Richard Pryor

Source: Newsmakers 1999, Gale Group. 1999.

Dec. 1, 1940 -
Peoria, Illinois, United States
Nationality: American
Occupation: comedian
Occupation: actor
Awards: Emmy Award (with others), and American Academy of Humor Award, both 1974, both for Lily; American Writers Guild Award and American Academy of Humor Award, both 1974, for Blazing Saddles; Grammy Award for best comedy album, 1974, for That Nigger's Crazy, 1975, for Is It Something I Said?, 1976, for Bicentennial Nigger, 1981, for Rev. Du Rite, and 1982, for Live on the Sunset Strip; Mark Twain Prize for comedy, 1998.

Groundbreaking comedian Richard Pryor, with his rubbery facial expressions, his talent for characterization, and his penchant for profanity, was the first major African American comedian to address racial issues in his act. As Jill Nelson summarized in the online magazine Salon, "He created a biting, scatological comedy defined by the linguistic and stylistic patterns of poor and working-class black folks. He was often raunchy, sometimes bitter, frequently political and always honest, sometimes painfully so, a racial secret-teller and social commentator who tapped into the cultural Zeitgeist and in the process affirmed and legitimized both black and American experience."

Pryor's scathing material made him a role model for many comedians who came after him, African American and white, and propelled him into stardom in the 1970s. However, his talent was often overshadowed by the many personal demons that plagued him, specifically his drug abuse and his difficulty in personal relationships. Pryor was often in the news for his many failed marriages and violent episodes that stemmed from a longtime cocaine habit, and he had his first heart attack in 1978. In 1980 he fell to a particularly low point when he accidentally set himself ablaze while freebasing cocaine. He pulled through that but continued to suffer heart problems, and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. Since then, his health has seen a steady decline, and at one point, someone even phoned into a number of newspapers to falsely report his death. Though he is too ill to perform anymore, he was in the public eye again in October of 1998 when he was honored with the first-ever Mark Twain Prize for comedy, established by the Kennedy Center to recognize uniquely American humor. Numerous luminaries turned out at the ceremony to express their appreciation and respect.

Much discrepancy exists regarding his childhood. Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor, born December 1, 1940, in Peoria, Illinois, has indicated that his mother was a prostitute who got pregnant and later married the son of the brothel owner, Marie Carter. At other times, he has claimed that his mother, Gertrude Pryor, was a bookkeeper for the family bordello business; various sources claim that his father was a bartender, a construction worker, or a professional boxer, and his name has been given as LeRoy Carter, better known as Buck. No records indicated that the couple ever married, according to John A. Williams and Dennis A. Williams in If I Stop I'll Die: The Comedy and Tragedy of Richard Pryor, but in an interview once, they noted, Pryor claimed his parents married when he was about three.

In his writings and comedy, Pryor has gone into detail about his upbringing in his grandmother's whorehouses, such as telling of peeking through keyholes to watch the women with their clients. Pryor's mother would leave for months at a time, he has said, and left the family for good when he was ten, so his grandmother was left to raise him. He has also revealed that he was sexually molested by a teenager when he was six, and that after Pryor became famous, his attacker once asked for an autograph. However, some reports have accused Pryor of embellishing his past. Joyce Maynard in a 1977 New York Times article wrote, "Pryor has been given to saying that he was raised in a brothel, which is evidently not the case," but she failed to elaborate, and in his 1995 autobiography, Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences, he maintained that his story was true.

Attending an integrated school, Pryor was exposed to the harsh realities of racism and, due to his frustration, would often cause trouble. Early on, though, he found a positive influence in a teacher, Juliette Whittaker, whom he met at the Carver Community Center in Peoria in 1951 when he was about 11 years old. Already practicing skits on classmates in school, he was attracted to the center's drama classes, and Whittaker encouraged him. When he became famous, he often credited her with giving him his start, acting in the center's plays. When he won an Emmy Award in 1974 for the television program Lily, a Lily Tomlin special, he gave it to her as a gift.

