Becoming Richard Pryor
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330 “Lord, don’t let her know” . . . “Put your hands up” . . . “Boy, you hit me”: “Black & White Life Styles,” “Niggers vs. Police,” “The Back Down,” “That Nigger’s Crazy,” recorded Feb. 1974, Partee PBS-2404 (hereafter That Nigger’s Crazy).
330 “nothin’ can scare a nigger” . . . : “Flying Saucers,” “Black and White Life Styles,” “Wino Dealing with Dracula,” “Exorcist,” on That Nigger’s Crazy.
330 “What am I supposed to do” . . . hightail to an orthodontist . . . “the devil is just acting”: Ibid.
331 “What nigger feel” . . . “[If] you don’t clean up that shit”: “Niggers vs. Police,” “Wino and Junkie.”
331 “Baby, I can handle any motherfuckin’ thing”: “Acid,” Live at the Comedy Store; “I don’t remember how to breathe”: “Acid,” Bicentennial Nigger.
332 “like a ballet”: Felton, “This Can’t Be Happening to Me,” p. 43.
332 In the original version: “Acid,” Live at the Comedy Store.
333 approached by a friend: “Richard Pryor: A Sensitive and Serious Man . . . at Times,” New Pittsburgh Courier, May 4, 1974, p. 18.
333 A few days later . . . Lorton’s unofficial uniform: Joel Dreyfuss, “Of Men and Longing,” Washington Post, Mar. 6, 1974; coaxed the promoter: “Richard Pryor: A Sensitive and Serious Man,” p. 18.
334 some in long white robes: Dreyfuss, “Of Men and Longing,” p. B9.
334 “Look at these guys”: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Jan. 8, 2011.
334 he had smuggled . . . “We wish we had more”: Dreyfuss, “Of Men and Longing,” p. B9; as long as the warden would allow: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, July 31, 2013.
334 “crowded around Pryor”: Dreyfuss, “Of Men and Longing,” p. B9.
334 Richard left Lorton: “Richard Pryor: A Sensitive and Serious Man,” p. 18; Moore, “Richard Pryor the Funniest of Them All,” p. D8.
334 Prisoner No. 2140-875: “Jail Comedy: Inmates Flip as Flip Does a Panty Flip,” Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1974, p. A7; $250,000 over four years: “Comic Pleads Guilty to U.S. Tax Charges,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 16, 1974; making an example of Richard: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, July 31, 2013.
Chapter 18: Number One with a Bullet
336 surged to the No. 1 position: See, for instance, “Soul LPs,” Billboard, July 13, 1974, p. 56; “Soul LPs,” Billboard, Aug. 3, 1974, p. 29; “Soul LPs,” Billboard, Sept. 7, 1974, p. 29; “a piano player in a whorehouse”: David Greenberg, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), p. 200; Richard G. Zimmerman, Plain Dealing: Ohio Politics and Journalism Viewed from the Press Gallery (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006), p. 70; no one believed the piano player: Stanley Kutler, The Wars of Watergate (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), pp. 527–44; playing an intimate Philadelphia nightclub: John Fisher, “This Week in Music,” Bucks County Courier Times, Aug. 4, 1974, p. C12; he brought a TV onstage: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Jan. 8, 2011; lampooned for his diabolical ambition: “Nixon,” Live at the Comedy Store; author’s interview with Joan Thornell, Feb. 28, 2007.
336 “Nixon took justice and broke its jaw”: Murphy, “Richard Pryor,” p. 27.
337 “[Watergate was] a shock”: Haynes Johnson, “The View from Peoria: It’s Not Playing Well,” Washington Post, June 30, 1974, p. C4.
337 “Rated X” label: “‘That Nigger’s Crazy’,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 25, 1974, p. 11; radio stations refused to play it: “Richard Pryor . . . Latest Record a $1 Million Hit,” Peoria Journal Star, Nov. 2, 1974; beginning to circle the drain: Rob Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records (New York: Schirmer, 1997), pp. 320–33; a Stax rep came to a Pryor show: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Dec. 28, 2010.
338 “They flatly refused”: Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A., p. 323; “no promotion, no nothing”: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Dec. 28, 2010.
338 hustlers and their women fill up: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Dec. 28, 2010; He started feeling something new and electric: “Interview between James McPherson and Richard Pryor,” c. 1975 (in author’s possession); “I noticed going around working”: McPherson, “The New Comic Style of Richard Pryor,” p. 32.
338 “thunderous roars” . . . “the number one comedian in the world”: “Richard Pryor Naughty but Funny,” p. B16; “Pryor on Extensive Tour,” New Pittsburgh Courier, June 15, 1974, p. 19.
