tribute to a friend

Ken Hoffman honors his late friend, actor and comedian Richard Lewis

Richard Lewis was 76.

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Years ago, Richard was coming to Houston to perform Friday and Saturday nights at the Improv comedy club. I asked him to come on my radio show Friday morning to talk up his performances. He said sure.

I was a Richard Lewis fan first. After I started writing for a newspaper, and writing many columns about him, we became friends. We were both from New Jersey. Both New York Knicks fans. Both loved the Beatles.

I told him, I have a running bit on the show where celebrities play trivia against an odd opponent. Usually the celebrity would play against the building janitor or a stripper from the Men’s Club or a school crossing guard. How about if you play trivia against a couple of children?

Richard said, “Bad idea. I don’t work with kids. I’m not like a sitcom dad. That’s not my act onstage — or in real life.”

I said trust me. Richard was dead set against the idea but as a favor he went along with it.

That morning Richard Lewis faced off in trivia against Pete Bechtol and my boy Andrew – both age 7.

Now you have to understand that one of Richard’s favorite plays was Death of a Salesman, maybe the saddest, most tragic, and morbid American stage production ever. The main character Willy Loman realizes that he has wasted his life, is a failure as a husband and father, and commits suicide. Richard would drop “Willy Loman” takes during his act. Death of a Salesman was Richard’s go-to adlib.

The trivia contest began. First question goes to Richard Lewis. “How much is the square root of 784 multiplied by 2,756? You have five seconds to answer … go!”

Richard didn’t even answer. He wasn’t having fun. The kids thing wasn’t working for him. Please make this stop.

OK, Pete and Andrew, here’s your question: "In what play will you find a character named Willy Loman?”

In his squeaky little boy voice, Pete answered “Death of a Salesman!”

Richard’s eyes lit up. He couldn’t believe this little kid knew about Death of a Salesman. He was genuinely shocked. He asked the kids, “How do you know who Willy Loman is?”

Andrew said, “We starred in a kindergarten production of Death of a Salesman last year. I played Willy Loman. The last scene was pretty tough.”

Richard smelled a rat and gave me a look and started laughing. We got him. For one time, he had fun working with children.

Sometimes I’d get a call late at night. It would be Richard, coming off a high of performing his standup act. He was too nervous to sleep. He sent me long rambling emails about his performances, usually working in something about the New York Knicks sucking for another NBA season. Whenever he performed in Houston, I’d bring friends to his shows and he always met us backstage. He was incredibly gracious and sweet.

He would register at hotels as Mr. Procol. He loved rock ‘n’ roll. His walkup music in comedy clubs was Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. He was buddies with Ringo Starr. Of course, for the past 20 years he was a regular on his best friend Larry David’s show Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Richard and I had a mutual friend who had a little bit of Willy Loman in him. The friend couldn’t find his place or value and took to drugs and drinking, much like Richard had early in his career. Richard was able to sober up and enjoy his career and life. He got married, even adopted a rescue dog, and loved living. He told me the dog was even more needy than he was. Our friend couldn’t stay on course. He disappeared into a small apartment and rarely left the building.

Richard said if I could convince our friend to go to rehab, he would pay for his treatment. I tried. He slammed the door in my face. Our friend stopped being our friend. A few years later he died alone in his bed.

Richard wrote to me: “I feel terrible how he went down what he felt was an easy road, which was always a pipe dream and it backfired in the worst way. He’s a great soul and he loved me and I did tons for him but wasn’t able to follow through. Pot was the perfect initial drug for him and enabled his laziness and then it went south. Your offer of driving him to Austin Hill and me paying was the best we could do. He just never bottomed out until there was no saving him.”

Last year Richard revealed that he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. He put out a statement on Twitter:

“I have Parkinson’s disease but I’m under a doctor’s care and everything is cool. I’m finished with standup. I’m just focusing on writing and acting from here on out.”

I sent him a note:

“You got this. You’re an all-time great. I know you’ll find a way to keep making people laugh – just different now. I cherish our friendship. You’re the only person I know that I can actually brag about.”

He wrote back: I love you, KH.

Richard Lewis died Tuesday. I hope he meant it when he said he loved me. I think he did.

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Movie Review

Jessica Chastain gets in a tangled love story in new drama Dreams

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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