Becoming Richard Pryor
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129 fifteen dollars a set: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, May 23, 2010; “I was the craziest of the crazies”: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, July 17, 2010; His friends . . . had groomed Bill Cosby: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, May 23, 2010.
129 “What Pryor needed most was a father figure”: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, July 17, 2010.
130 the Living Room: Harold H. Hart, Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing Company, n.d.), p. 899; “everything for the big time”: Richard Pryor: Comic on the Edge (A&E Biography, 1996). “half-assed show”: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, July 17, 2010; “walked out with our tails between our legs”: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, May 23, 2010; “avant garde viewpoint”: Variety, March 24, 1964.
130 attacked someone in the audience with a fork: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, July 17, 2010; threaten to skip his gigs . . . cab fare: Phil Berger, The Last Laugh (New York: William Morrow, 1975), p. 141; a second chance to impress: On Broadway Tonight. It’s hard to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that Pryor’s comedy routines were never broadcast on U.S. Army radio, as these radio broadcasts were not archived, but this is a claim that Pryor never repeated, to my knowledge.
135 they had tuned their TV: Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5.
135 Bitter End: Variety, Oct. 21, 1964; Café au Go-Go: Billboard, Sept. 19, 1964; Variety, May 5, 1965.
136 “self-imposed curb” . . . “a racial balancing”: New York Times, Feb. 4, 1964, p. 32; Clarence Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); middle ground . . . seemed to be disappearing: On the fraying black-white civil rights coalition in New York City in 1963–64, see Tamar Jacoby, Someone Else’s House: America’s Unfinished Struggle for Integration (New York: Free Press, 1998), pp. 15–32; Daniel Perlstein, Justice, Justice: School Politics and the Eclipse of Liberalism (New York: Peter Lang, 2004), pp. 101–5; the shooting of a black ninth-grader: Fred C. Shapiro and James W. Sullivan, Race Riots, New York, 1964 (New York: Crowell, 1964).
136 “[The artist] is a man”: LeRoi Jones, Home: Social Essays (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1998 [1966]), p. 183.
136 a prominent voice of black radical disenchantment: Lorraine Hansberry, “The Black Revolution and the White Backlash,” National Guardian, July 4, 1964, pp. 5–7; Amiri Baraka, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones (Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, 1997), p. 278.
136 introduced Richard to Jones: E-mail communication with Henry Jaglom, Aug. 31, 2011; author’s interview with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010.
138 “Reality is best dealt with”: Author’s interview with Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Jan. 25, 2011; Sylviane Gold, “Richard Pryor Finds a Lot Not to Laugh About,” New York Post, Aug. 6, 1977, p. 32.
138 Malcolm X was assassinated: Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (New York: Viking, 2011), p. 436; “[b]ack in the homeland”: Baraka, Autobiography of LeRoi Jones, p. 295.
138 the freedom to date white women: According to Pryor’s friend and neighbor in his New York days, Pryor “never went with chocolate” when it came to romance (author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012).
138 Maxine Silverman: Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011.
139 the cutest white girl” . . . “grooved right along”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 77–78.
140 classy doorman building: Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012.
140 high drama: Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011; “white lady”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 75–81; author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11 2010.
140 Maxine got the last jab: Pryor Convictions, pp. 80–81; author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012.
141 they considered themselves . . . husband and wife: Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011. There is some dispute as to whether Maxine Silverman and Richard Pryor were “really” married. In later interviews, Pryor did not count her among his wives. But according to their daughter, Elizabeth, the two referred to each other as husband and wife when they were together—a judgment confirmed by an Ebony profile from September 1967, in which Pryor claimed to be married (“Beyond Laughter,” Ebony, Sept. 1967, p. 90).
141 calling card as a comic: “George Carlin Interview,” Archive of American Television, accessed at http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/george-carlin.
142 “My name is Rumpelstiltskin”: Kraft Summer Music Hall, Aug. 8, 1966 (audio in author’s possession).
