Becoming Richard Pryor

by Scott Saul

  212 demanded to see the commanding officer: Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11, 2010; his zany “Kill Class” routine: Operation: Entertainment, WABC-TV, Dec. 20, 1968 (in author’s possession).

  213 wished people could play his first album’s cover: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Dec. 28, 2010; didn’t even crack the Top 100: Liner notes, Evolution/Revolution, p. 18; co-owner of the album’s imprint: “W-7 to Distribute the Dome Label,” Billboard, Nov. 23, 1968, p. 3. Billboard’s misconstruing Dove Records as Dome Records in its announcement of the imprint’s arrival was inauspicious, and prophetically so. Richard Pryor (Dove RS 6325) appears to have been the only record released on the imprint. The album did not chart until November 1973, four years after its original release, when it climbed to forty-one on the R&B chart.

  213 why . . . had he gotten so little money up front?: Author’s interview with Robert Marchese, Mar. 1, 2011.

  213 pistol-whipped his manager: Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11, 2010; For a while afterward: Ibid.

  214 “Let’s all get in bed”: Paul Mooney, Black Is the New White (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), pp. 10–13; Pryor Convictions, p. 90. Pryor remembered his invitation as “Let’s take off all our clothes and have an orgy!”

  214 Mooney was raised: Mooney, Black Is the New White, pp. 39, 51.

  215 “I get Mooney’s share”: Ibid., pp. 18–19.

  215 “a black Playboy Mansion”: Carla Rivera, “A Distinction of Note for a Musical Landmark,” Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2000, p. 1; Steve Kawashima, “Historic Night Life Echoes at Maverick’s Flat,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 25, 2000; “A Place of Daring Vision,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 20, 1971, pp. 21, 126; beauty pageants: Los Angeles Times, Aug. 30, 1970, p. L37; casting calls: Mary Murphy, “Movie Call Sheet,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 26, 1972, p. E28; redevelopment of the ghetto: “Plans Offered for 2,000 Watts Jobs,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 20, 1967, p. E8; “Psychedelic Shack”: Ericka Blount Danois, Love, Peace and Soul: Behind the Scenes of America’s Favorite Dance Show Soul Train (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 2013).

  216 small black Derringer: Starr, Black and Blue, pp. 85–92; “ran the club like a gangster”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 98–99; “an aisle”: Starr, Black and Blue, p. 87; a comic with his wits: Ibid.; “I loved getting on that stage”: Joe X. Price, Redd Foxx, B.S. (Before Sanford) (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1979), p. 85; “coke Olympics”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 98–99

  216 his two favorite words: Mooney, Black Is the New White, p. 25; “Say, nigger” . . . “Niggers nowadays”: “After Hours” and “Wino Panthers,” ‘Craps.’

  217 “had an act”: Russ Wilson, “Pryor Serves Up a Fun Assortment,” Oakland Tribune, Mar. 31, 1969, p. 14; Starr, Black and Blue, p. 90.

  217 In a dope-fueled brainstorming session: Pryor Convictions, pp. 106–7.

  218 Black Sun: C. Verne Bloch, “Richard Pryor Returns to Peoria Stage,” Peoria Journal Star, Mar. 9, 1969, p. B1.

  218 Roth remembered him wandering: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, July 27, 2010. In the September 1967 Ebony profile of Pryor, he is shown training a camera that appears to be a sixteen-millimeter Bolex upon the brown coils left by a neighbor’s dog; new types of low-budget movies: Marshall Fine, Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented American Independent Film (New York: Hyperion, 2005); David K. Frasier, Russ Meyer: The Life and Films (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 1990); Yannis Tzioumakis, American Independent Cinema: An Introduction (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006); Chris Nashawaty, Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses: Roger Corman, King of the B Movie (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2013).

  218 his involvement with the AIP film: “Night Club Comic Joins Stellar Stars in AIP’s ‘Wild in the Streets,’” exhibitor manual for Wild in the Streets, Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley, CA), p. 4.

