, he returned to New Jersey, spent five years working two, sometimes three jobs as an advertising copywriter, a librarian and a sportings good clerk. Not until 1971, after his father died, did Lewis decide to tackle his dream – he showed up for open-mike night at a Greenwich Village club. He soon found himself driving 50 to 100 miles a night to work suburban comedy clubs. It was comic David Brenner, now a close friend, who really gave him his big break.
Welcome to the world of Richard Lewis, one of the most blackly funny comedians working today ... But the light is shining on his dark humor, thanks to his old friend David Letterman. Since Late Night with David Letterman went on the air almost three years ago, he had made more appearances on the show than any other guest. 'It turned my whole career around,' says Lewis, 37, and Englewood, N.J., native. 'I'd been writing and performing since 1972 ... But until Letterman gave me a forum every month, I never had an audience.' ... He began as an advertising copywriter, writing jokes on the side, then began doing standup routines in Greenwich Village, where he was discovered by comedian David Brenner. He helped him make the move to comedy clubs in Los Angeles like the Improvisation and, eventually, to his first appearance on the Tonight show.
For the new breed of comics, of whom [Robert] Klein, Lily Tomlin, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Richard Lewis and Larry Ragland, and Ed Bluestone are examples, the success or failure of a comic is largely determined by his ability to write material.
Laurie Stone, writing about comedian Richard Lewis in The Village Voice in 1989, called his act 'secular davening, where self-disclosure substitutes for prayer.' At the time, Lewis was 42 and almost breathtaking (or painstaking) to watch, with his self-doubt and self-loathing and the relatives and the women and the therapists who had made him this way. His gestures were trademark—the hand pressed to the forehead, for instance—as trademark as the loose-fitting black clothes and the Converse sneakers... For those who have never seen him on stage or on one of his many appearances on "Late Night With David Letterman," Lewis is best- known for Anything but Love, the sitcom co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis that ran on ABC from 1989 to 1992 (Lewis, by the way, says that his drinking never spilled over into his work). There was the 1996 independent film Drunks, for which he received good notices, and stabs at sitcoms that failed (1990's Daddy Dearest, with Don Rickles, and 1997's Hiller and Diller, with Kevin Nealon). But stand-up, which he began in 1971, was where he made his mark. The steady build of Lewis' alcoholism caused him to quit stand-up between 1991 and 1994, he says. In '94, he checked himself into Hazelton, the famed drug and alcohol treatment center in Minnesota, but Lewis says he left after a day. His therapist termed his condition a kind of impotency—pain buried in booze, drugs and the hunt for orgasms. Sort of like Elvis, only without the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Lewis eventually found his rock bottom with a cocaine binge, he says.
Diary of a Young Comic, tonight's replacement on NBC for Saturday Night Live at 11:30, is a struggling film about a struggling young comedian. Perhaps in a clever attempt to reflect its subject, it is childish, pointless, wildly uneven and, not infrequently, devastatingly funny. The subject, played with zany dedication by stand-up comedians Richard Lewis, is Billy Gondola (born Gondolstein), who is desperately boring audiences in a New York club. Billy decides to go do Los Angeles, which has already lured away such luminaries as Neil Simon and Orange Julius.
Maybe it's the full moon. Whatever reason, Saturday nights are when NBC lets the loonies out of their straitjackets and padded cells. Nowhere else on TV can one regularly encounter the wonderfully warped brand of comedy that NBC allows for the 90 minutes beginning at 11:30pm. Almost always the showcase is Saturday Night Live, but occasionally the network sneaks a surprise such as tonight's Diary of a Young Comic. ... What Diary of a Young Comic is, in fact, is a sloppy amorphous and undisciplined story that follows a callow stand-up comedian, Billy Gondola (Richard Lewis), from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and through his trials as a struggling performer ... it tells the heartaches of Billy (who has shortened his name from Gondolstein) while lampooning the excesses of the city and industry that have him in their grasp... We get a sample of [Richard Lewis's] monologues and we also see Bill Macy as his father, Michael Lerner as his flimflam agent, Stacy Keach as a landlord and George Jessel, Dom DeLuise, Gary Muledeer and Nina Van Pallandt as themselves.
The frenzied, neurotic stand-up comedian is featured in a wild hour-long special filmed at the Improv club in Los Angeles. Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and others are interviewed in the 'witness' style borrowed from Reds. Showtime.
Comedian Richard Lewis stars in I'm Doomed, an HBO special Saturday.