However, Pryor did not go far academically. He wrote in his autobiography, Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences, that even though he was receiving straight A's, he was kicked out of Catholic school when the officials found out about his grandmother's business. He also claimed that a priest once kissed him on the lips during catechism class. In the eighth grade, he wrote, he was kicked out of school for trying to hit his science teacher, but other sources say he dropped out. In any case, he held odd jobs for a couple of years, working in the local Armor meat-packing plant, driving a truck, and helping out at his grandmother's pool hall. He also noted that he was just 14 when he first got a girl pregnant, but Williams and Williams asserted that records showed he was, in fact, 17 when he sired his first daughter, Renee, though he later denied paternity.

At age 18, Pryor joined the Army and spent two years in West Germany, where again, he had issues with authority. He served two years and returned to Peoria in 1960, where he took a job with Caterpillar. By this time, he had noticed comedians Dick Gregory and Bill Cosby on television and sensed he could make his living the same way. He made his professional start telling jokes at a local joint, Harold's Club, and also around this time began experimenting with drugs. He soon branched out to other cities on the "Blackbelt" club circuit catering to African Americans, and moved to New York City in 1963, where he performed stand-up in clubs there and in the Catskills resorts. Inspired by the success of Bill Cosby, he modeled his jokes in the same fashion, avoiding politics and race in order to appeal to white audiences.

Throughout the 1960s, Pryor's career took off. He first began appearing on the television series On Broadway Tonight in 1964, then landed spots on popular programs like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Merv Griffin Show. Regular gigs in Las Vegas followed, but by now, he felt stifled by his squeaky-clean routine. He also had bit parts in films The Busy Body, 1967, and Wild in the Streets, 1968, as well as a couple of television movies. In 1969, he released his first comedy album, Richard Pryor. His career was becoming threatened by his habitual cocaine use, though, and he retreated into the counterculture of Berkeley, California, for awhile.

Though it looked like his opportunities were drying up, Pryor was actually spending time in the company of other African American writers and intellectuals and reworking his career. He ventured to Hollywood and landed the part of the Piano Man in the film Lady Sings the Blues, about legendary singer Billie Holiday (played by Diana Ross). More mainstream film jobs followed, as he showed up as a pimp's friend in the drama The Mack, 1973, and the comedy Uptown Saturday Night, 1974. Scoring a big hit in 1976, he costarred with fellow funnyman Gene Wilder in the action comedy Silver Streak and had a cameo in that year's Car Wash, both of which he cowrote. In the meantime, he was writing scripts for The Flip Wilson Show and the situation comedy Sanford & Son, and also assisted in writing Lily, a comedy-variety television special for Lily Tomlin, in 1974. For this stint, he received an Emmy Award (with others) and American Academy of Humor Award. Also that year, he won an American Writers Guild Award and American Academy of Humor Award for his work with Mel Brooks and others on the script for Blazing Saddles. However, right before the premiere of that classic comedy film, Pryor was cited for income tax irregularities and after a plea, paid $2,500 and spent ten days in jail.

Soon, Pryor's fortunes were back on track with his 1974 album, That Nigger's Crazy, featuring his new, bombastic comedy style and a proliferation of four-letter words. His repertoire of vivid characters and his talent for hitting the nerve of racial issues while making people laugh earned him a legion of new fans. The effort immediately sold a million copies and earned him his first Grammy Award for best comedy album. He was back on the road, performing stand-up for a time. He then followed up with two more albums in rapid succession, Is It Something I Said?, in 1975, and Bicentennial Nigger, in 1976. Both of these won Grammys as well.