339 sell-out audience of twelve thousand . . . “blue—no, purple”: C. A. Bustard, “Music,” Richmond Post-Dispatch, Aug. 5, 1974, p. A5; a municipal ordinance prohibited: “Richard Pryor Charged for Disorderly Conduct,” Jet, Aug. 22, 1974, p. 61; was not interested in censoring himself: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Jan. 8, 2011.
339 “They was going to arrest me”: Tallmer, “Richard Pryor: When It Rains,” p. 23; 1:30 in the morning: “Richard Pryor Charged for Disorderly Conduct,” p. 61; “Listen, brother”: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Jan. 8, 2011; another black cop told Richard: “Interview,” recorded fall 1974, on Richard Pryor—No Pryor Restraint: Life in Concert, Shout Factory, 2013 (hereafter No Pryor Restraint); fifteen minutes . . . five-hundred-dollar bond . . . trial date: “Comic Arrested after Concert,” Richmond Post-Dispatch, Aug. 5, 1974, p. A5.
339 dropping the charges against Richard: “Comedian’s Case Not Prosecuted,” Richmond Post-Dispatch, Aug. 20, 1974, p. B4; Adults-only entertainment: Peter Braunstein, “‘Adults Only’: The Construction of an Erotic City in New York during the 1970s,” in Beth Bailey and David Farber, eds., America in the 70s (Lawrence: Univ. of Kansas Press, 2004), pp. 129–46.
340 on the marquee of the Shrine Mosque: “Interview with Juliette Whittaker,” recorded May 16, 1983, Box 171, John A. Williams Papers, Special Collections Library, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY; “Richard Pryor Days”: Theo Jean Kenyon, “Ashanti Umoja Center: From Act of Defiance to Sense of Identity,” Peoria Journal Star, Aug. 23, 1974; “It was our award”: The Mike Douglas Show, aired Nov. 25, 1974.
340 “This is an inspiration for all of us” . . . playground set: Ibid.; “Interview with Juliette Whittaker”; the Learning Tree . . . seventy children: Strahler, “Juliette Whittaker,” pp. B1, B4.
341 born out of the defiance of Black Power: Kenyon, “Ashanti Umoja Center”; presented Richard with a plaque, “Boy, my grandmother’s gonna beat my ass”: “Skit on Race, Sex a Hit at Mosque,” Peoria Journal Star, Dec. 25, 1974.
341 some two hundred thousand dollars in unpaid royalties . . . Stax gave possession: Bowman, p. 323; Pay Back Inc.,: “Stax Sued by Comedian Pryor,” Billboard, Nov. 9, 1974, p. 14; gold record: “Richard Pryor Naughty but Funny,” p. B16; two holes: Author’s interview with Rob Cohen, Aug. 18, 2010.
342 “We live, eat, sleep”: Mike Douglas, I’ll Be Right Back: Memories of TV’s Greatest Talk Show (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), pp. 109–10.
342 The Mike Douglas Show became: The Mike Douglas Show, aired Nov. 25–26, 28–29, 1974 (in author’s possession).
343 Joe Frazier, whom he had teased: Author’s interview with Murray Swartz, Mar. 30, 2011.
343 more than four million jokes . . . sixty-seven-year-old comedian: Tom Shales, “Replay on Mr. Television,” Washington Post, Nov. 11, 1974, p. B1; a sobering book: Milton Berle with Haskel Frankel, Milton Berle: An Autobiography (New York: Delacorte Press, 1974).
343 “Is this the real audience?”: The Mike Douglas Show, aired Nov. 25, 1974.
344 “one of the strangest moments”: The Mike Douglas Show, Nov. 26, 1974.
344 “I wish . . . I could have laughed”: The Mike Douglas Show, Nov. 25, 1974; “Eleanor Roosevelt”: Douglas, I’ll Be Right Back, p. 111.
345 the talk of the comedy circuit: Ibid., pp. 111–12.
346 Berle had counseled Lenny Bruce: Shales, “Replay on Mr. Television,” p. B11.
347 “There ain’t no sense in nobody going on”: The Mike Douglas Show, aired
Nov. 29, 1974; “Having my grandmother with me”: Lisa Collins, “Time Out for Richard Pryor,” Black Stars Magazine, June 1976, p. 44.
347 threw together a birthday party: Author’s interview with Murray Swartz, Mar. 30, 2011.
347 sometimes scatted to Clark Terry’s “Mumbles”: Author’s interview with Jimmy Binkley, July 1, 2010; one of Richard’s favorite tunes: The Tonight Show, aired July 22, 1968 (NBC).
347 a larger home above the Sunset Strip: Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 11, 2011; a swimming pool, billiards room: Robert A. DeLeon, “Richard Pryor Looks to ’75,” Jet, Jan. 9, 1975, pp. 60–61; a large aquarium: Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 11, 2011; “To avoid ill feeling”: McPherson, “The New Comic Style of Richard Pryor,” p. 20; “Yeah, nigger—this means you”: Collins, “Time Out for Richard Pryor,” p. 41.