143 Richard looked young: Photograph of Pryor on The Ed Sullivan Show in author’s possession. Tellingly, when Pryor remembered his first encounter with Lenny Bruce, he recalled being blown away not by Bruce’s obscene language—the connection many critics use to link the two—but by his affectionate impersonation of a kid who couldn’t help but reveal his deepest desires. In the Bruce sketch, the kid, a glue-sniffer, goes to a toy store and can’t bring himself to order airplane glue outright, so he buys a clutch of random things (a nickel’s worth of pencils, some Jujubes) before asking for two thousand tubes of airplane glue. Pryor Convictions, pp. 71–72; Lenny Bruce, “Airplane Glue,” Lenny Bruce—American (Fantasy Records, 1961).
143 more than twenty appearances: Fields, “Kook from Peoria,” p. 19; General Artists Corporation: Author’s interview with Craig Kellem, Nov. 5, 2010.
144 “lean, literate, quick-witted”: Fields, “Kook from Peoria” p. 19; “most elastic face in show business”: “TV Previews,” Milwaukee Journal, Nov. 7, 1966; “stormed by teen-agers”: “New York Beat,” Jet, Sept. 23, 1965, p. 64.
144 the police were cracking down: “Prostitution Down from Year Ago, Survey Unit Says,” Peoria Journal Star, Dec. 2, 1965; “Open City’s Merry-Go-Round Never Stopped,” Peoria Journal Star, Jan. 26, 1986; where Peoria’s brothels had migrated: Bill Mitchell, “ ’70s Reform Took Its Toll, but These Days a New Fear Emerges from the Shadows,” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 3, 1993, p. A1.
144 Sheriff Ray Trunk: “Guilty Verdict in Trial of Alleged ‘Madam,’” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 6, 1965; “Appellate Court Upholds Vice Count Conviction, Sentence,” Peoria Journal Star, Sept. 24, 1966; “Upholds Ruling in Vice Case,” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 3, 1967.
144 another impromptu raid: “Prostitution Counts Name 5 Defendants,” Peoria Journal Star, Sept. 19, 1965; “5 of 10 Vice Raid Counts Dismissed,” Peoria Journal Star, Nov. 10, 1965.
145 not so fortunate: “Guilty Verdict in Trial of Alleged ‘Madam’”; attending night school: “Convicted Madam Out as Student,” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 8, 1965; People of the State of Illinois v. Viola Ann Pry [sic] (alias Jane Doe), Case No. 65A 1463, Peoria County Circuit Court (Oct. 6, 1965), handwritten note in case file.
145 Ramrod-straight Peoria: “Convicted Madam Out as Student”; “Convicted Madam Draws 1 Year Term,” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 27, 1965.
145 headlining the Blue Angel: “Refreshing Comic Graces Blue Angel,” Chicago Daily Defender, Nov. 1, 1965, p. 20; “Sure enough”: Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5.
146 twenty thousand in cash: Pryor Convictions, p. 103. Buck and Ann’s new home at 1319 Millman was purchased between Richard’s 1965 date at the Blue Angel and his October 1966 visit to Peoria.
Chapter 9: An Irregular Regular
147 in a West Hollywood high-rise: Author’s interviews with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010, and Jan. 8, 2011; little known outside certain bohemian circles: Jay Stevens, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (New York: Grove Press, 1998).
147 a set of gigs down the hill at the Troubadour: Advertisement, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 17, 2012, p. Q23; a hotbed of the new comedy: Barney Hoskyns, Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes, and the Sound of Los Angeles (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); Barney Hoskyns, Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons,
1967–1976 (New York: HarperCollins, 2007). Pryor’s time in LA seemed to loosen him up a bit: at the Troub, he started cracking jokes about smoking weed—speculating, for instance, on what would happen if a pilot started “flying high in the friendly skies” (author’s interview with Harvey Levine, Jan. 22, 2012).
147 Later that night: Author’s interviews with Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010, and Jan. 8, 2011.
148 How differently these two friends traveled: Eight years after he dropped acid with Jaglom, Pryor began to perform a stand-up routine about the first time he took acid, one in which the person who gives Pryor the drug is merely a generic white hippie—a revision to his life story that reflects both the dissolution of his friendship with Jaglom and Pryor’s engagement with a certain strain of black radicalism in the interim. For more on Pryor’s routine, see chapter 17.
148 writing new material constantly: Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012; Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Michael Jackson: Claudia Eller, “Managing in Turbulent Times,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 1994, p. 8; “What are you going to do with him?”: Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11, 2010;.
149 “I cannot call a waitress”: The Merv Griffin Show: The Greatest Comedians, 2006, DVD.
