Becoming Richard Pryor

by Scott Saul

  11 “opium joint”: “Opium Seized in Opium Joint,” Decatur Sunday Review, Oct. 26, 1908, p. 8. The fact that police discovered opium ashes, or yenshee, rather than fresh smoking opium suggests that Carter’s clientele ran to the down-and-out, not the sporting classes.

  11 “disturbing element”: “‘Tip’ Carter Says He Will Vote ‘Dry,’” Decatur Review, Mar. 31, 1910, p. 4; arrested simply for taking a room: “Two Arrested,” Decatur Evening Republican, May 29, 1899, p. 3; a robbery: “Even Took His Teeth,” Decatur Review, Nov. 23, 1903, p. 8; “Two Arrested,” Daily Review (Decatur), Nov. 24, 1903, p. 8; “Carter Arrested for Selling,” Decatur Review, Jan. 27, 1904, p. 5.

  11 a stunning 150 times: “Events of 1903 in Decatur in Short Sentences,” Decatur Herald, Jan. 5, 1904, p. 2; a “cakewalk” party: “Tip’s Cake Walk,” Decatur Herald, July 2, 1902, p. 5. Tip Carter was even the local Republican Party’s nominee for pound master, the city official responsible for the management of loose livestock (“Republican Ticket,” Daily Review [Decatur], Mar. 18, 1903, p.2).

  11 “It is a noticeable fact”: “Capture a Crap Game,” Herald-Dispatch (Decatur), Jan. 13, 1897, p. 4.

  12 evening of August 15, 1914: “Married,” Decatur Review, Aug. 17, 1914, p. 12; Church of the Living God: “Barbecue,” Decatur Review, July 10, 1914, p. 14; “using bad language”: “Is Fined $6.30,” Decatur Review, June 22, 1916, p. 11; altercation with a police officer: “Chauffeur Talked Back to Policeman,” Daily Review (Decatur), Apr. 1, 1910, p. 1.

  12 born in June of the following year: “LeRoy Pryor Jr.,” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 2, 1968; “grand ball”: “Claimed Wife Attended Ball,” Decatur Herald, Dec. 6, 1915, p. 12; another assault charge: Decatur Herald, Apr. 3, 1917, p. 10.

  13 carrying a revolver: Decatur Review, May 27, 1917, p. 5.

  13 struck him on the head with a common hammer: “Wife’s Hammer,” Decatur Review, Mar. 10, 1904, p. 7; “on a ripsnorter”: “Dick Carter in Trouble,” Decatur Herald, Dec. 8, 1905, p. 5. Julia Carter may have been something of a hell-raiser herself: at one point her husband had her arrested for disturbing the peace (Decatur Review, March 10, 1904, p. 10).

  13 A madam herself: “Donahue Pleads Not Guilty,” Decatur Review, Feb. 10, 1914, p. 10; pressed assault charges: “Colored Woman Stabs Her ‘Hubby,’” Decatur Review, Mar. 23, 1916, p. 4; “the only time” . . . Jim shot an elderly man: “Last Escapade for Jim Carter,” Decatur Review, Feb. 13, 1919, p. 4; “Why wait until they kill?”: “Why Wait Until They Kill?,” Decatur Review, Feb. 14, 1919, p. 6; filed for divorce: Decatur Review, Oct. 19, 1919, p. 11. More on Jim Carter’s assault and criminal record can be found at People v. James Carter, Case No. 9046, Circuit Court, Macon County, IL (1919).

  14 year-old baby: “LeRoy Pryor Jr.,” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 2, 1968 (Pryor’s father was born June 7, 1915); “gathering of the colored brethren”: “Got Affectionate with Baby,” Daily Review (Decatur), Nov. 19, 1916, p. 1.

