C2 eZ re THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAy, MARCH 5 , 2020
jazz musician, improvising and
riffing. He shows this deep, deep
vulnerability. He’s such an open
soul. He’s taught me to be fear-
less.” (Unlike her cesspool-mouth
“Curb” persona, Essman swears
only once during the conversa-
tion: “It’s called acting.”)
Lewis tends to riff in his perfor-
mances, like his hero, Lenny
Bruce, so no two performances
are the same, making a comedy
special, where the identical rou-
tine is filmed on several nights,
nigh onto impossible. Lewis is
credited with coining the phrase
“date from hell,” l aunching count-
less iterations of “whatever from
hell.” He likes to say about his
comedy, “I go on a long tour and
make people happy that they’re
not me, and then they go home.”
In his comedy, Lewis is invari-
ably his own punching bag:
“I quit therapy because my
analyst was trying to help me
behind my back.”
“Life and mental illness aside,
the only reason to stay miserable
is life or mental illness.”
Lewis stores “about 20,000
pages” of jokes on his computer.
Early in his career, he scribbled
bits on legal pads, subjects such
as “birthdays,” “sex,” “intimacy”
and, naturally, “my mother.” In
1989 at Carnegie Hall, he ap-
peared with six feet of y ellow
sheets taped together, 2^1 / 2 hours,
two standing ovations. The night
was “the highlight of my career.”
But afterward, he got plastered
in the dressing room “and made a
complete jackass of myself.” Lew-
is had to ask his sister if the
ovations actually occurred. “A nd
still it took me five years to get
sober.”
Episodes from his life seep into
“Curb.” fighting over the check
(Episode 3 this season) is a con-
stant in the Lewis-David friend-
ship. “I always get there early and
give the restaurant my credit
card,” Lewis says. “We placed our
order. Been there just five or six
minutes, and Larry realizes he
has a poker game at Steve mar-
tin’s and leaves. And I’m eating
alone, stuck with a $400 check.”
David says: “The key ingredi-
ent to his humor is his honesty.
richard has a bad relationship
with himself — most comedians
do — but he can express it.”
Comedians “have a unique fil-
tration system,” S moove says. “We
can take the amazing pain of
being ourselves and reprocess it
through our bodies and give it to
you in a manageable form. It
takes a lot for a comedian to give
that to you. We have a high
tolerance for love. And a high
tolerance for pain.”
Lewis’s gift, Smoove says, is “to
turn it up as much as possible. His
act is as the Prince of Pain, but it’s
his management of that pain. He
has to have control of his happi-
ness, too.” Smoove contends,
“Somewhere in there is a puddle
of glee.”
Lewis claims to be most con-
tent sitting around his home
watching European classics, Truf-
faut and fellini. “If I had the
courage, I would write a very
weak Ingmar Bergman film. I
love his darkness,” he says. or a
dramatic play, citing Eugene
o’Neill. “What started with dark-
ness, I’ve spun it into comedy. If I
wrote the darkness, I’d come full
circle.”
“Curb,” he concedes, spoiled
him. Life, as David might note, is
pretty, pretty good. Lewis is not
sure what he’ll do next or if he’ll
return to doing standup.
But: It could be the pain talk-
ing.
[email protected]master of the shrug. Since the
1980s, the only changes to his
look are due to time and gravity.
Lewis is the original hair comedi-
an, a waterfall of farrah waves,
and baggy black clothes to match
the mood. “I bet his underwear is
black,” says J.B. Smoove, who
plays David’s housemate, Leon
Black. ( Lewis: It is.)
The long-glabrous David, Lew-
is claims, intentionally included a
close-up of his nascent bald spot
on a recent episode. “He was
ecstatic,” says Lewis, who dubbed
him “Larry the hog,” as he’s the
center of every shot, unwilling to
allow Lewis to share a meaty
scene with Smoove and Essman.
“There is nothing predictable
about richie,” says Essman, who
toured with him. “His brain
works differently. He seems like aters are comically Dickensian.
Nevins also seems overly fixated
on whether a writer originated or
merely popularized a particular
literary trope.