348 tailspin of Richard and Patricia’s relationship: Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 11, 2011
348 cruelty to Patricia was sharpened: Ibid.
349 the worst of his vindictiveness: Ibid.
349 fifty-thousand-dollar advance . . . “We did it” . . . “three great things”: Author’s interviews with Ron DeBlasio, Dec. 28, 2010, and Jan. 8, 2011; damaged by his tax troubles: Ron Kisner, “The Money Problems of the Stars,” Ebony, May 1977, p. 148; “My house is rented”: DeLeon, “Richard Pryor Looks to ’75,” p. 61.
350 Their relationship unraveled in a single conversation: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Jan. 8, 2011; “my best friend in the business”: The Mike Douglas Show, aired Nov. 28, 1974.
350 “That’s right, that’s how I feel”: Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Jan. 8, 2011.
350 proudly wore the nicknames Big Dollar Dave and the Smiling Cobra: Author’s interview with Michael Ashburne, May 7, 2011; Orde Coombs, “The Voice of the New Vulnerability,” New York, Feb. 15, 1982, p. 47; baby-faced . . . “A Black man in this country”: Ronald Harris, “The Man Who Makes Multimillionaires,” Ebony, June 1979, p. 61; “real power” . . . his grandfather had sat: Peter Ross Range, “Making It in Atlanta: Capital of Black-Is-Bountiful,” New York Times Magazine, Apr. 7, 1974, p. 70.
351 masterminded the successful mayoral campaign: Ibid., pp. 70–72; a $5.5 million, ten-album deal: Harris, “The Man Who Makes Multimillionaires,” pp. 56.
351 “ripped off . . . by white people”: “Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Vol. III,” Richard Pryor v. David McCoy Franklin, Case No. TAC 17 MP 114 (Mar. 3, 1982), p. 271 (hereafter Pryor v. Franklin); “have someone around who’d protect him”: Harris, “The Man Who Makes Multimillionaires,” p. 60.
351 a novel business arrangement . . . operate without a written agreement: “Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Vol. I,” Pryor v. Franklin, Mar. 1, 1982, p. 32.
352 Franklin had seen Richard: Author’s interview with Michael Ashburne, May 7, 2011; “one of the most brilliant men” . . . “take a percentage”: “Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Vol. IV,” Pryor v. Franklin, pp. 563–65.
352 a monthly salary of $2,000 . . . “I wish you would let me be the one”: “Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Vol. I,” Pryor v. Franklin, pp. 28–30.
352 had mentored everyone from Al Jolson: “Sam Weisbord Dead; William Morris Aide,” New York Times, May 9, 1986; “one of the most brilliant,” “a very tough negotiator”: Harris, “The Man Who Makes Multimillionaires,” p. 56.
353 litigated in front of California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office: “Determination,” Pryor v. Franklin (Aug. 12, 1982), p. 36; “Ex-Talent Agent Told to Pay Richard Pryor $3.1 Million,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 20, 1983, p. A13.
353 “Over here, Rich”: Pryor Convictions, p. 143.
353 “Killed a guard in Lou-ez-ze-ana,” “Say, boy”: McPherson, “The New Comic Style of Richard Pryor,” p. 20.
354 “inebriated diction made it seem”: William Jelani Cobb, “Richard Pryor’s Mudbone,” NPR News & Notes, aired Jan. 2, 2008; “something between a preacher’s Sunday mornin’ sermonizin’”: Pryor Convictions, p. 3.
354 Mudbone made Richard speak in his voice: “Mudbone,” . . . Is It Something I Said?, Warner Bros., MS 2227, 1975 (hereafter Is It Something).
356 a spectacular riff: “Little Feets,” Is It Something; have long been a feature: Charles Chestnutt, The Conjure Stories, ed. Robert B. Stepto and Jennifer Rae Greeson (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011); Eric Sundquist, To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Glenda Carpio, Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
356 “My goddamn feets”: “Little Feets,” Is It Something.
Chapter 19: Every Nigger Is a Star
361 he riled ABC . . . “so far out . . . as to be close”: Steve Allen, Funny People (New York: Stein and Day, 1981), pp. 232–33; Aaron Gold, “Tower Ticker,” Mar. 20, 1974, p. B2; “I won’t be on the same stage”: Author’s interview with Carl Gottlieb, Aug. 25, 2010; fled to her dressing room: Gertrude Gipson, “Gertrude Gipson’s Candid Comments,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Feb. 27, 1975, p. B5.
362 putting together . . . a new Saturday late-night program: Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller, Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live (Boston: Little, Brown, 2002), pp. 19, 64; Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live (New York: William Morrow, 1986); “the funniest man on the planet”: Jeff Sorensen, Lily Tomlin, p. 66; author’s interview with Craig Kellem, Nov. 5, 2010.
