Shari Lewis

Shari Lewis, born Phyllis Naomi Hurwitz on January 17, 1933, in New York City, was an American ventriloquist, puppeteer, children's entertainer, television host, dancer, singer, actress, author, and symphony conductor. She died on August 2, 1998, at the age of 65. Lewis was the daughter of Ann (née Ritz) and Abraham Hurwitz, an education professor at Yeshiva University whose family roots were in Vilnius, Lithuania. During the Great Depression, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia designated her father New York's official magician, and Hurwitz taught Lewis to perform specialized magic acts by the time she was thirteen. She also trained in acrobatics, baton twirling, juggling, ice skating, piano, and violin, and had one sister, Barbara.

Lewis launched her professional career in 1952 when she and her puppetry won first prize on the CBS television series Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. On July 5, 1953, she made her television hosting debut on Facts N' Fun on WRCA-TV, a one-hour variety program that ran until September 26, 1953, featuring games, crafts, songs, interviews, and comedy skits with ventriloquist's dummies Samson and Taffy Twinkle. Later in 1953, she moved to WPIX to host Kartoon Klub, performing with Randy Rocket and Taffy Twinkle alongside reruns of Crusader Rabbit cartoons. That program was retitled Shari & Her Friends on September 23, 1956, and then Shariland a month later. Lewis earned New York-area Emmy Awards for her work on Shariland and on the subsequent WRCA-TV series Hi Mom, which aired from 1957 to 1959 and introduced the characters Charlie Horse, Hush Puppy, and Wing Ding.

The sock puppet Lamb Chop, which became Lewis's most enduring creation, made its first appearance during her guest spot on Captain Kangaroo in March 1956. NBC gave Lewis her first national program, The Shari Lewis Show, which debuted on October 1, 1960, replacing The Howdy Doody Show, and ran until September 28, 1963. The series featured Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse, Hush Puppy, and Wing Ding. Lamb Chop functioned as a sassy alter-ego for Lewis, while Hush Puppy had a Southern accent and a shy, goofy personality, and Charlie Horse was a snarky, sarcastic character. In 1961, Lewis played the title character Dulie Hudson in Watching Out for Dulie, a United States Steel Hour production. She also made guest appearances on Car 54, Where Are You?, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Love, American Style.

From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, Lewis appeared on a number of British programs, including the Val Doonican Show and the Royal Variety Performance. Her voice work in animation included the role of Princess Nida in the Arabian Knights segment of the 1968 series The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, as well as the title character and Cousin Maggie in Famous Studios' Honey Halfwitch theatrical cartoon shorts. In 1969, Lewis and her second husband, publisher Jeremy Tarcher, co-wrote the Star Trek episode "The Lights of Zetar." In 1975, she briefly hosted a syndicated puppet program called The Shari Show.

In 1992, Lewis launched Lamb Chop's Play-Along on PBS, an audience participation series designed as an anti-couch-potato program for children, which ran for five years. In 1993, she testified before Congress in favor of protections for children's television, with Lamb Chop receiving permission to address Congress as well. That same year, Lewis received an honorary degree from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. In 1994, Lewis brought Lamb Chop to Broadway, appearing in Lamb Chop on Broadway. Following the end of Lamb Chop's Play-Along, Lewis and Tarcher created The Charlie Horse Music Pizza, motivated in part by the fact that a third of elementary schools had dropped music from their curricula. The faith-based video Lamb Chop's Special Chanukah was released in 1996 and received the Parents' Choice Award that year. Lewis and Lamb Chop appeared together in a 1997 commercial for the cable television service PrimeStar.

As a musician, Lewis conducted major symphonies in the United States, Japan, and Canada. She wrote more than sixty books for children and produced seventeen home videos. Lewis received twelve Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award in 1960, the Monte Carlo Prize for the World's Best Television Variety Show in 1963, the John F. Kennedy Center Award for Excellence and Creativity in 1983, seven Parents' Choice Awards, and the Silver Circle Award of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1996, among numerous other honors. In 1979, her name and image appeared on a card in the Supersisters trading card set.

Lewis was treated for breast cancer in 1984. In June 1998, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer and underwent a hysterectomy, but her doctors determined the cancer was inoperable and gave her six weeks to live. She insisted on taping a final episode of The Charlie Horse Music Pizza before beginning chemotherapy at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. While undergoing chemotherapy, she developed viral pneumonia and died on the evening of August 2, 1998. The last episode of The Charlie Horse Music Pizza aired on January 17, 1999, which would have been her sixty-sixth birthday. In 1998, she was posthumously awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award for excellence and innovation in creative works that enhanced the perception of women through television. A documentary film about her life and career, Shari & Lamb Chop, directed by Lisa D'Apolito, was released theatrically and on home video in 2025.

Lewis kept the surname from her first marriage to television business executive Stan Lewis, whom she had married in 1953 after meeting him as a high school sweetheart. They divorced in 1957 following Stan's implication in the 1950s quiz show scandals. Her second husband was Jeremy Tarcher, a publisher and brother of novelist Judith Krantz, whom she met on the set of a radio show and married a year later. Tarcher died of Parkinson's disease on September 20, 2015, at the age of 83. Lewis and Tarcher had a daughter, Mallory Tarcher, who wrote for both Lamb Chop's Play-Along and The Charlie Horse Music Pizza. Mallory legally changed her last name to Lewis and assumed her mother's work with Lamb Chop in 2000. Prior to her death, Shari Lewis sold the rights to Lamb Chop to Golden Books Family Entertainment; when that company filed for bankruptcy, the rights transferred to Classic Media, which was later acquired by DreamWorks Animation, now part of NBCUniversal. Mallory Lewis retains the live-performing rights to the Lamb Chop character.