Still, in the latter two-thirds of
his book, Nevins casts an ex-
tremely wide net, providing brief
critical introductions to modern
authors as various as Thomas m.
Disch, Jonathan Carroll, robert
Westall, fred Chappell, Ben okri,
Joyce Carol oates and John Bel-
lairs. Even more groundbreaking
chapters point us to important
horror writers outside the Anglo-
American tradition. Not least,
Nevins champions inclusivity. He
discusses Vincent Virga’s “Gay-
wyck” (1980), the first openly gay
modern Gothic, and catalogues
the Afro-Gothic elements in Ann
Petry’s classic “The Street” ( 1946).
Still, in too many cases, readers
wanting to know the titles of an
author’s key works will be left
frustratingly in the dark.
[email protected]Michael dirda reviews books each
thursday in style.While I’ve barely done more
than ooh and aah over “The Visu-
al History of Science fiction fan-
dom,” I want to add that some of
its scarcest material was acquired
from robert A. madle, a rock-
ville, md., book and magazine
dealer who will be 100 this June.
madle is our last living connec-
tion to the 1939 Worldcon and
fandom’s first tumultuous
d ecade.
Jess Nevins, author of “Horror
fiction in the 20th Century,” is
not only widely read but also
seemingly tireless. He has anno-
tated Alan moore’s g raphic novels
about the League of Extraordi-
nary Gentlemen, written “The
Evolution of the Costumed
Avenger: The 4,000 Year History
of the Superhero,” and just this
month brought out, as an e-text
only, a second, much expanded
edition of his Encyclopedia of
fantastic Victoriana, a survey of
what one might call 19th-century
pulp fiction.
In the first third of “Horror
fiction in the 20th Century,” Nev-
ins focuses on the old masters:
Arthur machen, Algernon Black-
wood, oliver onions, H.P. Love-
craft and many others. Unfath-
omably, however, he summarizes
their work without mentioning
any specific titles. one may also
question some judgments: m.r.
James’s ghost stories aren’t really
cozy or humorless; they can be
quite grisly — a necromancer
tears out the hearts of small chil-
dren — and many of the charac-ing Isaac Asimov, frederik Pohl
and ray Bradbury. So vast is the
ritters’ reach that some of Pohl’s
youthful poetry is reprinted here,
along with letters from the blis-
tering satirist Cyril Kornbluth. In
1953, Pohl and Kornbluth would
collaborate on their classic dysto-
pian novel, “The Space mer-
chants,” about a future governed
by transnational corporations
who use madison Avenue hype to
manipulate the population of an
environmentally devastated
world. Sounds pretty far-fetched,
right?As this documentary cornuco-
pia reminds us, modern Ameri-
can science fiction dates from the
launch of Amazing Stories in- In the August 1927 issue —
beloved for its “War of the
Worlds” cover by frank r. Paul —
there appeared a letter from a
reader about setting up a science
fiction club. The ritters repro-
duce that letter. A few pages later
you can read Hugo Gernsback’s
actual article announcing the for-
mation of the Science fiction
League. There follow pages from
the Time Traveller, the fantasy
fan and other early fanzines.
In 1933 two Cleveland teenag-
ers — Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
— used their zine to publish “The
reign of the Super-man.” five
years later, Superman, now with-
out the hyphen, was lifting up a
car on the cover of Action Comics
No. 1 (currently selling for a mil-
lion dollars in decent condition).
A long section describes the ori-
gin of Conan of Cimmeria, high-
lighting robert E. Howard’s b ack-
ground essay “The Hyborian Age”
as it appeared in the Phanta-
graph. other chapters look at the
first regional sci-fi conventions,
the cultural impact of “King
Kong,” fannish artwork, the cre-
ation of the spoof god Ghu and his
rival foo, the British science fic-
tion scene and the early careers of
the editors Donald A. Wollheim,
raymond Palmer and John W.
Campbell Jr.
many professional writers first
entered the field as fans, includ-
adores this season “because it got
back to where it started, with real
simple stuff.” Lewis is in most of
the 10 episodes.