The characters: Jim (Richard Lewis), a tightly coiled recovering alcoholic and drug addict; Marty (George Martin), the meeting's haggard chairman; Rachel (Diane Wiest), a sleep-deprived doctor shaking the twin monkeys of Percodan and Scotch off her back; Joseph (Howard Rollins), whose driving while intoxicated cost him his marriage and much more; Debbie (Parker Posey), a recovering party girl now 'addicted' to the NFL; and Becky (Faye Dunaway), a society dame with the same fears of backsliding, insecurities and temptations of the rest of the crew... Lewis, who resembles a debauched Al Pacino (if that's not redundant), is impressive in a dramatic turn. Likewise Wiest, Rollins and Posey, and likewise Spalding Gray, as a souse who mistakes the A.A. meeting for his weekly choir practice and stays because he prefers these stories to his regular group's songs.
In it, [Sherilyn Fenn] plays Billie Frank... Now working for a B-movie producer (Richard Lewis).
GQ magazine put him on its list of the 20th century's most influential humorists, along with Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker.
A panel of stage veterans will dish dirt, talk trash and heap praise upon their best and brightest as they count down Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time. Richard Lewis, Dom Irrera, Judy Gold, Mario Joyner, Richard Jeni and Phyllis Diller are amongh those to provide commentary during the five hour long clipfests that begin Monday and air through the week.
In a rare revelatory moment, comedian Richard Lewis takes a break from his usual hyperkinetic litany of humorous retorts to reflect on the loss of John Candy. 'I lost a best friend and that was a toughie,' says Lewis, who co-starred in Wagons East, the film Candy had almost finished shooting at the time of this death from a heart attack in 1994... The comedian, who recently turned 48, adds that his friend's untimely demise prompted him to re-evaluate his own life and career.
And I have a degree in marketing from The Ohio State University, and I read the copy, thought the ad was great.
Richard Lewis, June 29, 1947
His childhood was lonely, with his mother, Blanche, in 'her own world' and his father, Bill, off 'turning a gymnasium into a winter wonderland for a wedding,' Lewis was often left to amuse himself. After earning a marketing degree from Ohio State, he returned to New Jersey, spent five years working two, sometimes three jobs as an advertising copywriter, a librarian and a sportings good clerk. Not until 1971, after his father died, did Lewis decide to tackle his dream – he showed up for open-mike night at a Greenwich Village club. He soon found himself driving 50 to 100 miles a night to work suburban comedy clubs. It was comic David Brenner, now a close friend, who really gave him his big break.
My father was the food guy. He co-owned Ambassador Caterers in nearby Teaneck and was a big shot in the area. I rarely saw him because he was busy all the time, which was hard on me because my mother and I didn't really get along... I was the baby of the family, and I'm still convinced I was a mistake. My brother is six years older than me, and my sister is nine years older. She married in 1959 when I was 12 and my brother moved to Greenwich Village in the early '60s. With my dad always working and my brother and sister out of the house, my mother and I were the only ones home. We became a Neil Simon play without the jokes. The slightest things would upset her and we got on each other's nerves... My brother is six years older than me, and my sister is nine years older.
And I have a degree in marketing from The Ohio State University, and I read the copy, thought the ad was great.
Welcome to the world of Richard Lewis, one of the most blackly funny comedians working today ... But the light is shining on his dark humor, thanks to his old friend David Letterman. Since Late Night with David Letterman went on the air almost three years ago, he had made more appearances on the show than any other guest. 'It turned my whole career around,' says Lewis, 37, and Englewood, N.J., native. 'I'd been writing and performing since 1972 ... But until Letterman gave me a forum every month, I never had an audience.' ... He began as an advertising copywriter, writing jokes on the side, then began doing standup routines in Greenwich Village, where he was discovered by comedian David Brenner. He helped him make the move to comedy clubs in Los Angeles like the Improvisation and, eventually, to his first appearance on the Tonight show.
For the new breed of comics, of whom [Robert] Klein, Lily Tomlin, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Richard Lewis and Larry Ragland, and Ed Bluestone are examples, the success or failure of a comic is largely determined by his ability to write material.
Laurie Stone, writing about comedian Richard Lewis in The Village Voice in 1989, called his act 'secular davening, where self-disclosure substitutes for prayer.' At the time, Lewis was 42 and almost breathtaking (or painstaking) to watch, with his self-doubt and self-loathing and the relatives and the women and the therapists who had made him this way. His gestures were trademark—the hand pressed to the forehead, for instance—as trademark as the loose-fitting black clothes and the Converse sneakers... For those who have never seen him on stage or on one of his many appearances on "Late Night With David Letterman," Lewis is best- known for Anything but Love, the sitcom co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis that ran on ABC from 1989 to 1992 (Lewis, by the way, says that his drinking never spilled over into his work). There was the 1996 independent film Drunks, for which he received good notices, and stabs at sitcoms that failed (1990's Daddy Dearest, with Don Rickles, and 1997's Hiller and Diller, with Kevin Nealon). But stand-up, which he began in 1971, was where he made his mark. The steady build of Lewis' alcoholism caused him to quit stand-up between 1991 and 1994, he says. In '94, he checked himself into Hazelton, the famed drug and alcohol treatment center in Minnesota, but Lewis says he left after a day. His therapist termed his condition a kind of impotency—pain buried in booze, drugs and the hunt for orgasms. Sort of like Elvis, only without the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Lewis eventually found his rock bottom with a cocaine binge, he says.
