‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Star Richard Lewis Had Parkinson’s and Faced Multiple Surgeries but Said ‘Everything Is Cool’
Comedian and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Richard Lewis died on Feb. 28, 2024, due to a heart attack. A little less than a year earlier, he opened up about why he was notably missing for the past three years. The 76-year-old comedian said he had numerous surgeries to repair back, shoulder, and hip injuries. But he also noticed he “started walking a little stiffly,” which is when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Lewis shared an update in an April 2023 Twitter video, addressing his absence, revealing that shortly before the string of surgeries and Parkinson’s diagnosis, he had decided to leave standup and concentrate on acting instead.
Richard Lewis had 4 surgeries after he decided to stop touring
Lewis opened up in a Twitter video. “Hey listen, I just wrapped a couple of weeks ago season 12 of Curb Your Enthusiasm and it was just an amazing season and I’m so grateful to be a part of that show,” he said. But you know the last three and a half years, I’ve had sort of a rocky time and people said, ‘I haven’t heard from you, are you still touring?'”
“Here’s really what happened,” he shared. “Three and half years ago I was in the middle of a tour and I finally ended it with a show. I said, ‘You know I’m at the top of my game, after 50 years almost I’m going to call it quits,’ and I felt great about that. And then out of the blue, the s*** hit the fan.”
Lewis offered a rundown of the slew of surgeries. “I had four surgeries back to back to back to back, it was incredible, I couldn’t believe it, it was bad luck, but that’s life.”
“I had a back surgery, then I had a shoulder surgery. Then I had a shoulder replacement surgery,” he said. “And then I had … what was that other thing … oh, I had a hip replacement.”
Richard Lewis was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease
He spent months focusing on physical therapy. “Like I am now,” he added. Unfortunately, Lewis’s health issues didn’t end with the surgeries. “On top of all of that, two years ago I started walking a little stiffly. I was shuffling my feet,” he recalled.
“I went to a neurologist and they gave me a brain scan and I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and that was about two years ago,” Lewis said. “But luckily I got it late in life and they say you progress very slowly if at all and I’m on the right meds so I’m cool.”
Lewis concluded that he was fine. “I’m just focusing on writing and acting,” he said. “I have Parkinson’s disease but I’m under a doctor’s care and everything is cool. I love my wife, I love my little puppy dog and I love all my friends and my fans. And now you know where it’s been at the last three and a half years. God bless you.”
He addressed his absence from ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ in the past
Lewis said that excruciating back pain limited his Curb Your Enthusiasm appearances in the past. “Great news for me!” he tweeted in 2021. “Although I’m still recovering from three surgeries and missing Season 11 of Curb, [Larry David] called me and asked if there was any chance if I felt strong enough to do one episode! I am and here I’m on the set to shoot it. I’m so grateful.”
But Lewis almost didn’t make it through Curb Season 10. “He’d be in a trailer, laying down in pain,” wife Joyce Lapinsky told The Chicago Tribune. “Then they’d just perk him up and bring him in for the shoot.”
“When they finally needed me, I wasn’t really that great standing up,” Lewis said. “So I had two days’ work with six scenes, and, fortunately, all the scenes were in restaurants. I don’t know what I would have done if it were anything else.”
He finally agreed to have back surgery, especially because the pain was overwhelming. “I’m not exaggerating, I was screaming and crawling on my knees to get to the bathroom by my bed,” he shared. “I wasn’t (yet) thinking of an operation. I was thinking: If I can get through this, I can get through anything. … And my wife could only just stand there and watch.”
Lewis returned to Curb Your Enthusiasm for season 12, the final season of the Larry David comedy.
