Becoming Richard Pryor
Page 65
477 Eddie Murphy, his successor as the big marquee name: Guerrero, Framing Blackness, pp. 114–33; the older Richard strips out the complexity: Jennifer Lee, “Richard Pryor, Now Your Ex-Wife Is Calling,” People, June 16, 1986.
478 his dream of being a character actor: Jack Hirshberg interview notes (1976), Richard Pryor folder, Jack Hirshberg Papers, AMPAS, p. 2.
478 The diagnosis: Pryor Convictions, pp. 220–24; C. H. Hawkes, “Are Multiple Sclerosis Patients Risk-Takers?,” Quarterly Journal of Medicine (QJM) 98 (Oct. 2005): 895–911; Christopher H. Hawkes and David Boniface, “Risk Associated Behavior in Premorbid Multiple Sclerosis: A Case-Control Study,” Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders (Jan. 2014): 40–47; Lawrence Steinman, “Multiple Sclerosis: A Coordinated Immunological Attack against Myelin in the Nervous System,” Cell 85 (May 3, 1996): 299–302.
479 the hardest part of having MS: Greg Tate, “Richard Pryor, 1940–2005,” Village Voice, Dec. 14–20, 2005, p. 38; a mere 115 pounds: Handelman, “The Last Time We Saw Richard,” pp. 79–80; David Kleinberg, “Alive and Fighting,” San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 25, 1992, p. 20; Craig Wolff, “Still Laughing through the Pain, A Comedian Returns,” New York Times, Feb. 18, 1993, pp. B1; a rented mansion: Als, “A Pryor Love,” Sept. 13, 1999, p. 81; close to broke: “Richard Pryor’s Biggest Fight,” Ebony, Sept. 1993, pp. 100, 105; “the lowest point of my life”: Handelman, “The Last Time We Saw Richard,” pp. 79–80; Kleinberg, “Alive and Fighting,” p. 20; Wolff, “Still Laughing through the Pain, p. B5.
479 Sitting in an easy chair: Pryor Convictions, pp. 241–42; “I don’t want to be alone” . . . “as emotionally drained”: Kleinberg, “Alive and Fighting,” pp. 20–21.
480 “It’s not gone”: Greg Tate, “Richard Pryor,” in The Vibe Q: Raw and Uncut (New York: Kensington Books, 2007), p. 74; “I’m going through a humbling experience”: “Richard Pryor’s Biggest Fight,” p. 106.
480 he asked Jennifer Lee to return to him: Als, “A Pryor Love,” pp. 80–81; “general aide-de-camp”: “Pryor Engagement,” The New Yorker, July 10, 1995, p. 26; the two were married in secret: Elizabeth Pryor v. Jennifer Pryor, No. B207398, Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 4, CA (Sept. 29, 2009); Elizabeth Pryor v. Jennifer Pryor, No. B207402, Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 4, CA (Sept. 29, 2009); He saw his children just once a month . . . “prisoner”: Pryor, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me, pp. 191–202.
481 “The comic voice of a generation”: Matt Schudel, “With Humor and Anger on Race Issues, Comic Inspired a Generation,” Washington Post, Dec. 11, 2005, p. A1; “He unleashed a galaxy”: Mel Watkins, “Richard Pryor, Who Turned Humor of the Streets into Social Satire, Dies at 65,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 2005, p. A24.
481 a small, private affair: “Family and Close Friends Celebrate Pryor’s Life at Private Ceremony,” Jet, Jan. 9, 2006, pp. 59–60; e-mail to author from Ron DeBlasio, Mar. 21, 2014; Pryor, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me, p. 204; “I don’t know how they got started”: Pryor Convictions, p. 23.
481 in civil lawsuits: Elizabeth Pryor v. Jennifer Pryor, No. B207398; Elizabeth Pryor v. Jennifer Pryor, No. B207402.
482 only Richard Jr. agreed to participate: Joel Keller, “An Uneasy Collaboration: The Creative Pull of Making a Richard Pryor Documentary,” Co.Create, May 30, 2013 (http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683057/an-uneasy-collaboration-the-creative-push-and-pull-of-making-a-richard-pryor-documentary).
482 “There are two periods in comedy”: . . . And It’s Deep Too!; “the single most seminal comedic influence”: Jim Cheng, “Comedians Praise Pryor’s Groundbreaking Humor,” USA Today, Dec. 11, 2005; “the Picasso of our profession”: Allison Samuels, “Richard Pryor, 1940–2005,” Newsweek, Dec. 18, 2005; “the Rosa Parks of comedy”: Jesse McKinley, “Admiration for a Comedian Who Knew No Limits,” New York Times, Dec. 13, 2005, p. E1; Eddie Murphy . . . Margaret Cho: . . . And It’s Deep Too!; “Without Richard, there would be no me”: McKinley, “Admiration for a Comedian Who Knew No Limits,” p. E1.