149 His “Cary Grant” thing: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired July 25, 1966; The Merv Griffin Show: The Greatest Comedians.
149 Jerry Lewis movies in marathon sessions: Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012; “the first man on the sun”: Author’s interview with Renee Taylor, Dec. 15, 2011; Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired Aug. 8, 1966; “Man on the Sun,” Holy Smoke, Laff Records A212, 1976; “shark-fighting championship”: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired June 6, 1966; “Japanese robot who’s a karate expert”: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired Aug. 8, 1966.
150 “Novocaine Martinovich”: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired June 6, 1966.
150 “unraveled”: Dorothy Ferenbaugh, “Merv Griffin: Man of 1,000 Faces,” New York Times, July 18, 1965, p. X15; “I just want to thank you”: Merv Griffin with David Bender, Merv: Making the Good Life Last (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), pp. 58–59.
151 he invited British philosopher Bertrand Russell: Bernard M. Timberg with Robert J. Erler, Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), pp. 76–77; a direct pipeline: Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012; author’s interview with Burt Heyman, Oct. 21, 2011.
151 “impression of my sweater talking to my ass”: “Sick,” Outrageous; “five hundred guys would be in there”: Pryor, “Nudie Movies,” Insane, Laff Records A209, 1976 (hereafter Insane).
151 “Did you hear the one about”: “Did Ya Hear the One About,” Insane.
152 “You ever take a long ride”: Author’s interview with Bob Altman, Oct. 21, 2010.
152 “I would like to make you laugh”: “Intro,” Are You Serious???; “I would like to make you”: “The Operation,” Outrageous.
152 “This is a game” . . . “Why don’t you go to Vegas?”: “Improv, Part I,” Evolution/Revolution.
153 so thrilled: Pryor Convictions, pp. 73–74.
153 “making faces and all kinds of funny sounds”: Jerry Butler with Earl Smith, Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 196, 198. The management at the Apollo waited almost a full decade to bring Richard back to its stage (Marie Moore, “Richard Pryor: The Funniest of Them All,” New York Amsterdam News, May 4, 1974, p. D8).
154 March 1966: E-mail communication with Nathan Thomas, Merv Griffin Entertainment, July 13, 2010; “Hey, Zorro!”: “Only in America interview”; Pryor, “Interview” (1983); . . . And It’s Deep Too!.
154 mother and father both were Baptist ministers: James Sullivan, Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin (New York: Da Capo Press, 2010), pp. 75–76; “showcase of rising young stars” . . . “spontaneous and multitalented”: NBC publicity material in author’s possession.
154 where he could more easily audition: Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11, 2010.
155 He journeyed out to LA: Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011; officially filed in Peoria County Court: “Complaint for Divorce.” In the complaint, Richard accused Patricia of having “committed adultery with divers other unknown male persons” and argued that she was “not a fit person to have the care, custody, control . . . of the education” of Richard Jr.—perhaps an opening gambit in the negotiations over alimony, as it seems unlikely that Richard wished to have custody of Richard Jr.
155 dumping a suitcase of clothes: Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011.
155 Ferrari Drive: Ibid.; Richard Pryor FBI file, memo dated June 29, 1970; “Consumer Credit Clearance,” Richard Pryor FBI file, memo dated June 8, 1970; a black population of 1 percent: Report 3: Social Indicators for Planning and Evaluation, 1980 Census of Population, Beverly Hills City, California (Beverly Hills, CA: National Technical Information Service, 1982), p. 1; Baldwin Hills: Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 161–62, 190.
155 “like oil to water”: “Bottoms Up,” Time, Apr. 3, 1964; befriended Hanson and his wife, Sally: Author’s interview with Zalman King, Aug. 18, 2010; William Murray, “Jack Hanson, the Man behind the Daisy,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 16, 1967, p. A22.
156 “The Daisy, on any given night”: Dan Jenkins, “Life with the Jax Pack,” Sports Illustrated, July 10, 1967.
157 “sensational catch”: Nancy Adler, “Sunday Batters Score in the Affluence League,” New York Times, July 4, 1966, p. 11; Jenkins, “Life with the Jax Pack”; author’s interview with James B. Harris, July 30, 2010.