  219 “cheap commodity”: Pauline Kael, “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” in For Keeps (New York: Dutton, 1994), p. 203. Ironically, the same film that inspired Pryor to rhapsodize about the technical perfection of American moviemaking was held up by Kael as an instance of trash cinema (whose vitality she appreciated).

  220 “What’s that stuff?”: Mooney, Black Is the New White, p. 89.

  220 “an angel is financing it”: Bloch, “Richard Pryor Returns to Peoria Stage,” p. B1.

  220 “House of Pain”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 111–12; Lady Cocaine: Pryor, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me, pp. 30–38; spent long nights: Pryor Convictions, pp. 111–12.

  221 she could invest her parents’ wedding present: Pryor, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me, pp. 31–32.

  221 Danny Kaye . . . Borscht Belt . . . The Watermelon Fantasy: Martin Gottfried, Nobody’s Fool: The Lives of Danny Kaye (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), pp. 17, 25.

  221 “a documentary . . . of black people”: Under the Covers.

  222 “White American, listen”: Mark Weiner, Black Trials: Citizenship from the Beginning of Slavery to the End of Caste (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), pp. 303–15.

  223 Richard began contributing concretely: “Black Panther Racial Matter,” Richard Pryor FBI file, Feb. 5, 1969. We have the FBI to thank for documenting his donation: as part of their surveillance of the Black Panther Party, they noted it in the file they opened on Richard. According to Pryor’s FBI file, the Panthers were somewhat disappointed by the scale of his support: they had anticipated that he would join the party and write them a ten-thousand-dollar check. special trip to Peoria: “Peoria Negro Comic Slated at Carver Center,” Peoria Journal Star, Feb. 25, 1969; headlined a Congress of Racial Equality fund-raiser: “CORE’s ‘Encore,’” New York Amsterdam News, May 17, 1969, p. 24; advertisement, New York Amsterdam News, May 24, 1969, p. 20; Alex Poinsett, “Ralph Innes: Nation Builder,” Ebony, Oct. 1969, pp. 170–76.

  223 a spiral notebook: Mooney, Black Is the New White, p. 92; “The film opened”: Pryor Convictions, p. 107.

  224 winos, and drug addicts: Hollie West, “Comic Pryor,” Washington Post, July 28, 1969, p. B5; author’s interview with Penelope Spheeris, Apr. 6, 2011.

  Chapter 13: Irreconcilable Differences

  225 “I’m looking for film students”: Author’s interview with Penelope Spheeris, Apr. 6, 2011.

  225 Shooting began in February 1969: Mooney, Black Is the New White, p. 92; author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 17, 2011; author’s interview with Penelope Spheeris, Apr. 6, 2011.

  226 one actor on the film recalled: Daryl Littelton, Black Comedians on Black Comedy: How African-Americans Taught Us to Laugh (New York: Applause Books, 2006), p. 135.

  226 “I can make whatever I want”: Bloch, “Richard Pryor Returns to Peoria Stage,” p. B1.

  226 The trip to Peoria: Ibid., pp. B1, B2.

  227 Gertrude had reentered the Pryor family circle: Author’s interview with Sharon Wilson Pryor, Dec. 15, 2010.

  227 “You’ve got it on her too long”: Jennifer Pryor, “Trouble Man,” Spin, May 1988, p. 49.

  227 “Hiya, mom”: Bloch, “Richard Pryor Returns to Peoria Stage,” p. B1; Two photographs hint: Photograph in author’s possession (courtesy of Barbara McGee).