  14 Marie and Roy had three more children together: Birthdates of Marie’s children are from 1920 U.S. Federal Census (Population Schedule), Decatur Township, Macon County, IL, ED 143, Sheet 1b, Family 16, Household 18, 448 E. Orchard St., Roy Pryor household; 1930 U.S. Federal Census (Population Schedule), Precinct 31, Decatur City, Decatur Township, Macon County, IL, ED 58-33, Sheet 16b, Family 32B, Household 342, 1604 East Sangamon St., Thomas Bryan household; But then Julia died, on May 4, 1921: Daily Review (Decatur), May 4, 1921, p. 14; a sting on their home: “Seven Colored Men Arrested,” Decatur Review, Jan. 5, 1919, p. 8.

  14 Marie filed for divorce: “Asks Divorce,” Decatur Review, Apr. 20, 1922, p. 16; cook at a restaurant: “Indictment for Nick Economos,” Decatur Review, Oct. 18, 1925, p. 25; “Dismiss Economos Case,” Decatur Herald, Nov. 20, 1925, p. 3.

  15 grand larceny: “One Prisoner of Fourteen Pleads Guilty,” Decatur Herald, June 6, 1928, p. 3; “Pryor and Storey Given Probation,” Decatur Daily Review, July 7, 1928, p. 10; she went back to her maiden name: “Three Are Arrested in Raid Sunday Night,” Decatur Herald, Oct. 14, 1929, p. 5.

  15 He had married his first wife: “Divorcees Are Given Warning,” Decatur Herald, June 7, 1927, p. 2; three months on the Vandalia prison farm: “Police Notes,” Decatur Daily Review, Feb. 16, 1927, p. 13; milked cows and grew corn: Charles L. Clark and Earle Edward Eubank, Lockstep and Corridor: Thirty-Five Years of Prison Life (Cincinnati, OH: University of Cincinnati Press, 1927), p. 130.

  15 fighting with another black woman: “Police Notes,” Decatur Review, Aug. 21, 1919, p. 8; Jazz Bone Minstrel Company: The Mike Douglas Show, aired Nov. 29, 1974.

  16 crushed between two train cars: “Richard Carter Dies of Injuries,” Daily Review (Decatur), Sept. 20, 1925, p. 11; family legend: Pryor Convictions, p. 18. Richard Carter is misidentified as Pryor’s grandfather “LeRoy Pryor” in the family legend, though the circumstances of the death fit exactly with his great-grandfather’s accident on the job.

  16 a swing city: “Saloons Win with Record Vote Cast,” Decatur Daily Review, Apr. 6, 1910, p. 1; “Jail Terms End Reign of Booze,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan. 24, 1915, p. 3; “canned heat” . . . the Sterno trash mounds . . . loaf of bread: “New Generation of Criminals, New Kind of Crime Has Developed during Last Decade, Chief Wills Has Found,” Decatur Herald, May 27, 1928, p. 25. On Prohibition more generally, see Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (New York: Scribner, 2010).

  16 It didn’t take much . . . “buffet flat”: Okrent, Last Call, p. 208; a raid on her home: “Three Are Arrested in Raid Sunday Night,” p. 5.

  17 she pleaded not guilty: “Boy Slapped, Woman Routs Proprietor of Confectionary”; struck back with a countercharge of assault: “Tit for Tat,” Decatur Herald, Nov. 4, 1929, p. 16; “Three Arrested on Assault Charges,” Decatur Herald, Nov. 5, 1929, p. 5.

  17 Marie eventually lost in court: “Woman Fined $50 on Assault Charge,” Decatur Herald, Nov. 13, 1929, p. 3.

  18 factory payrolls plunging: Richard J. Jensen, Illinois: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978), pp. 124–25; Class war broke out: Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 160; blacks who held on to work: author’s interview with Allen Pryor, Nov. 10, 2010.

  18 “Diamond Lil,” a stout black madam: “Peoriana” binder, Peoriana collection, Peoria Public Library, pp. 2342–43; Norman V. Kelly, “Miss Diamond Lil’,” News & Views (Peoria), Feb. 2011, p. A18; “largest and liveliest black and tan resort”: “‘Diamond Lil’ Found in Cell; Keeps Silence,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Dec. 27, 1931, p. 9; “She Refuses to Tell of Drainage Board Whoopee,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Dec. 28, 1931, p. 26.