Diary of a Young Comic, tonight's replacement on NBC for Saturday Night Live at 11:30, is a struggling film about a struggling young comedian. Perhaps in a clever attempt to reflect its subject, it is childish, pointless, wildly uneven and, not infrequently, devastatingly funny. The subject, played with zany dedication by stand-up comedians Richard Lewis, is Billy Gondola (born Gondolstein), who is desperately boring audiences in a New York club. Billy decides to go do Los Angeles, which has already lured away such luminaries as Neil Simon and Orange Julius.
Maybe it's the full moon. Whatever reason, Saturday nights are when NBC lets the loonies out of their straitjackets and padded cells. Nowhere else on TV can one regularly encounter the wonderfully warped brand of comedy that NBC allows for the 90 minutes beginning at 11:30pm. Almost always the showcase is Saturday Night Live, but occasionally the network sneaks a surprise such as tonight's Diary of a Young Comic. ... What Diary of a Young Comic is, in fact, is a sloppy amorphous and undisciplined story that follows a callow stand-up comedian, Billy Gondola (Richard Lewis), from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and through his trials as a struggling performer ... it tells the heartaches of Billy (who has shortened his name from Gondolstein) while lampooning the excesses of the city and industry that have him in their grasp... We get a sample of [Richard Lewis's] monologues and we also see Bill Macy as his father, Michael Lerner as his flimflam agent, Stacy Keach as a landlord and George Jessel, Dom DeLuise, Gary Muledeer and Nina Van Pallandt as themselves.
The frenzied, neurotic stand-up comedian is featured in a wild hour-long special filmed at the Improv club in Los Angeles. Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and others are interviewed in the 'witness' style borrowed from Reds. Showtime.
Comedian Richard Lewis stars in I'm Doomed, an HBO special Saturday.
The characters: Jim (Richard Lewis), a tightly coiled recovering alcoholic and drug addict; Marty (George Martin), the meeting's haggard chairman; Rachel (Diane Wiest), a sleep-deprived doctor shaking the twin monkeys of Percodan and Scotch off her back; Joseph (Howard Rollins), whose driving while intoxicated cost him his marriage and much more; Debbie (Parker Posey), a recovering party girl now 'addicted' to the NFL; and Becky (Faye Dunaway), a society dame with the same fears of backsliding, insecurities and temptations of the rest of the crew... Lewis, who resembles a debauched Al Pacino (if that's not redundant), is impressive in a dramatic turn. Likewise Wiest, Rollins and Posey, and likewise Spalding Gray, as a souse who mistakes the A.A. meeting for his weekly choir practice and stays because he prefers these stories to his regular group's songs.
In it, [Sherilyn Fenn] plays Billie Frank... Now working for a B-movie producer (Richard Lewis).
GQ magazine put him on its list of the 20th century's most influential humorists, along with Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker.
A panel of stage veterans will dish dirt, talk trash and heap praise upon their best and brightest as they count down Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time. Richard Lewis, Dom Irrera, Judy Gold, Mario Joyner, Richard Jeni and Phyllis Diller are amongh those to provide commentary during the five hour long clipfests that begin Monday and air through the week.
In a rare revelatory moment, comedian Richard Lewis takes a break from his usual hyperkinetic litany of humorous retorts to reflect on the loss of John Candy. 'I lost a best friend and that was a toughie,' says Lewis, who co-starred in Wagons East, the film Candy had almost finished shooting at the time of this death from a heart attack in 1994... The comedian, who recently turned 48, adds that his friend's untimely demise prompted him to re-evaluate his own life and career.
My father was the food guy. He co-owned Ambassador Caterers in nearby Teaneck and was a big shot in the area. I rarely saw him because he was busy all the time, which was hard on me because my mother and I didn't really get along... I was the baby of the family, and I'm still convinced I was a mistake. My brother is six years older than me, and my sister is nine years older. She married in 1959 when I was 12 and my brother moved to Greenwich Village in the early '60s. With my dad always working and my brother and sister out of the house, my mother and I were the only ones home. We became a Neil Simon play without the jokes. The slightest things would upset her and we got on each other's nerves... My brother is six years older than me, and my sister is nine years older.