  228 His old Carver mentor: Bloch, “Richard Pryor Returns to Peoria Stage,” p. B1; Nation of Islam: “Black Muslim Group Opens South Side Temple,” Peoria Journal Star, Feb. 5, 1968; “Afro-American Service Patrol”: “The Black Guards,” Peoria Journal Star, Dec. 11, 1968; Black high school students: Tom Edwards, “School Board Agrees to Race Meeting After Singing Sit-In Demonstration,” Peoria Journal Star, July 19, 1966; “200 Manual Students Walk Out of School for Protest March,” Peoria Journal Star, Nov. 9, 1967, p. D1; “Schools Free of Demonstrators,” Peoria Journal Star, Nov. 15, 1967, p. C1; Bradley University: Bernadine Martin, “BU Establishes Black Culture House, Sets Afro Degree Plan,” Peoria Journal Star, Mar. 7, 1969, p. B1; the Struts: Bloch, “Richard Pryor Returns to Peoria Stage,” p. B2.

  229 ABC had signed Spelling to create
: Aaron Spelling with Jefferson Graham, A Prime-Time Life (New York: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 79–81.

  230 “Season of Social Relevance”: Aniko Bodroghkozy, Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 199–235; Todd Gitlin, Inside Prime Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000 [1983]), pp. 203–20; Christine Acham, Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004); Donald Bogle, Prime Time Blues: African Americans on Network Television (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001); “The Connection,” The Mod Squad, aired Sept. 14, 1972 (ABC); “Soul Club,” The Partridge Family, aired Jan. 29, 1971 (ABC); The Young Lawyers, aired Oct. 28, 1969 (ABC); Carter’s Army, aired Jan. 27, 1970 (ABC).

  230 Carter’s Army was an exception: Pamela Haynes, “‘Carter’s Army,’ ABC Mini-Movie, Is Saga about Black GI’s at War,” Philadelphia Tribune, Jan. 31, 1970, p. 22.

  232 Negro Ensemble Company: Ellen Foreman, “The Negro Ensemble Company: A Transcendent Vision,” in Errol Hill, ed., The Theatre of Black Americans: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York: Applause, 1987), pp. 270–82; “We got to calling ourselves”: “No Time for Comedy for Comic Richard Pryor in Guest Star Role on ‘Movie of the Week,” ABC press release, Jan. 16, 1970, Richard Pryor clippings file, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library.

  232 “I play a coward”: Ibid.

  232 after the weather: Author’s interview with Penelope Spheeris, Apr. 6, 2011; For the first time: Pryor Convictions, p. 108.

  233 five days later: Pryor, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me, pp. 35–38.

  233 For twelve hours a day: Author’s interviews with Penelope Spheeris, Apr. 6, 2011, Apr. 11, 2011.

  233 “the White Lady”: Mooney, Black Is the New White, p. 88

  234 ran naked to his car . . . grabbed an extra coat: Author’s interview with Penelope Spheeris, Apr. 6, 2011; Pryor, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me, pp. 40–41.

  234 Penelope spliced back together: Author’s interview with Penelope Spheeris, Apr. 6, 2011; Pryor Convictions, p. 107.

  235 off-center, X-rated exercise: Melvin Van Peebles, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song: A Guerrilla Filmmaking Manifesto (New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2004 [1971]), pp. 91–92.

  235 “I liked it”: “Talking to the Secret Primps: An Interview with Richard Pryor,” Good Times, July 23, 1971, p. 12.

  235 citing “irreconcilable differences”: “Richard Pryor Sued for Divorce,” p. A1; “Ex-Peoria Comic Ordered to Pay Back Alimony,” Peoria Journal Star, Nov. 13, 1969; his companion Maxine: “If I Stop I’ll Die Research,” Box 171, John A. Williams Papers, University of Rochester.

  235 let his phone be disconnected: “Subscriber by credit,” Richard Pryor FBI file, Sept. 1, 1970.