  18 located at 200 Eaton Street: Legend of photograph of Eaton Street, c. 1920, in personal collection; 130 Eaton: Polk’s Peoria City Directory (1936), p. 716; “sinkhole of midwestern vice”: “Peoria Vice Hit by Government,” The Christian Century, March 18, 1942, p. 362.

  19 the Bumboat: John Bartlow Martin, “The Town That Reformed,” The Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 1, 1955, p. 27.

  Chapter 2: The Backside of Life

  20 “Sweet as far-off bugle note”: Edna Dean Proctor, Poems (Cambridge, MA: H. O. Houghton and Company, 1890), p. 64; On the vaudeville circuit . . . “I spent four years there one night”: George H. Scheetz, “Peoria,” in Edward Callary, ed., Place Names in the Midwestern United States (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press), pp. 43–70; “it rained all week”: John M. Sumansky, “Peoria: The Growth and Development of a River Town,” in Daniel Milo Johnson and Rebecca Monroe Veach, eds., The Middle-Size Cities of Illinois: Their People, Politics, and Quality of Life (Springfield, IL: Sangamon State University, 1980), p. 137.

  21 “the rube and the boob”: Elise Morrow, “Peoria,” The Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 12, 1949, p. 20; America’s most unchecked sin city: On sin cities, see Mara Keire, For Business and Pleasure: Red-light Districts and the Regulation of Vice in the United States, 1890–1933 (
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010; “talk[ed] about corruption”: Martin, “The Town That Reformed,” p. 27; divorced at a rate: Clarence Wesley Schroeder, Divorce in a City of 100,000 Population (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1939), pp. 7–9.

  21 “city of good spirits”: Morrow, “Peoria,” pp. 20–21; whiskey tax: “Peoria Is Busier Than Ever, but It’s Much Drier,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 8, 1926, p. 4; half the federal government’s internal revenue: Jerry Klein, “Made in Peoria: The Birth of Industry,” Peoria Magazine, Jan. 2011.

  21 city of violent contrasts: Morrow, “Peoria,” pp. 20–21, 119.

  22 outhouses: 1950 United States Census of Housing, Peoria, Illinois Block Statistics, 1950 Housing Report, Vol. 5, Part 142 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952).

  22 “Don’t bother my racket”: “This Was Peoria,” Peoria Journal Star, Apr. 15, 1956, p. A8.

  22 it had the votes: Ed Woodruff . . . . “Peoria likes to live”: “Illinois: By the River,” Time, Feb. 26, 1945, p. 17; “bums cluttered its steps”: Betty Friedan, “Now They’re Proud of Peoria,” Reader’s Digest, Aug. 1955, p. 93.

  22 “wide open as the gateway to hell” . . . the sex trade: “Old Peoria? As Wide Open as the Gateway to Hell,” Peoria Journal, Apr. 14, 1956, p. 1.

  23 “When I had left Chicago”: Anonymous with John Bartlow Martin, My Life in Crime: The Autobiography of a Professional Criminal (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952), p. 219.

  23 Madams . . . register their girls: “Old Peoria: Fixed Cops, Gang Murders, Wholesale Kidnappings,” Peoria Journal, Apr. 15, 1956; by a doctor for venereal disease: “This Was Peoria,” p. A8; twenty dollars a month . . . “Special Miscellaneous”: Wayne Slater, “Oldest Profession Amateurish Now,” Peoria Journal Star, Nov. 2, 1980, p. D1; newsstands and neighborhood drugstores: “This Was Peoria,” p. A8; even near local schools: “Old Peoria? As Wide Open,” p. 1.

  23 its black residents: Romeo B. Garrett, The Negro in Peoria (Peoria, IL: self-published, 1973), pp. 80, 93–95. Like many northern cities before World War II: On segregation in the North, see Thomas Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008).

