Las Vegas Weekly

May 31, 2009 · 7 AM

Exclusive: Richard Lewis talks about his hatred of magicians and himself

By Robin Leach

Comedian Richard Lewis is set to perform at The Venetian in June.

Photo: Lance Staedler

Richard Lewis, always dressed in his signature black, is hailed as a comic’s comic who was named by Comedy Central as one of the Top 50 stand-up comedians of all time. He made a career turning misery into comedy as one of the 20th century’s most influential humorists with his infamous phrase “the date from hell.”

Richard is now in his seventh season of the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning series Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO. He and I often used to sit side by side at Madison Square Garden in New York for the Knicks games. Now he’s heading to Las Vegas for a run of comedy shows at The Venetian starting Thursday with his HBO co-star Susie Essman.

When we chatted, it was two longtime friends playing catch-up in a casual and comfortable conversation, except that he tricked me when he called late and apologized that he’d been delayed because of blood work!

Robin Leach: I hope the blood work is not serious …

Richard Lewis: No, it’s not. I was flipping through cable, and it was surgery channel, and I thought who wants to watch … and the guy was saying and now we are going to split open his chest … give me more popcorn, honey … I am so squeamish. How are you? I haven’t seen you since the Knicks games. We all hope there is a reason to go back to the Garden. It’s been a pretty barren decade. It has been unfortunate. They have the most expensive payroll roster, and half of them are wearing suits. Half of them are getting paid to show up, and the other half is in a strip joint.

RL: You are coming to Vegas for a run at The Venetian with Susie.

Photo: Karin Martinez

Richard Lewis will be joined by Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Susie Essman during his performance at The Venetian in June.

Richard: We have been touring awhile from Curb Your Enthusiasm. I have been doing this for almost 40 years. I have done practically everything I ever wanted to do. Even my surrogate parents, it is really a beautiful thing to me, Jonathan Winters and Phyllis Diller. I met Phyllis with my wife at some party, and she’s taken me under her wing, and about a decade ago, she was a huge fan of mine, and Winters, as well. He is 83, still on fire. I see him a lot. My father never saw me perform, my mother and I never really got along … but to have these two crazy hipsters not only fans of mine, but to become really close friends is like trippy …

RL: I hope they come out to watch you on opening night …

Richard: That is unlikely. They will want to see a tape. It would be great if they could schlep out for it. This is the first time I’ve played this room at The Venetian, but I was in Vegas in the last 18 months.

RL: It’s a beautiful theater… it is Wayne Brady’s theater.

Richard: They named it after Wayne? Wow. I would rather play in theaters named by comedians than magicians, for some reason … I played a theater once in Vegas, I forget what it was, but I went backstage and just before I went on, I saw half a horse and all the props, bloody skulls. I was nauseous … and magicians have this need to say, “hey, have a great show,” then they pull a pelican out of their rear end and I have an anxiety attack. Just say break a leg, I don’t need to see you pull wildlife out of your rear. Moron. I don’t get along with magicians. I keep to myself. I am grateful for Curb Your Enthusiasm. It really resurrected in many aspects my career.

RL: How long on Curb now?

Photo: The Venetian

Curb Your Enthusiasm veteran Susie Essman will join co-star Richard Lewis for a performance at The Venetian Showroom in June.

Richard: The wrap party the other night was for the seventh season. … I don’t know when it premieres, but the whole Seinfeld cast is on it. I don’t even know what the story arc is -- no one sort of knows. It was ad libbed. … You don’t know what you are doing until the day you get there, which is cool with me, but I have no clue how they are using Jerry and the rest of the cast, but it is going to be … it was great watching Jerry and Larry, and watching these guys really held together changed my entire life in the landscape of situation comedy and I hang out and laugh when I go to the set, and I am so proud of all the things Larry has done.

He just got a divorce and he seems really happy right now, but these guys laugh when they are not shooting. That was more fun than being a part of the cast and crew that day, it really was … they are really gigantic in the world of comedy, particularly Larry for creating the Seinfeld show … and coming back and doing something so effective again … I talk about him a lot because I love the guy. He was an amazing stand-up, but I went the traditional route. I wanted Carnegie Hall, I wanted the HBO specials … I had done all that. I wanted the sitcoms. The thing is that Larry couldn’t handle the audience, when people would whisper … luckily timing was right and Jerry was hot, and he chose Larry to work with him and the rest is history.

