Mallory Lewis

Overview

Mallory Lewis is the daughter of Shari Lewis, and the person who kept Lamb Chop alive.

She was not a performer first. She was a writer and producer — she worked closely with her mother as producer of both Lamb Chop's Play-Along and The Charlie Horse Music Pizza, and she has an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Children's Series, plus an Emmy shared with her mother and several further nominations.

Shari Lewis died on 2 August 1998. In 2000, on the advice of family and the family friend Dom DeLuise, Mallory began performing Lamb Chop herself. She was born Mallory Tarcher and took the surname Lewis as an homage to her mother.

The act now

Mallory holds the live performing rights to Lamb Chop and tours steadily — heavily for the military, through the USO and the Fisher House Foundation, and beyond that at performing arts centers and state fairs.

She also writes children's books featuring Zoey, a baby orangutan she puppeteers.

In 2023 she co-wrote the authorized biography of her mother, Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop: The Team That Changed Children's Television, with Nat Segaloff.

Placing the collection

Mallory has also decided where her mother's work ends up. She donated the Shari Lewis puppets — including one of the original Lamb Chops, costumes and an Emmy — to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, where they sit in the permanent Global Gallery. A separate donation substantially expanded the Shari Lewis exhibit in the Bob Baker Gallery at the Vent Haven Museum in Kentucky, adding puppets from The Shari Show and a larger-than-life Charlie Horse.

Between the two, the physical record of one of the most decorated careers in American children's television is preserved and public.

Figures

• Lamb ChopShari Lewis · 1956 · sock puppet
• Zoeypuppet

Timeline

• 1992–97 — Producer, Lamb Chop's Play-Along
• 1998 — Producer, The Charlie Horse Music Pizza
• 2000 — Begins performing Lamb Chop, on the advice of family and Dom DeLuise
• 2023 — Co-writes Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop: The Team That Changed Children's Television

Watch

• Mallory Lewis & Lamb Chop on Morning Blend WTMJ NBC Milwaukee
• Mallory Lewis & Lamb Chop on KCCI CBS Des Moines
• Mallory Lewis, Lamb Chop and Nicolosi Oscars Interview at Roger Neal Pre Oscar Suites 2014
• Mallory Lewis Interview at AFI Red Carpet for Mary Poppins
• Mallory Lewis & Lamb Chop on Daybreak Today
• Mallory Lewis & Lamb Chop on WTTE FOX Columbus

Books

• Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop: The Team That Changed Children's Television Mallory Lewis and Nat Segaloff, with David Copperfield · University Press of Kentucky · 2023 Her biography of her mother. ⚠️ publication year needs confirming against the publisher.

On video

15 performances cataloged in our archive. needs research: curate + embed the best 5–8; the rest 301 here