As I look back fondly, talking to Richard Lewis was like riding a crazy, wild, and hilarious comedy rollercoaster. You’d hang on for dear life and let out shrieks—of laughter—at his fantastical ad-libs.
This only encouraged Lewis, who’d spin ever crazier stream-of-consciousness riffs on his fears and neuroses and supposedly traumatic memories of growing up in Englewood.
He would joke that because he visited his school nurse so often, a plaque was installed in the Dwight Morrow High School Nurse’s Office.
He worked as a paper-carrier for The RecordHis hometown newspaper, just for one terrible day?
“I only delivered the papers to therapists’ houses,” Lewis claimed the first time I spoke with him, when he was starring in the ABC sitcom Anything But LoveIn 1989. “You can’t throw the papers up against the door, because they might be having sessions, so I would tiptoe…
“I got so nervous, because I was so frightened of dogs. In one house, it wasn’t a dog; I think it was one of these huge box turtles. It was horrible. I blame The Record for most of my fear of animals, because of that one day on the route.”
Lewis, who died Tuesday due to a heart…
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