RL: Richard, are you back for an eighth season of Curb?

Richard: I remember he was shooting Woody’s film, and I was doing a concert in New York, I went to breakfast with him. I didn’t even ask him if we were coming back this year, I just … he really doesn’t know. He is waiting to see how it is received. I think HBO will let him have a show as long as he wants.… He really jots down bullets, and if he feels he has 10 outlines for a season, he will go for it. Who knows … first things first, this one will go, and I don’t know. … I have heard September, I don’t know.

RL: Are you looking forward to returning to Vegas? Do you love Vegas?

Richard: Oh God, yes. When I played Vegas and Atlantic City in my late 20s and early 30s, it was first of all at the time I was an opening act, and I am only closing the show with Susie because out of respect to me, she said, “Listen, Richard, you have been doing comedy since before I was a comedian.” She said you should really … and I said fine. She is not an easy act to follow. It is not like following a poet. She is Susie and close to Susie from her character.

Photo: John P. Johnson/HBO

Larry David and Richard Lewis in HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.

It is almost like a boxer in the dressing room before they come out. I am halfway through material, and what I do every night is different. The thing is I have to come out of the box. This isn’t an evening with Richard Lewis or an evening with her, so we have to split 45 minutes. So I am doing half the time I usually do, plus following her act. It is certainly an R-rated show, so I have to come out of the box swinging … and I do.

RL: You always have a signature black outfit on, which I believe represents some dark side of you where misery and pain get conquered through humor or you make people laugh about absurdities.

Richard: Not only absurdities, but real stuff.

RL: Is it necessary or important for a comedian to have suffered pain to make people laugh?

Richard: The greatest comics for my taste are the most twisted and have the darkest lives. Well, if they have … and I will exclude myself from this group, but Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce. If you go down the list … they are just tormented, troubled, twisted. I like comedians that are the same onstage as they are off, to be frank. Rodney (Dangerfield) … dark twisted guy, he was the same guy at all times.

RL: Did he think he was funny?

Richard: I never asked him that. He knew he was because he was so huge. As far as the black stuff, I might have unconsciously been hiding behind my fear of failing when I started out as a comedian, but I like black clothing and then I somehow acquired this hook that I was a victim from hell. I don’t do that anymore. It has been documented on Larry’s show because I did feel that’s what I mined things that really tortured me from bad relationships, to health issues and psychological stuff. That is what I do best. I still talk about those issues, but I do it … I am not talking about it when I am 20 to 30. I am 61, so when I look at a couple in their 50s and then there is a young couple in their 20s, I look at the young couple and I am giving them a primer on what not to do.

Photo: Claudette Barius/HBO

HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.

RL: Are you still twisted and tormented or are you rejuvenated, and do you think you are funny? I think you are hysterical.

Richard: I appreciate that … I am funny! I am told that on a daily basis! I always will be twisted -- I have written about it years ago. I am a recovering addict, sex addict, and chocolate addict for almost 15 years. I am an hour away from resorting to all those demons again. That is what I talk about onstage. They will be with me until it is all over. It is a good thing to discuss it onstage as long as people are entertained. I feel I have a mission to do. I am a dark, somber guy who at any moment … that is why I love Buster Keaton so much.

Here is a guy that could be in the middle of a cyclone, and it looked like nothing was happening, stone faced they called him. I have moments during the day and it only comes when I get grateful about my life and when I get into those headspaces I am fine, but believe me before I go onstage, I owe it to the audience to feel really miserable about myself. I promise that at The Venetian, at least a day before, I will hate myself.

RL: Laughter is said to be the best medicine. If you could laugh at yourself, you would cure yourself. You should stand in the mirror and laugh at yourself, and you would cure the demons.

Richard: I get the premise. I am flattered, and I didn’t know that you were Carnac’s son … and I do do that. I thought I was going to take that to my grave, but leave it to you!

Richard and Susie will perform separately for a total of 75 minutes. They promise sarcasm and fast-paced stand-up starting Thursday at the Wayne Brady Theater in The Venetian. VIP packages are available for seating in the first two rows and an opportunity to meet both comedians after the show.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

— From Vegas Deluxe

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