But: “It’s killed my acting ca-
reer.”
The role doesn’t exactly show
range — unless you include hand
motions.
Lewis had a decent run on the
sitcom “A nything but Love” with
Jamie Lee Curtis (so many vests),
starred in the movie “Drunks”
and had a cameo in “Leaving Las
Vegas.” He played Don rickles’s
son on one season of “Daddy
Dearest” and a rabbi on “7th
Heaven.”
But: “I got pigeonholed as the
neurotic Jewish guy.”
L ewis’s greatest role, his Ham-
let, has been himself. He’s one of
comedy’s great gesticulators, a“We can both go d own to the dark
side. He a nd I will do anything for
the joke. It’s partly why it works
so well.”O
n set, Susie Essman says,
“everyone loves Lewis.
There’s never a harsh word.
He’s so generous.” He has friends,
fans, sobriety, enough money that
he doesn’t have to tour constant-
ly. He stopped therapy seven
years ago.
“Curb” launched in 2000, 10
seasons over two decades, pro-
duced on Larry Time, because,
when you’re the co-creator of
“Seinfeld,” you can do as you
please. The show has no script,
merely outlines, “the most ideal
thing,” Lewis says. It’s helped
attract new, younger fans and
freed him from touring. He“Some of them died,” he says.
Lewis brought then-girlfriend
Joyce Lapinsky to meet the last
shrink, the one who lasted
18 years. The therapist’s sugges-
tion: “ This is as good as it gets.”
So, the marriage proposal in- Lewis, in a T-shirt and
boxer shorts, not looking at Lap-
insky, who is reading: “I guess we
have to.”
Lapinsky: “Yeah, okay.”
It’s p ossible that Lewis is, if not
happy, a closeted content human.
He’s an uxorious husband, dewy,
Lapinsky a constant in conversa-
tion. “The long-suffering wife,” as
he describes her.
“He’s an anxious person. He’s a
worried, worried, worried per-
son. He’s in pain from the worry
and anxiety. But he’s not de-
pressed or sad,” Lapinsky says.
says of David. Also, “I was a better
shooter.”
David counters, “I was a better
player. 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.”
At age 23, they met again doing
stand-up in New York and be-
came friends. “We’re as close as
can be,” David says, though they
rarely visit each other off-set. “We
live too far apart,” D avid explains.
About 23 miles. “We’re both ex-
tremely lazy when it comes to
moving.”
The 10th season of HBo’s
“Curb” has been exceptionally
strong, even attracting Trump’s
attention. In the premiere, David
wore a “make America Great
Again” cap — as he put it, “a great
people repellent” in liberal Los
Angeles. Trump tweeted,
“ToUGH GUYS for TrUmP!”
with a video clip from the show.
Lewis, a staunch Democrat, re-
mains incredulous: “He thought
it was praise!”
When he signed on to “Curb,”
Lewis insisted on a story arc of
several episodes so he couldn’t be
cut from the cast. He plays rich-
ard Lewis, “the friend who really
annoys Larry, and I really annoy
him. Whenever I hit him with the
truth — just straight-faced telling
him the truth — he just starts
laughing.” Their on-screen
friendship, both insist, is a more
contentious version of their real
one.
“When you know someone that
well, what makes it work is you
can really say anything you want
to a person like that,” David says.
“Nothing is off-limits. We have so
much trust in our friendship.”
A fixture on Letterman (48
times) and Howard Stern, Lewis
is a recovering alcoholic (sheep-
ishly, he admits, champagne was
his favorite) and addict (cocaine,
crystal meth) who has been sober
since 1994. He has an eating
disorder (body dysmorphia). He
didn’t marry until his AArP
years, age 57.
“I was really needy,” h e confess-
es. Every utterance is a confes-
sion. “It was all about the road,
and I came first.” H is comic perso-
na is that of the worst boyfriend
you ever had back in your early
20s when you didn’t know better.
The plan was to interview him
in person at his Hollywood Hills
home. Instead, he will only chat
on the phone, because of the pain,
which is so very richard Lewis.