482 “started it all”: Handelman, “The Last Time We Saw Richard,” p. 81.
482 “All they remember is the profanity”: Author’s interview with Amiri Baraka, Jan. 25, 2011; “Richard has probably spawned more bad comics”: Author’s interview with Tim Reid, Oct. 4, 2010; “the Lenny Bruce syndrome”: Alan Farley, “Vignettes amidst the Pimps,” San Francisco Examiner, Datebook section, May 16, 1971, p. 5; “there is no point to be made”: Live on the Sunset Strip.
484 Mark Twain looked at the aftermath of the Civil War: Stephen Railton, Mark Twain: A Short Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003); Shelley Fisher Fishkin, ed., A Historical Guide to Mark Twain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ed. Gerald Graff and James Phelan (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004); Susan Gillman and Forrest G. Robinson, eds., Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson: Race, Conflict, and Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990). Fittingly, Pryor was the first recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998.
485 “homogeneous protoplasm”: Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), p. 478; “The comedian who really moved me”: John Lahr, “Dealing with Roseanne,” The New Yorker, July 17, 1995, p. 45.
485 “comic genius who let Hollywood”: Ishmael Reed, “Richard Pryor—Comic Genius Who Let Hollywood Use Him,” San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 19, 2005.
486 scripted with Pryor’s stand-up: See chapters 15 through 22.
486 “Pryor’s career in total”: Tate, “Richard Pryor, 1940–2005,” p 50.
487 “I see people”: The Barbara Walters Special, aired Aug. 5, 1980 (ABC).
INDEX
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The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
RP = Richard Pryor
Page numbers of illustrations are in italics.
ABC, 361, 428
Movies of the Week, 211, 229–32
Actors Studio, 124, 125, 137
Adíos Amigo (film), 365–66
Afro-American Black Peoples’ Federation, 223, 226, 228, 229
Afro-American Protective League, 10
Aladdin hotel, Las Vegas, 217
Redd Foxx and Rusty Warren at, 176, 180
RP crisis at, 175–80, 181, 182–83, 194, 332, 339, 472, 523n180
Ali, Muhammad, 215
Allen, Steve, 361
Allen, Woody, 281
Alonzo, John, 407
Als, Hilton, 320
Altman, Bob “Uncle Dirty,” 120, 151–52
Altman, Robert, 394
American Guild of Variety Artists, 180, 522n180
American Independent Pictures (AIP), 218–19
Amos ’n’ Andy (radio show), 50, 386, 503n50
Anderson, “Big Irma,” 94
And It’s Deep Too! (album), 480
Angelou, Maya, 413, 415
Apollo Theater, 334, 382
RP at, 115–16, 153–54, 223, 517n153
Atlantic Records, 351
Attaway, William, 168
Attica prison uprising (1971), 265–69, 533n267
“The Button Down Mind of Russell Oswald” (RP’s sound collage), 267
RP poem on, 266
Badham, John, 368–72, 369, 380–82, 476, 486
Bad News Bears, The (film), 382
Ball, Lucille, 212
Banks, David, 459
Bar-Keys, 304
Barr, Roseanne, 76, 485
Barry, J. J., 120, 127
Bart, Peter, 273
Barwood, Hal, 367–68
Basin Street West, San Francisco, 237, 244, 249, 252, 264, 530n244
Baumholder, Germany, 86–87
Bay Area Gay Liberation, 445
Beatles, 143
Belafonte, Harry, 80, 167–68, 342, 508n82
Bell, Jimmy, 503n63
>
Belushi, John, 121–22, 376–77, 414, 415, 547n376
Bennett, Lerone, Jr., 259
Benny, Jack, 415
Bergman, Andrew, 282, 283, 286–87, 288, 307, 308, 535n288
Berkeley, CA
counterculture and, 245–47, 248, 253
Farley in, xi, 244 (see also Farley, Alan)
KPFA in, xii
“People’s Park,” 268
political power struggles in, 268–69
RP in (1971), xi–xii, 245–70
