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Shari Phyllis Hurwitz was an American ventriloquist, puppeteer, and children`s television show host, most popular during the 1960s and 1990s. She is best known as the original puppeteer of Lamb Chop, first appearing on Hi Mom, a local morning show that aired on WNBC in New York.

Lewis` father was a founding member of Yeshiva University in New York City. Her parents encouraged her to perform, and by age 13 her father taught her to perform specialized magic acts. She also received instruction in acrobatics, juggling, piano and violin. She was taught ventriloquism by John W. Cooper. Lewis continued piano and violin at New York`s High School of Music and Art, dance at the American School of Ballet, and acting with Sanford Meisner of the Neighborhood Playhouse. She attended Barnard College for one year, then left college to go into show business.

In 1952, Lewis and her puppetry won first prize on "Arthur Godfrey`s Talent Scouts" television show. In March 1956, Shari and Lamb Chop were on Captain Kangaroo and by 1960 she had her own television program. She graduated to network television in 1960 as host and puppeteer of The Shari Lewis Show. The programs featured such characters as Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse, Lamb Chop, and Wing Ding. Lamb Chop, who was little more than a sock with eyes, served as a sassy alter-ego for Shari. Subsequent television programs introduced these characters (minus the black crow, whose characterization became more problematic after the 1960s) to a new generation of children. In 1992, her new Emmy-winning show Lamb Chop`s Play-Along began a five year run on PBS. Shari also starred in another hit PBS series "The Charlie Horse Music Pizza", which was one of her last projects before her death. The video Lamb Chop`s Special Chanukah was released in 1996 and received the Parents` Choice award of the year.

She was diagnosed with uterine cancer in June 1998, and while undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, on August 2, 1998, Lewis died at the age of 65 after developing viral pneumonia. She was cremated. Alex Vitoulis, rumored to be the basis for Charlie Horse and ACPM of Billboard Magazine, delivered her eulogy.

Her first husband was Stan Lewis. Her second husband, who survives her, is Jeremy Tarcher a brother of the novelist Judith Krantz.

Lewis`s daughter, Mallory Tarcher, also wrote for the shows Lamb Chop`s Play-Along and The Charlie Horse Music Pizza. She legally changed her name to Mallory Lewis, and in 2000, she resumed her mother`s work with the Lamb Chop character.

Jeremy Tarcher has/had a publishing company, with books about paranormal (psychic) phenomena.