In conversation, he is mellow,
gracious, a pussycat. Perhaps it’s
age, success, “Curb” appeal or the
din of h is emotional pain quieted
by physical discomfort. Then he
offers, “I’m a very happy man.”
Really? Because there goes
your career.
“No, I’m not a very happy man.
I’m thrilled to be alive. I’m grate-
ful for who’s in my life. I’ve got
great friends, a great wife, a dog,
and I have a great career, but... ”
There is always a but.
“ But there’s just a part of me
that’s always going to be never
totally happy,” he says, “and I
think that has a lot to do with my
childhood.”
Note we are eight minutes into
the conversation.
His father: “He was never
home. He died before I was a
comedian.” And his mother: “She
had some emotional problems.
She didn’t get me at all. I owe my
career to my mother. I should
have given her my agent’s com-
mission.”
f ive therapists treated Lewis.
lewIs from C1
We can’t all be as
sunny as Larry David
emIly Berl for tHe WasHIngton Posttom ron/nBCU PHoto BanK/nBCUnIVersal/getty Image JoHn P. JoHnson/HBoable for e-readers.
Whatever the format, this labor
of love demonstrates how much
today’s science fiction fandom
owes to its past. for instance, did
you know that cosplay — d ressing
up like fictional characters — ex-
isted long before San Diego
C omic-Con? The ritters print a
1939 photograph of young forrest
J. Ackerman — in later life, editor
of the magazine famous mon-
sters of filmland — and myrtle r.
Douglas (sometimes known as
morojo) appareled in superhero
get-ups at the very first World
Science fiction Convention.
most of us think of blogs and
home pages as strictly 21st centu-
ry, but think again. At heart, they
are superpowered versions of
1930s fanzines, those mimeo-
graphed, self-published journals
in which amateurs wrote stories
and criticism, often with the hope
of becoming, in an affectionate
phrase, “a dirty pro.” Similarly,
while the internecine flame wars
of contemporary sci-fi burn
through our social media, they
are nothing new: from the begin-
ning, fandom has been alternat-
ing between intense collegiality
and five-alarm factionalism.BY MICHAEL DIRDAThese days, many devotees of
contemporary science fiction and
horror pay scant attention to the
rich past of their genres, and yet
such neglect makes little sense:
When you love a subject, don’t
you want to know everything you
can about that subject, including
its history?
In “The Visual History of Sci-
ence fiction fandom — Volume
one: The 1930s,” David and Dan-
iel ritter — a father-and-son team
— show us, through words and
pictures, how a passion for sci-
ence fiction evolved into a way of
life for y oung people who couldn’t
get enough of that crazy Buck
rogers stuff. T he result is a sump-
tuous scrapbook of photographs,
magazine covers, artwork and
hundreds of articles, letters and
typescripts, everything beautiful-
ly held together by the ritters’
concise but enthralling text. The
physical book is expensive but,
given the amount of material in it
and the high quality of the print-
ing, one doubts that first fandom
Experience is doing more than
breaking even. Happily, there is a
less costly digital version avail-
BooK World
The altogether real
history of science fiction
THE VISUAl HISTorY oF
SCIENCE FICTIoN FANdoM
Volume one: The 1930s
By David ritter and Daniel ritter,
With Jeff Diperna and Wendy
gonick
first fandom experience. 515 pp.
Hardcover, $150; e-book, $39Horror FICTIoN IN THE 20TH
CENTUrY
Exploring literature’s Most
Chilling Genre
By Jess nevins
Praeger. 277 pp. $49.95;
e-book, $40The
Reliable
SourceHelena Andrews-Dyer and Emily Heil
have moved on to new assignments at
The Post. A search is underway for a
new Reliable Source columnist. The
column will return.TOP: Comedian Richard lewis at home in los Angeles. ABOVe: lewis on “ The Tonight show” in 1977, left, and with his friend
larry David on HBO’s “Curb Your enthusiasm,” right. “when you know someone that well,” David says, “what makes it work is you
can really say anything you want to a person like that. Nothing is off-limits. we have so much trust in our friendship.”