157 joked with Sandy Gallin: Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11, 2010; skipped rehearsals . . . “really in his own world”: Author’s interview with John Davidson, May 9, 2011.
158 cross-eyed: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired June 6, 1966; medley of “river songs”: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired Aug. 8, 1966; children’s circle games: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired July 25, 1966.
159 “Rumpelstiltskin,” the pantomimes: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired Aug. 8, 1966; pickup artist: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired July 25, 1966.
159 “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”: Kraft Summer Music Hall, aired Aug. 1, 1966.
159 the singer Bobby Darin: Pryor had long been captivated by Darin as a performer: he did an imitation of Darin in his early act. See “Pryor,” Cause Magazine, n.d., p. 57 (Richard Pryor file, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS). On Darin, see Michael Starr, Bobby Darin: A Life (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004); David Evanier, Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010 [2004]); David Hadju, Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture (Cambridge, MA: DaCapo Press, 2009), pp. 45–49.
160 $2,400 a week: Pryor Convictions, pp. 83–84.
161 “the constellation Talent” . . . “wing-dang-doodle” . . . head-turning celebrity summit: Invitation and photographs in author’s possession; his wife, Sandra Dee, had filed for divorce: “Sandra Dee Files Suit to Divorce Bobby Darin,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 13, 1966, p. B8; uncomfortable with all the attention: Pryor Convictions, pp. 83–84.
161 “the god of comedy”: The Merv Griffin Show, aired Aug. 1, 1966.
161 “Young man, you’re a comic?”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 84–85.
162 “as big a thrill”: Ibid., p. 83; Caesars Palace: Margaret Malamud and Donald T. McGuire Jr., “Living Like Romans in Las Vegas: The Roman World at Caesars Palace,” in Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire Jr., eds., Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 249–55.
162 basking in an air: Pryor Convictions, p. 83; on the Flamingo and Vegas in this era, see Mike Weatherford, Cult Veg
as: The Weirdest! The Wildest! The Swingin’est Town on Earth! (Las Vegas, NV: Huntington Press, 2001); Jeff Burbank, Las Vegas Babylon (London: Robson Books, 2006); Hal Rothman and Mike Davis, eds., The Grit beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); demolished the all-time attendance record: Joy Hamann, “Wheeling around Las Vegas,” The Hollywood Reporter, Aug. 29, 1966, p. 4.
162 “wonderfully kookie style”: “Nitery Reviews,” Variety, Aug. 22, 1966, p. 6; “It’s uncanny”: Pryor Convictions, p. 83.
163 Back in LA: “Dick Pryor’s ‘Busy’ Bow,” Daily Variety, Sept. 15, 1966; “Comic Pryor Signs for Movie Role,” Chicago Daily Defender, Oct. 5, 1966.
163 “tiptoe[ing]”: Pryor Convictions, p. 85; Acting in a film didn’t come as naturally: Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5; “I did every actor”: Rovin, Richard Pryor, p. 66.
163 “tasteless Runyonesque rehash”: “To Bury Caesar,” Time, June 9, 1967; “Producer-director William Castle”: Clifford Terry, “‘Busy Body’ Film Is Gangster Spoof,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 4, 1967, p. E11.
163 fall 1966 premiere: “Night of the Eccentrics,” The Wild, Wild West, aired Sept. 16, 1966.
164 “For real-life stuff”: “Telepix Reviews,” Daily Variety, Sept. 19, 1966, p. 12.
164 for the first time since he’d left: Pryor Convictions, pp. 85–86; conquering hero . . . cops who had treated him: Pack, “History of Negro Humor on Special,” p. 14; “the thrill of our son”: Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5; he played cards: Pryor Convictions, pp. 85–86.
164 the Pere Marquette hotel: Author’s interview with Joe Mosley, Dec. 10, 2010.
164 “It’s a sham”: Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5.
164 “I can walk two blocks”: Ibid.
Chapter 10: The Person in Question
166 “If America don’t come around”: H. Rap Brown speech at Cambridge, Maryland, July 24, 1967, archived at http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2200/sc2221/000012/000008/media/00080003.mp3; Peter B. Levy, Civil War on Race Street: The Civil Rights Movement in Cambridge, Maryland (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2003). Ironically, the flames in Cambridge ended up consuming a great number of black-owned businesses.