RP residences in, 248, 257
RP’s cocaine use and, 261–62
Telegraph Avenue, 245–46
Berkeley Barb, 246, 247
Berle, Milton, 161, 346, 415, 549–50n394
advice to Lenny Bruce, 346
skirmish with RP, 343–46
Bernhard, Harvey, 288, 289, 292, 293, 294, 295
Bernhard, Sandra, 431
Bicentennial Nigger (album), 331, 397–99
Billboard, 171, 526n213
Is It Something I Said?, 374–75
Richard Pryor, 526n213
That Nigger’s Crazy, 336
Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor-Kings, The (film), 366–73, 380–83, 396, 450, 472, 476, 486, 546n373, 547n383
Binkley, Jimmy, 105
Bitter End, NYC, 117, 130, 135
Bitter End West, Los Angeles, 236
Blackie’s Archway, Peoria, IL, 103
blackface minstrelsy, 50, 221, 232, 256, 463, 503n50
A Time for Laughter and history of, 168–69, 521n168
“Bicentennial Nigger” and, 398
Silver Streak and, 386–90
“Super Nigger” and, 210
Black Panthers, 222, 242, 248, 507n80
RP contributes to, 223, 527n223
shooting of The Mack and, 293–94
trial of Huey Newton, 221–23
Black Power movement, xvi, 126, 192, 193, 217, 221, 222, 243, 254, 288
in Peoria, 228–29, 341
RP contributes to, 223
Black Stranger, The (screenplay), 327, 394
Black Sun production company, 217–24, 235
Blazing Saddles (film), 274, 275, 307–8, 386, 477
RP collaborates on script, 281–88, 534n282, 535n288
RP’s part given to Cleavon Little, 307, 391
Blue Angel club, Chicago, 145, 517n146
Blue Collar (film), 232, 417–26, 420, 425, 477, 486, 553n419
Blue Shadow tavern, Peoria, IL, 93–94, 103, 446
Blum, Michael, 252
Blumenthal, Marcia, 558n456
Bob Banner Productions, 154
Bonaduce, Danny, 242, 243
Bonis, Herb and Bunny, 221, 226
Bonis, Shelley. See Pryor, Shelley Bonis
Bostic, Earl, 155
Boston Herald-American, 313
Boston Phoenix, 475
Boyd, Stephen, 231
Bradley, Tom, 312, 313
Bradley, William, 93
Brando, Marlon, 215
Brewster’s Millions (film), 475
Bridges, Beau, 401
Brooks, Albert, 250
Brooks, Mel, xvi, 70, 318, 482, 484, 486
Blazing Saddles and, 274, 275, 281, 282–88, 391, 535n288
RP’s loss of part and, 307
Brown, Cecil, 254–57, 395, 403, 406, 551n403
Brown, Charles, 236
Brown, Claude, 255, 256, 261, 397
Brown, H. Rap, 166, 193, 283, 520n166
Brown, Jim, 312
Brown, “Preacher,” 94, 95, 99
Bruce, Lenny, 135, 139, 216, 339, 346, 483, 516–17n143
death of, 181
obscenity laws and, 180–81, 483
Bryant, Marie Carter (grandmother), 7, 31
appearance, 25
arrests, 15, 17
assault of white shopkeeper (1929), 7–8, 17
as band manager, 15
birth of, 8
as bootlegger, 8, 16–17, 58
as brothel keeper, 8, 25–26, 30, 39–40, 51, 57–58
children with Roy Pryor, 14
death of, and last message to RP, 470, 471
death of son Buck, 205
divorces Roy Pryor (1922), 14
domestic violence and, 12–13, 14
early life and family in Decatur, 7–19
Famous Door tavern, owner of, 30, 31, 32, 42–44, 44, 45, 51, 58, 432, 504n63
funeral and burial, 471–72
Gertrude Thomas and, 27, 28, 227
marries Roy Pryor (1914), 12
marries Thomas Bryant (1927), 15, 501n39
Mike Douglas Show appearance, 78, 342, 343, 346–47
motto of, 25
personality, 8, 13, 15
raising of RP, 28, 38–39, 45–46, 50, 65, 77
razing of black neighborhood and, 57–58
RP gives a house to, 416
RP’s girlfriends and, 428–29
RP’s heart attack and, 465
RP’s marriage to Patricia Watts and, 101, 102
RP’s reaction to death of, 471–72
in RP’s routines, 1–2, 46, 229
on set of Bingo Long, 373
on set of Greased Lightning, 399
standards and values of, 45–46, 126
as storyteller, 483–84
violence, brutality, and, 25–26, 205–6
World War II and, 30
Bryant, Thomas “Pops” (step-grandfather), 15, 18, 25, 39, 165, 228, 501n39