  236 cutting off his relationship: Earl Calloway, “Brown and Pace Replace Pryor at Mister Kelly’s,” Chicago Defender, Dec. 30, 1969, p. 11; premier supper club: Author’s interview with Tim Reid, Oct. 4, 2010; “keep it clean”: Good Times interview with Richard Pryor and the Congress of Wonders, July 15, 1971, Berkeley, CA (transcript in author’s posession) (hereafter “Good Times interview”); Lennie’s on the Turnpike: Author’s interview with Ralph Camilli, June 7, 2011; “Just listening”: Hollie I. West, “Pryor’s Comedy,” Washington Post, Oct. 7, 1970, p. B9.

  236 who had earlier enthused about Richard’s comedy: The Rosey Grier Show, aired Sept. 21, 1968; “could use some self-discipline”: James Brown, “Richard Pryor on Troubadour Stage,” Feb. 21, 1969, p. J15; Redd Foxx groused: Los Angeles Sentinel, May 5, 1970, p. B3A; “pandering”: Todd Everett, “LA Concert Capsules,” Los Angeles Free Press, Jan. 15, 1971, pp. 31, 44.

  237 “in the world”: Good Times interview.

  237 Laff Records . . . “When we signed”: Littleton, Black Comedians on Black Comedy, pp. 87–88, 137; “A Short Laff History,” Billboard, Jan. 7, 1978, p. 43.

  237 The four-album contract: Contract between Richard Pryor and ALA Enterprises, Inc., Dec. 7, 1970 (in author’s possession).

  238 “Masturbating” . . . “Jackin’ Off”: ‘Craps.’ Laff labeled ‘Craps’ as recorded at the Redd Foxx Club, but the provenance of the album as a whole may be more complicated. On December 7, 1970, Richard entered into his contract with Laff; sometime in December, the Redd Foxx Club burned to the ground (Starr, Black and Blue, p. 106). In “Blow Our Image,” Richard talks as if he were performing at the Redd Foxx Club, but given the other references to Mongo Santamaría and Richard’s ongoing marriage, it seems quite possible that the recording dates to a mid-April 1970 double bill with Santamaría. On the second side of the album, meanwhile, Richard’s references to the Osmond Brothers suggest a recording date of January 1971—by which time the Redd Foxx Club was defunct. Richard did perform on January 22–23, 1971, at the York Club, a cocktail lounge with a vibe similar to that of “Redd’s Place” (Billy Rowe, “Billy Rowe’s Notebook,” New York Amsterdam News, Apr. 25, 1970, p. 18; advertisement, Los Angeles Sentinel, Jan. 14, 1971, p. B2A).

  238 a young black man in the pincers of the law: “I Spy Cops” and “Lineup,” ‘Craps.’ Over the past seven years, Pryor had spent time in jail in Pittsburgh, at the San Diego border, and in Los Angeles as a result of the assault at the Sunset Towers West—all of which he may have drawn upon in these routines.

  239 “We used to think” . . . “Blacks are the same”: Michael Sherman, “Pryor Appearing at Club,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 1, 1971, p. H12.

  240 Being married is hard: “F**k from Memory,” ‘Craps.’

  240 Richard’s vision of sex: “Gettin’ Some,” “Gettin’ High,” and “Big Tits,” ‘Craps’.

  241 “I was the only dude in the neighborhood”: “F**king the Faggot,” ‘Craps’.

  241 living in the Sunset Tower: Contract between Richard Pryor and ALA Enterprises, Inc., Dec. 7, 1970.

  241 John Wayne . . . best-kept prostitutes: Laurie Ochoa, “Tawdry Tales of the Sunset Tower,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1988, p. L98. According to Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, Pryor carried on a highly charged relationship with Sixx’s mother, who also lived in the Tower at the time (“Dear Superstar: Nikki Sixx,” Blender, Sept. 2007).

  242 episode of The Partridge Family: “Soul Club,” The Partridge Family, aired Jan. 29, 1971.

  243 Around forty-two seconds after 6:00 a.m.: “Death Toll 33 in Massive Earthquake,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 10, 1971, p. B1; “the valley of the damned,” “knew God or something”: The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, aired Jan. 12, 1971 (NBC).