362 “I can’t do a contemporary comedy show” . . . laid out his conditions . . . “He’d better be funny”: Shales and Miller, Live from New York, pp. 63–64; Hill and Weingrad, Saturday Night, pp. 76, 116; Mooney, Black Is the New White, pp. 160–61.
363 the shift, in Hollywood: Ed Guererro, Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), pp. 69–101; “Blaxploitation went brain dead”: Ed Guerrero, “The So-Called Fall of Blaxploitation,” Velvet Light Trap (Fall 2009): 90.
364 Richard might have landed: The Lowdown on Uptown: A Retrospective (2003), on Uptown Saturday Night DVD.
364 clashing with the executives: Aram Goudsouzian, Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), p. 345; “healthier exploration of black life”: Carol Kramer, “For a Black Pioneer, the Burden Turns Gold,” Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1974, p. E16; “pimps, prostitutes, and dope pushers”: Goudsouzian, Sidney Poitier, p. 345.
364 “the largest black all-star cast”: “Uptown Saturday Night,” Ebony, July 1974, pp. 52–53; almost half the behind-the-camera jobs: T. Prescott Simms, “The Living Arts,” Chicago Tribune, Aug. 11, 1974, p. O19; “a picture for the general audience”: “Uptown Saturday Night,” Ebony, July 1974, pp. 52–53; Richard was offered expenses only: The Mike Douglas Show, Nov. 26, 1974.
364 “I almost went into overtime”: Uptown Saturday Night promotional short, Nov. 6, 1973.
365 “Look at my eye”: Uptown Saturday Night, directed by Sidney Poitier (Warner Bros., 1974).
365 box office gold: Mark A. Reid, Redefining Black Film (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 28–30; Goudsouzian, Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon, p. 345; blaxploitation trend had begun to sputter: Guerrero, Framing Blackness, pp. 103–10.
366 shot in nine days: Weston, “Richard Pryor: ‘Every Nigger Is a Star,’” p. 57; “there are dozens of scenes”: Filmfacts 19, no. 1 (1976): 35; “two sharp dudes”: Gerald Martinez, Diana Martinez, and Andres Chavez, What It Is . . . , What It Was: The Black Film Explosion of the ’70s in Words and Pictures (New York: Hyperion, 1998), p. 90; earned back its cost: Weston, “Richard Pryor,” p. 57; “Tell them I apologize”: Weston, “Richard Pryor,” p. 57.
366 a protégé of Motown’s Berry Gordy: Gregg Kilday, “Motown Simplifies the Complex,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 3, 1974, p. A7; a raffish, socially conscious comedy . . .
“The slaves done run off”: The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor-Kings, directed by John Badham (Motown Productions-Universal Pictures, 1976).
367 “We have a real uphill battle”: Mary Murphy, “Motown Firms Film Commitment,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 3, 1975, p. G14; top-shelf talent: Bruce Cook, “The Saga of Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars,” American Film, June 1976, pp. 10–12; a $3.5 million financing deal: Author’s interview with Rob Cohen, Aug. 18, 2010; an extraordinary budget for a “black” film: Hollie I. West, “The Bingo Long All-Stars Wind Up for a Grand Slam,” Washington Post, Aug. 24, 1975, p. H2.
367 From the start, Richard was fundamental: Author’s interview with Rob Cohen; “Richard Pryor in ‘Bingo Long’ to Roll June 30,” Hollywood Reporter, June 17, 1975; in the novel: William Brashler, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993 [1973]).
368 slip into the beds of white women: Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings screenplay, n.d., Writers Guild Library, Los Angeles, CA.
368 preferred to rent his own home: West, “The Bingo Long All-Stars Wind Up for a Grand Slam,” p. H2. “quality actors” . . . “quality script” . . . “I don’t think”: Mary Murphy, “‘Julia’ Role Next for Jane Fonda,” Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1975, p. A8;
368 “James Brown country”: Murphy, “‘Julia’ Role Next for Jane Fonda,” p. A8; the rookie film director who had taken over: Joan E. Vadeboncoeur, “Debut Brings Film Success,” Syracuse Herald-Journal, July 22, 1976, p. 35; “It’s harder to meet a whiter white man” . . . who organized everything in his bedroom . . . : Author’s interview with Cohen.
370 One night during filming: Author’s interview with Badham; “Richard’s just left the set”: Author’s interview with Cohen.
370 in an affluent white area near Mercer University: West, p. H2.
370 “You don’t need me to be my foot” . . . “He was very concerned”: Author’s interview with Badham.
370 almost killed James Earl Jones: John Badham and Craig Modderno, I’ll Be in My Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Directors and Actors (Studio City, CA: Michael Weise Productions, 2006), pp. 10–11; author’s interview with Badham; director’s commentary, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings.