Lewis fusses and frets his way to funny

Comedian Richard Lewis leaves the best phone messages.

That makes sense, considering his legendary stand-up career and his best-friend role on Larry David's HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" are built on a lifetime of paranoid, compulsive and obsessive behavior. The neurotic fruit is just there for the picking.

After forgetting a phone interview for this story, Lewis drops a stream-of-consciousness voice mail with a tone so apologetic and tortured, he sounds on the verge of committing seppuku.

"Hey man, it's Richard Lewis," the early-morning recording starts. "I've got a million excuses for being ... I'm surrounded by 4,000 clocks. I just got back from Edmonton. I was up until four in the morning. My computer crashed. And I was on the phone with interesting people before ... I've got a lot of stories ... Jonathan Winters, Albert Brooks."

He's on a roll now.

"Boy, I'm never gonna go to Edmonton again. ... I mean, when you play somewhere that has the largest mall in the history of the world ... you snap. I snapped!"

Road gigs, like the one he'll perform Monday night at Tampa's Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, take their toll. Add in a guest spot on the upcoming finale of A&E's rehab drama "The Cleaner," and the busy schedule makes it easy to overlook an appointment.

When reached for an interview, a guilt-ridden Lewis spends more than an hour expounding on his life as a peer of Leno, Crystal, Prinze and Kaufman, his battles with addiction, friendships with Winters and Brooks, the calming influence of his wife, Joyce, and, of course, his friendship with David.

Which didn't start out as a friendship.

The two attended the same sports camp the summer after eighth grade. David lived in Brooklyn. Lewis was born there but grew up in New Jersey.

"Basically, we singled each other out as the enemy," Lewis says. "I despised him. He was obnoxious. I was a jerk, but he was a bigger jerk. We had fights. He was a dirty player. He was a good athlete, but I was better."

A dozen or so years later, the two would recognize each other at a comedy club. The rivalry remained, but a respect for each other's comedy forged a new friendship. After David finished his run as co-creator of "Seinfeld," he invited Lewis to be part of the "Curb" cast. Lewis agreed only if their complex relationship was portrayed onscreen.

"I have a good marriage, but my wife says, 'Why can't we have more of a relationship like you and Larry?'" Lewis says. "I guess it's because we've known each other for almost a half a century. It's insanity, man."

More from the interview

On his busy performance schedule:

It's been a freaky couple of weeks. I played Vegas last week. It was really a blast, with [fellow "Curb Your Enthusiasm" cast member] Susie Essman. Then I had 12 hours off and I zoomed back to L.A. Then I went to Edmonton, which is ... they're famous for the largest mall. And again, I'll just say this ... I don't preach about this, but I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic for the last 15 years. The last time I was there was in '92 with friends of a band that I went to college with, Procol Harum. By that time, I knew the lyricist Keith Reed and Gary Brooker, and they were doing a 20th anniversary tour for this historic live album with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. I was so loaded when I was there. I remembered the mall and I e-mailed Keith about it. I told a couple of journalists that if I even come close to the mall, I'll break out into a rash. He said he still hasn't gotten over going on the roller coaster. It triggers all kinds of nightmares for the band.

On the Pope and touring the Vatican:

I root for the pope, but I kid the pope. I'm not a big organized religion guy, but it's easy pickings with a German pope for a guy who popped out a Jew.

I took my wife [Joyce] on our honeymoon. I've been there many times and she had been all over Italy but never Rome. I'm in love with the city and the art.

We got a tour guide with a group, and the guy knew me. And we're looking at pictures of Christ and the cross. And there were a lot of Americans in the group, too, and they went, "Well, Richard, you can relate to this." I went, "Wait a minute!" I was so humiliated. How dare you lump me in with the crucifixion!

Then my wife had to go to the bathroom right before we got to the Sistine Chapel. And it's like a billion miles to get to the Sistine chapel when you go through these museums with $800 trillion worth of wealth. Outside, you have to zip up your passport and wallet because 8 trillion people are broke. The whole thing is pretty hypocritical and sad in a way.

So my wife says, "I've got to go to the bathroom." And I'm thinking, "Oh, god, I've got to pull a Hollywood perk in the Vatican?" And I did. I said, "Listen, pal, all your jokes were hilarious, but my wife has to use the john." He says, "There is no john." I said, "Well, you get one." So I used my perk. I'm the last guy to do that, I swear. I think she used one of the Pope's private parlor rooms and did a No. 1 on the Pope's toilet.