In 1977, Pryor hosted his own television show for a brief time, but it was canceled because of censorship disputes. He continued making films, appearing in Neil Simon's popular California Suite, 1978, then teaming up again with Wilder in 1980's zany Stir Crazy, about two goofs who are framed for a bank robbery and end up in prison. Although these films would represent his biggest successes to date, Pryor suffered serious health crises around the same time. In 1978, he had a serious heart attack (and also made the news that year for pumping a number of bullets into his wife's car as they were going through a divorce), and in 1980, he accidentally set himself on fire while preparing freebase, cocaine heated with ether. Third-degree burns covered more than half of his body, but he managed to survive. Pryor went back to work at a frenetic pace, making a number of films that critics were not enthused about, even though fans kept coming. In 1983, he landed a $4 million salary for his role in Superman III, a record amount at the time for an African American actor.

Subsequently, Pryor used his experiences regrading the fire and his drug use for material for his highly lauded concert film, Live on Sunset Strip. The recorded album of this won him his fifth Grammy in 1982; he had also landed another one in 1981 for Rev. Du Rite. In addition, he compiled his personal experiences for 1986's autobiographical film Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling, which he wrote, directed, and starred in. However, it did not fare well. Soon, he was already showing signs of a serious illness. Jet in November of 1986 reported that he had shown startling weight loss on an appearance on The Tonight Show, but Pryor dismissed it, saying he had dropped the weight for a film. Before long, gossip columnists were speculating that he had contracted AIDS.

Eventually, the public learned that Pryor was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1986, and his health began a steady decline after that. The disease is not usually fatal, but causes gradual deterioration of the nervous system. He continued making movies and to performing on stage in subsequent years, but gradually, he grew too weak to work. He suffered another heart attack in 1990 while vacationing in Australia and also that year began having trouble walking. In 1991 he suffered a more serious heart attack and had a quadruple bypass operation. By the mid-1990s, he was completely unable to walk (he relied a motorized scooter to move around), and by the late 1990s, he was unable to take care of his basic needs and could speak only with great difficulty and in a faint whisper.

Pryor recounted much of his personal life in his 1995 autobiography, Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences, written with Todd Gold. In private affairs, he underwent numerous relationships and marriages. He married his first wife, Patricia Price, in 1960, and they had a son, Richard, Jr., but split up soon afterward. He then had a daughter, Elizabeth Anne, in 1967 with Maxine Silverman, though they did not marry. Also in 1967 he married Shelly Bonus and in 1969 had a daughter, Rain, but that relationship ended in 1970. In 1977 Pryor was briefly married to third wife, Deboragh McGuire. He then married Jennifer Lee in 1979, and they divorced in 1981 but stayed together on and off for five years.

Pryor met his fifth wife, actress Flynn BeLaine, in about 1984 in Washington, D.C. They had a son, Steven, before they married. The couple married in late 1986, but he filed for divorce after just a couple of months. They remarried in 1990 and also had another child together as well, daughter Kelsey, in 1987, but later divorced. After he became very ill, fourth wife Lee would return as his caretaker, even though he physically abused her during the time they were together as a result of his extreme drug use. She and a number of nurses tend to him at his home in Encino, California.

Pryor's contributions to the world of American humor were recognized in 1998 as he was named the recipient of the inaugural Mark Twain Prize from the Kennedy Center. More than two thousand people showed up for the ceremony, including actors and entertainers Gene Wilder, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Damon Wayans, Chevy Chase, Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover, Tim Allen, and more. The event was taped at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and aired in January of 1999, featuring numerous film clips of Pryor's comedy and a range of luminaries talking of their respect for him and his influence on them. In a statement he wrote as his acceptance, according to a Jet article, Pryor quipped, "I feel great about accepting this prize. It is nice to be regarded on par with a great white man—now that is funny!" He quickly added, "Seriously, though, two things people throughout history have had in common are hatred and humor. I am proud that, like Mark Twain, I have been able to use humor to lessen people's hatred!"

August 2004: The first Richard Pryor Ethnic Comedy Award will be given at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland in August. Source: New York Times, www.nytimes.com, June 14, 2004.

Further Reading