  24 a city of grudging compromises: Garrett, The Negro in Peoria, pp. 47–48, 93–94; There might be black policemen: Author’s interview with John Timmes, May 15, 2011; could not arrest white people: Author’s interview with Loren Cornish, May 19, 2011.

  24 “queen of Peoria’s half world”: “Underworld—Women,” Peoriana collection, Peoria Public Library, pp. 2335–42.

  25 butcher . . . chauffeur . . . entertainer: Polk’s Peoria Directory (St. Louis: Polk, 1938), pp. 79, 392; elevator operator: Polk’s Peoria Directory (St. Louis: Polk, 1941), p. 127; “the backside of life”: Maureen Orth, “The Perils of Richard Pryor,” Newsweek, Oct. 3, 1977, p. 62. Unlike Marie’s other children, her son William does not appear to have become involved in the businesses she ran.

  25 over two hundred pounds: Author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, July 9, 2010; Golden Gloves boxing tournament: “LeRoy Pryor Jr.,” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 2, 1968; recruiting the girls and the johns: Author’s interview with Allen Pryor, Nov. 10, 2010; six feet tall . . . six foot two: Author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, July 9, 2010

  25 “Don’t mess with my money” . . . whites were not to be harassed: Ibid.; her straight razor . . . “a lot of men”: Author’s interview with David Sprattling, July 16, 2010; author’s interview with Rob Cohen, Aug. 18, 2010; customary 50 percent: Anonymous, My Life in Crime, p. 222; upgraded to a pistol: Author’s interview with Sharon Wilson Pryor, Dec. 15, 2010.

  26 “I’ll put my twelves”: Author’s interview with Barbara McGee, Dec. 14, 2010.

  26 “I was raised to hate cops”: James McPherson, “The New Comic Style of Richard Pryor,” New York Times Magazine, Apr. 27, 1975, p. 34; “all the political people”: Felton, “This Can’t Be Happening to Me,” p. 44; “As fast as they would come in”: Author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, July 9, 2010.

  26 One of Richard’s neighbors recalled: Author’s interviews with Rosalyn Taylor, Nov. 30, 2010, and Dec. 2, 2010.

  26 background of Richard Pryor’s mother: 1930 U.S. Federal Census (Population Schedule), Pilot Township, Vermilion County, IL, Robert Thomas household; A more attainable sort of glamour: Edie Harris, e-mail communication with author, Nov. 11, 2010.

  27 the Thomas family relocated to Peoria: Polk’s Peoria Directory (St. Louis, Mo.: Polk, 1940), p. 572; Polk’s Peoria Directory (St. Louis, Mo.: Polk, 1941), pp. 651, 821; Gertrude was light-skinned: Description of Gertrude taken from photograph in author’s possession; Peoria madams preferred: Anonymous, My Life in Crime, p. 224; the professional name of Hildegarde: Rovin, Richard Pryor, p. 12.

  27 And what did Gertrude see: Description of Buck taken from photographs in author’s possession.

  28 “If I Didn’t Care”: Phil Doubet, My Pryor Year: A 333 Soul Anthology (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2006), p. 552; wooed another woman who would carry his child: Author’s interview with Barbara McGee, Dec. 14, 2010.

  28 Marie took Gertrude’s side: Rovin, Richard Pryor, p. 13.

  28 Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor: “Births,” Peoria Daily Record, Dec. 4, 1940.

  28 “I wish” . . . “made it her job”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 15, 20. In interviews, Pryor often referred to both Gertrude and his stepmother Ann as his “mother.” This has bred some confusion among previous biographers. Gertrude was largely out of his life after his parents’ divorce, when he was five; Ann was a presence in his life for almost twenty years, from the late 1940s until her death in 1967. Biographers have tended to conflate the two in a single portrait of a mother who worked for his grandmother as a prostitute, but Gertrude’s life as a prostitute seems to have been considerably briefer than Ann’s, and Ann appears to have worked largely for Richard’s father in the 1950s and ’60s.