  243 The Sylmar Earthquake: Special San Fernando Earthquake edition, California Geology 24 (April/May 1971): 4–5.

  243 “It was as if”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 113–14.

  244 shaggy-browed: Alan Farley, “Divided We Stand: A Sketch of the History of the Disunity of Broadcasters in the Face of Threats to the First Amendment,” KPFA Folio 22, no. 4 (Apr. 1971): 5; math degree . . . chairman: Author’s interview with Alan Farley, Feb. 13, 2007; production assistant: KPFA Folio 22, no. 2 (Feb. 1971): 1; Gaslight: New York, Feb. 22, 1971, p. 15; Basin Street West: Alan Farley, “Media Monitor,” KPFA Folio (Mar. 1971): 8, 46. In his memoir, Pryor remembers driving up to Berkeley with Paul Mooney. While it is probably true that Mooney and Pryor did drive up to Berkeley together at some point, Farley’s recollection fits better with the timeline set by the earthquake, Pryor’s performances at Basin Street West, and the beginnings of Farley’s recordings of Pryor (pp. 113–14).

  Chapter 14: I’m a Serious Mother

  245 “learn to live”: “Talking to the Secret Primps,” p. 12; “an apple a day”: Author’s interview with Alan Farley, Feb. 13, 2007; “to cast off everything”: Pryor Convictions, p. 115.

  245 Starting in the fall of 1967: W. J. Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War: The 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 145–66.

  246 “crackling with information”: Author’s interview with Ishmael Reed, Feb. 20, 2007.

&nb
sp; 246 By 1971, the left in Berkeley: Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War, pp. 155–66; three hundred demonstrators: em, “People Return FBI Call,” Berkeley Barb, Feb. 12–18, 1971, p. 5; “Turnabout’s Fair Play,” Good Times, Feb. 12, 1971, pp. 14–15.

  246 more than three thousand: “Stone Cold Revolutionaries,” Good Times, Feb. 12, 1971, p. 2; “Smash the State!”: “Women Lead Action,” Berkeley Barb, Feb. 12–18, 1971, p. 5; clobbered a policeman: Wittol, “They Bleed Too . . . ,” Berkeley Barb, Feb. 12–18, 1971, p. 3.

  247 “a schizophrenic with multiple personalities”: C.D., “Chaos Over Laos,” Berkeley Barb, Feb. 12–18, 1971, p. 3; A young woman composed a poem: em, “Stone Cold Revolutionaries.”

  248 a survey of electoral preferences: The Sellerses (Nancy Sellers and Charles Sellers), “Black Berkeley: Shifting Left?,” Berkeley Monitor, Dec. 3, 1971, p. 8; a separate police department for black Berkeley: David Mundstock, “Berkeley in the 70s: A History of Progressive Electoral Politics,” http://www.berkeleyinthe70s.homestead.com.

  248 played out this chemistry: Author’s interview with Alan Farley, Feb. 13, 2007; a fledgling social critic: Farley, “Divided We Stand,” pp. 4–5, 47; Farley, “Media Monitor,” KPFA Folio (Feb. 1971): 7, 43; Richard was free speech incarnate: Farley, “Media Monitor,” KPFA Folio (Mar. 1971): 8, 46.

  249 The Examiner’s Phil Elwood: Joel Selvin, “Phil Elwood, 1926–2006: Beloved Bay Area Jazz and Blues Critic,” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 11, 2006; Alan Farley, “Vignettes Amidst the Pimps,” San Francisco Examiner, May 16, 1971, p. 5.

  249 “unfunny and not original”: Cecil Brown, “Remembering Richard Pryor: A True Friend and Comic Genius,” AOL Black Voices, Dec. 12, 2005; “a major figure”: Philip Elwood, “Comic Pryor Is Young, Black and Outrageous,” San Francisco Examiner, Feb. 20, 1971, p. 8.