As a young man, Lewis flat-shared with Ken Morley (Reg Holdsworth of Coronation Street) and Andy Carr, actor and screenwriter.
He worked for several years in computing and telecommunications, but when promoted to manager-level he decided instead to pursue acting as a career after being asked to fire a colleague whom he believed to be a good worker.
He also had a prominent part as the dim barman Elmo Putney in the BBC sitcom Brush Strokes between 1986-91.
He appeared in two other prominent historical comedy series - as Blag in the Channel 4 sitcom Chelmsford 123 (1988) set during the Roman occupation of Britain in AD 123, and as assorted medieval peasants, (including Piers and Mr Applebottom) in The Black Adder (1983) and he had minor parts in two Ronnie Barker sitcoms - The Magnificent Evans (1984) and Open All Hours (1985) - and the ITV comedy-drama Minder (1984).
[1] On 28 January 2018, it was reported that police in Edinburgh were investigating the circumstances surrounding the actor's death after his step-daughter Debora Milazzo claimed he had been placed on a regime of high-dose sedatives and maximum-strength opiate painkillers, and had been needlessly placed on the kind of treatment plan that would be prescribed for the terminal phase of a malignant disease, explaining that her father had not received a terminal diagnosis.