  Previous biographers (and even Pryor himself) have also made the understandable mistake of identifying Gertrude as a bookkeeper: there was another “Gertrude Thomas,” who is found in Peoria directories well before Pryor’s mother arrived in town and who is listed as a bookkeeper and accountant, but I’ve found no evidence that points to Pryor’s mother working in that profession as well.

  28 “At least Gertrude”: Pryor Convictions, p. 20.

  29 “I chose you, so be cool”: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, aired July 21, 1978 (NBC); four more, by four different women: Author’s interview with Sharon Wilson Pryor, May 13, 2011.

  29 Caterpillar jumped into high gear: Klein, “Made in Peoria”; the opening of nearby Camp Ellis: Camp Ellis brochure in author’s possession; so many soldiers: Mary Watters, Illinois in the Second World War, Vol. 1: Operation Home Front (Springfield, IL: State of Illinois, 1951), p. 163.

  29 Regional military officials noticed: William McLinden, “Report U.S. Plans to Close City to Men on Leave Unless Prostitution Is Checked,” Peoria Journal-Transcript, Jan. 28, 1942; “Carson Orders Resorts Closed,” Peoria Journal-Transcript, Mar. 5, 1942; “Peoria Vice Hit by Government,” p. 362; “Why Peoria’s Vice District Must Go!”: Peoria Junior Chamber of Commerce poster, Junior Chamber of Commerce materials, Peoria Public Library; a form of wartime sabotage: “Vice Termed Sabotage,” Peoria Star, Dec. 7, 1943, p. 3. On military efforts to curb venereal disease during World War II, see Allan Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 161–70; the foxlike Mayor Woodruff: “Council-Mayor Fight Widens as New Edict on Vice Is Ignored,” Peoria Journal-Transcript, Dec. 17, 1941; “Council Votes Cleanup Power,” Peoria Journal-Transcript, Dec. 1, 1943, p. 5; a two-hundred-dollar instead of a five-dollar fine: “Police Ordered to Enforce Ban,” Peoria Journal-Transcript, Nov. 30, 1943, p. 13.

  30 They jacked up their prices: Anonymous, My Life in Crime, p. 223; his grandmother had her own strategy for skimming: Murphy, “Richard Pryor,” p. 28.
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  30 A good number of Camp Ellis men were black: Author’s interview with Allen Pryor.

  30 Buck married Gertrude: “Marriage Licenses,” Peoria Daily Record, Dec. 28, 1943, p. 4; practical concerns: John Modell, Into One’s Own: From Youth to Adulthood in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 185–86; fifty-dollar . . . ten-thousand-dollar life insurance policy: Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life (New York: Free Press, 1988), pp. 154, 168.

  31 the Peoria newspapers announced: see, for instance, Peoria Star, Dec. 24, 1943.

  31 as early as 1931: “Arrest Four Negroes in Wabash Sand House,” Decatur Herald, Mar. 17, 1931; One intriguing detail: “Final Payment Roll, Voucher No. 1904, Fort Devens, Mass., 19-035, July 25, 1944,” National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, MO. LeRoy Pryor’s full army record was lost in a fire, so we will likely never know the full circumstances under which he left the service.

  32 On the afternoon of February 12, 1945: “Ellis Sergeant Slugged, Robbed,” Peoria Journal-Transcript, Feb. 13, 1945, p. 13; Buck was indicted by a grand jury: State of Illinois, Peoria County v. Fred Pinkerton and LeRoy Pryor, Peoria County Circuit Clerk, Peoria, IL (Feb. 12, 1945).

  32 worked together at the Famous Door: Richard Pryor school records, Peoria school district (in author’s possession) (hereafter “Pryor school records”); Typically, in the heat of argument: Author’s interview with Allen Pryor; Gertrude’s divorce papers: “Bill of Complaint,” Gertrude Pryor v. Leroy Pryor, Gen. No. 30372, Peoria County Clerk’s Office archives, n.p. (Jan. 1946). “Gertrude drank a lot”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 20, 23.