About her close friend and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Richard Lewis, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 76 after a heart attack, Jamie Lee Curtis shared some very heartbreaking remarks.
The comedian and the 65-year-old actress, who portrayed the witch in Halloween, costarred in the sitcom Anything But Love for four seasons between 1989 and 1992.
After learning the tragic news of the actor’s passing on Wednesday, she shared a post on her personal Instagram profile. The first person to break the news was Bette Midler.
Curtis hailed the late singer in a lengthy statement for being “the reason I am sober” after sharing a number of vintage photos of the two of them.
Jamie battled an opiate addiction before celebrating 25 years sober this month.
“I recently found out about the passing of my friend Richard Lewis.” I can still clearly picture myself standing on Sunset Boulevard, staring at a poster advertising a stand-up special featuring him. I urged the casting staff to bring him in to try out for the role of Marty Gold, my best friend and potential boyfriend, during the ABC pilot Anything But Love casting process.
“I felt he had a good look.” It isn’t something a strong woman can really accomplish for herself, but someone made me giggle. He mispronounced the word “bundt cake,” but he still played the part, which made me laugh aloud.
Jamie remarked, “He blew everyone else away.” They added in their response that “the chemistry with Richard was so great,” even if they decided not to pick up the pilot for the love triangle show. Might we rework the initial pilot? We ultimately produced the show for two years in this manner.
He performed stand-up comedy as well, but he detested doing stand-up in front of actual audiences. I, however, thought it was fantastic.
In close-up, he would conceal his markings on door frames, objects, and even my face. He also carried a clipboard with his lines scribbled on it at all times. It turns out that he was a really good part actor. It’s hilarious and profound.
“We grieved together over the deaths of our friend and producer John Ritter as well as our friend and co-star Richard Frank,” she remarked.
“Richard expressed his desire for me to obtain another boxed set of show episodes from ABC/Disney in his most recent text message to me,” the actress said to her followers.
“He is also the reason I am sober,” Jamie continued. He was helpful to me. I shall always be appreciative of his kindness.
“He found love with Joyce, and that, of course, along with being sober, was what mattered most to him,” she stated when they discussed his wife Joyce Lapinsky. Writing this brings tears to my eyes.
It’s an odd way to express gratitude to a kind and humorous man. Richard, I hope you laugh till you die. Hannah exclaimed, “My Marty, I love you!” at the conclusion.
Jamie expressed her sadness over the passing of her longtime friend and former co-star in a second post.
She also included a line or two from the Anything But Love theme tune and another old photo of herself with Lewis.
“The great singer-songwriter JD Souther wrote this beautiful theme song for the third and final season of the TV show ANYTHING BUT LOVE, which aired on ABC for a few years,” Curtis said.
Look it up on YouTube and give it a listen. If not, I’ve recorded it for you right here. I’m presenting these to my buddy Richard Lewis today.
She revealed lyrics that read, “We would still be searching for the next big thing and trying not to fall… If we had never met/And the world got on without us/Just as if we were never that at all.”
“Hearts that beat like thunder and anything but love will do”Everything but love would be sufficient for everyone but you.
Celebrities and users of social media, including Larry David, who co-stars on Curb Your Enthusiasm, paid respect to the late Richard Lewis.
He told HBO, “He’s been like a brother to me for most of my life.” “In the same hospital, Richard and I were born three days apart.”
It doesn’t happen very frequently, but he was the sweetest and funniest guy at the same time. “But today he made me cry, and I’ll never forgive him for that,” the comic said in an interview with Variety.
Working alongside Lewis on the popular show, Cheryl Hines stated, “I had the biggest crush on Richard Lewis when I was young.”
“No one was cuter or more attractive on stage than him.” Then, a dream come true, I got to work with him on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
“I became more knowledgeable about Richard and his gifts as time went on.” He was humorous, which is why I fell in love with him, but he was also one of the kindest individuals I’ve ever met.
Cheryl stated, “He would take the time to tell the people he loved how much they meant to him, especially in the last few years.” In between takes on Curb, he told me how much he loved me and how essential I was to him.
“To have Richard Lewis love you.” An actual present. I adore you, Richard. You will be missed. I adore you, Joyce, and Richard’s entire family. Richard, Lawrence, cherished you.But you already know that.
My wife started to distance herself from my daughter and me. One day, she left an envelope and disappeared
When my wife started pulling away from me and our daughter, I couldn’t understand why. My heartbreaking story is about how someone can love you so much that they try to protect you by all means. Read on to see how we traversed secrets, innocent lies, and heartache to unite as a family.
There’s something deeply unsettling about not knowing the whole story, especially when it involves the people you love the most. Okay, let me backtrack a bit, my name is Kevin, and Levine and I have been married for 15 lovely years.