She said, "It was great. I had to pull a chain." It had the Virgin Mary's autograph ... I was so jealous. I'm putting words in her mouth, but I'm sure it was one of those bathrooms where some of the disciples sat there constipated. You know what I mean? And that was a highlight for her, sitting on something someone sat on 5 million years ago.

We went into the Sistine Chapel. I said, "Look at that!" She said, "You've gotta see this toilet!" I said, "Look up for a minute!" She said, "I like the Bernini stuff, but the toilet ..."

On his hair at the beginning of his career:

It looked like the UFO Challah Bread landed on my head. It really did look like some extra terrestrial bakery good landed on me. I looked like one of Foreigner's roadies.

Guys mocked me. Women lied to me. But the hair, now when I go on ... I still have it. I don't wear a rug. It's getting light. I'm going to be 62 in a week. I don't even care at this point. My wife now and then -- I met her in her early 40s -- she's aging like Goldie Hawn. I was a jerk. I was a trophy guy and I have a trophy, but the deal is, she doesn't. I don't even know how she could get in bed with this. I feel like a reptile at this point.

On his friendships with comedians Albert Brooks and Larry David:

I e-mailed Albert and Larry. I sent them both a very passionate e-mail. I said that Burns and Benny and Groucho went to the deli every morning. I said that we hardly see each other. We're the same age. Can't we make more of an effort? We have almost 100 years of combined experience in comedy. We have a million stories we can share in person. We just don't do it. It saddens me. The e-mail was like a Hallmark card.

Larry David doesn't respond at all. And Albert -- who is not homophobic by any stretch of the imagination; he's liberal -- he e-mailed back, "Do you think [blank] is gay?" I laughed so hard.

The point of all this is they're so different. But we aren't. We all had very similar upbringings with tough mothers, very critical. I mean, he did a movie, "Mother," Albert did.

The point is that it manifests in different ways in their art. The way I manifest all this pain is by talking about it first person on stage live. Albert chose film. And Larry was an amazing stand-up and did it much longer than Albert but couldn't tolerate people not giving him undivided attention, which is so absurd. People would say, "I'll have another whiskey," and he'd be, "Hey! I'm on!"

"'The Tonight Show' was there, Larry!" "Yeah, but they were ordering a club sandwich." "That's how they make money, you moron."

He said, "I don't care. I worked hard on this piece." It was almost like you were talking to Mozart and he was in a nightclub in the '70s.

It was like we were in a period piece with the wigs. Like that Kubrick film, "Barry Lyndon." I can't wait to tell him that at dinner. "You were Barry Lyndon David. You want to have a duel with these people. Ten paces and shoot everyone in the audience, you moron. 'The Tonight Show' was there and you couldn't do your 20 minutes because someone ordered a whiskey? You jerk!"

And then we would scream at him because we loved him because he was brilliant. Luckily he put a lot of his stuff through that character in Jason Alexander on "Seinfeld." Now, in "Curb," it's really uncensored Larry.

On the upcoming "Curb Your Enthusiasm" season:

The thing about "Curb Your Enthusiasm," I only know what I do. I don't even ask Larry about the rest of it. I just want to be real and funny for Larry and get out of there.

Having the "Seinfeld" cast on this season is going to be great. I did do a scene with Seinfeld. And it was absolutely ... I was never close to Jerry. The scene's premise was hilarious. I can't say the premise, but it was great.

It was fun working with Jerry but it was more fun working with the both of them because they both so changed the landscape of comedy. They became such moguls, but in an artistic sense in this town and for my generation. It was really fun watching them together.

Prior to Seinfeld, Jerry was a really hot stand-up at the time. Larry was not a hot stand-up. Larry was just a famous unknown stand-up. He was a comic's comic, as they say. Jerry knew that. So, Jerry picked the perfect guy to co-create a vehicle for him because the network wanted something. And it changed their lives.

EVENT PREVIEW

Richard Lewis

WHEN: 8 p.m. Monday

WHERE: Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, 5223 N. Orient Road, Tampa

TICKETS: $30; call (813) 287-8844 or visit www.ticketmaster.com