We share one amazing child, Emily, who is still quite young and attending school. My wife and daughter mean the world to me, and I believe we have a great family. However, around six months ago, Levine started withdrawing and avoiding me and our daughter.
For months, I watched as my formerly loving and caring wife grew increasingly distant by the day. What started as small changes in her demeanor escalated into full-blown avoidance. Her smiles are fewer and her nights spent awake longer.
I even sometimes caught glimpses of her crying in the bathroom more than once. But every time I approached her about it, she brushed off my concerns with a shaky “I’m fine.” Yet, she wasn’t. And deep down, I knew it.
This unspoken “thing” hung over me and our daughter heavily, causing our family relationships to start cracking.
“Levine, please talk to me,” I pleaded one evening, finding her again at the window, staring into the backyard. Her back was to me, her shoulders tense.
“I just need some air, Kevin. That’s all,” she murmured, her voice hardly above a whisper.
I stepped closer, my concern deepening. “It’s been months of ‘just needing air.’ You’re scaring me, baby. You’re scaring Emily.”
She turned then, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “I can’t, not yet…” her voice trailed off as she turned back to the window, leaving me standing helplessly behind her.
I returned home yesterday from picking Emily up at school to find the house eerily silent. The morning Levine left was like any other, except she didn’t say goodbye. My stay-at-home wife wasn’t anywhere when we arrived.
However, on the kitchen table amidst the usual clutter of mail and Emily’s school books that she had come with, I found THIS DREADFUL ENVELOPE. My name scrawled across it in Levine’s familiar handwriting.
My heart sank to my stomach as I tore it open with trembling hands. Inside, her letter lay, written in the same shaky hand that had addressed the envelope. As I opened it, tears streamed down my face as I found out what she had been going through all along:
“My dearest husband,
If you’re reading this, then I am already gone. I couldn’t bear to tell you in person, for fear I would never be able to leave. I have been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer, and the doctors are not hopeful. It is my deepest fear to become a burden to you and our beautiful Emily.
I want to protect you both from the pain of watching me deteriorate. I love you both more than life itself, and it’s because I love you that I need to do this. Please understand that this is the hardest choice I’ve ever made, but it’s made out of love. I am at Clear Life Center, a quiet hospice two states away. Please forgive me.
With all my love, always,
Levine.”
Tears blurred my vision as I tried to compose myself. My lovely, beautiful wife had chosen solitude over the anguish she believed her illness would cause us. If I thought I loved her before, at that moment I realized I loved her MORE THAN EVER.
Without a second thought, I packed a bag. I told Emily, “My baby, mommy’s not feeling too well, and we are going on a little trip to see her, okay?” My brave little girl with a worried face asked, “Is she going to be okay, Daddy?”
Not wanting to lie to her, I replied, “She’s going to feel much better when she sees us, I promise.” We drove straight to the facility my wife mentioned, desperate to be with her, regardless of her wishes to shield us.
When we arrived and I found her, the reality of her condition hit hard. Levine was frail, a shadow of the vibrant woman I had fallen in love with. Yet, when she saw us, her eyes lit up with a mix of joy and sorrow, and she instantly looked better, than I had envisioned!
“Kevin, Emily,” she murmured, reaching out weakly.
“Mom, why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped…” Emily sobbed, clutching her mother’s hand. “I thought… I thought it would be easier this way,” Levine whispered, tears streaming down her face.
“We needed to be here, with you. No matter what,” I said, gripping her hand.
We spent those last weeks of her illness by her side, achieving her life goals before her death. Whenever she was strong enough, we went out for walks, well, she was in a wheelchair. She got to tell Emily all the things she wished her to know before her passing.
“I’ll always love you, my sweet baby girl. And I want you to know that I will be with you in spirit for all the days of your life,” Levine told Emily as they embraced, shedding more tears.
We talked, laughed, and sometimes sat in silence, savoring the precious moments we had left. Emily read her favorite books aloud, and I held her mother’s hand every night until she fell asleep.
My darling wife passed away holding my hand. Emily curled up beside her, a peaceful expression on her face. Her last days were not filled with the pain and suffering she had feared but with love and the warmth of her family.
In the wake of her passing, I’ve come to realize the profound strength it took for her to make the decision she did. Levine’s act, initially so incomprehensible to me, was one of selfless love. The kind that sees beyond immediate pain to the eventual peace it can bring to those left behind.
Now, as Emily and I adjust to a world without Levine, we do so with a deep understanding of her last gift to us. Not just the envelope that explained her absence, but the enduring presence of her love.
A love that, like the subtle fragrance of her favorite flowers, lingers around us, invisible yet palpable. It remained a gentle reminder that even in their absence, love remains.
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