pool hall of, 58, 71, 94
Burden, Gary, 201–3, 221, 524–25n201
Burns, George, 548n391
Burnside, Vy, 56
Bush, Samuel, 9
Bustin’ Loose (film), 474
Busy Body, The (film), 163
Butler, Jerry, 153
“Button Down Mind of Russell Oswald, The” (sound collage), 267
Caesar, Sid, 60, 100, 115, 163, 281, 411, 484
Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, 162, 176
Café au Go Go, 135, 151
Café Wha?, 117, 118, 128, 130, 143, 174
Cambridge, Geoffrey, 153, 168, 176
Campus, Michael, 275, 289, 291, 292, 293, 294–95, 297, 486
Canby, Vincent, 463–64, 475
Carlin, George, 143, 384
Carmichael, Stokely, 215
Carson, Johnny, 151, 212, 255
Carter, Blanche (great-aunt), 13, 14
Carter, Jim (great-uncle), 13–14
Carter, Julia (great grandmother), 13, 14, 495n13
Carter, Richard (great grandfather), 10, 11, 16, 496n16
Carter, “Tip” (great-great-uncle), 10–11
arrest record, 11, 495n11
domestic violence and, 13
Carter’s Army (TV movie), 229, 230–32, 251
Car Wash (film), 394–95, 396, 477
Casablanca club, Youngstown, OH, 112, 512n112
Cassavetes, John, 218
Cassidy, David, 242, 243
Castle, William, 163
Caterpillar Corporation, Peoria, IL, 21, 24, 29, 70, 104–5
Cause magazine, 463
CBS
Lily Tomlin, RP, and, 320, 322, 325, 361
Stax Records and, 337, 338
Cellar Door, 237, 328
Champlin, Charles, 462, 463
Chappelle, Dave, 433, 478
Charles, Albert “Goodkid,” 103–4
Charles, Ray, 155, 160, 329
Chase, Chevy, 250, 376, 377–80
Checker Motor Company, 419
Cher, 361
Chess brothers, 213
Chestnutt, Charles, 356
Chicago, 21, 23, 30, 41, 53, 76, 97–98, 105, 108, 121, 155, 181, 394. See also Blue Angel club; Mister Kelly’s nightclub; specific clubs
Chitlin Circuit and, 111
riots at Democratic National Convention, 211
riots following King assassination, 193
RP Army induction in, 82
RP staying with Wilbur Harp in, 446<
br />
RP performing in, 145, 193, 223, 229, 236
Chicago Defender, xv, 96, 170
Chicago Sun-Times, RP interview, 182–83
Chicago Tribune, 163, 306, 382
Chitlin Circuit, 108, 111–15, 168, 244, 411, 512n112
Cho, Margaret, 482
Christian Century, The, 18
Clark, Mark, 507n80
Clark, Matt, 46, 80, 507n80
Claudine (film), 393
Clayburgh, Jill, 390, 391
Cleopatra Jones (film), 289–90
Cohen, Rob, 366, 369, 370, 371, 372, 380, 450, 452, 453–54, 486
Cole, Adaline, 24
Collins, Cabristo “Bris,” 41–42, 44, 64, 105
Collins, Pat, 176, 179
Collins Corner, 105–8, 216
closing of, 108
comedy
as art of self-humiliation, 50
autobiographical turn in stand-up, xiii, 238, 240
Berle generation, 161, 345–46
Berle-RP dustup, 343–46
black comedy and cultural segregation, 167–70
black comics, mid-century, 111
Chitlin Circuit, 108, 111–15, 168, 244, 411, 512n112
Cosby’s style and influence, xii, 113–15
Greenwich Village (1963) and, 117–18
Groucho-RP exchange and, 161–62
obscenity laws and, 12, 135, 180–81, 339–40, 483
RP as groundbreaker, 217, 262–64
RP as inspiration and mentor, 76, 433, 478, 482
RP’s help to other comedians, 431
RP’s impact on, xiii, 237, 240, 330, 337, 433, 478, 482–84
“That Nigger’s Crazy” as landmark in, 329–31, 337
A Time for Laughter: A Look at Negro Humor in America, A (TV special), 167–70, 182, 232
Comedy Store, Los Angeles, 328, 353, 431, 467
Committee for the Negro in the Arts, 508n82
Compass theater ensemble, 124, 125
conjure tales, 356
Conjure Woman, The (Chestnutt), 356
Cooley High (film), 394, 549–50n394
CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), 124, 125, 223
Cornelius, Don, 329
Cornish, Loren, 75
Cosby, Bill, 113–15, 118, 127, 143, 168, 200, 255, 364
career route of, 114, 129
I Spy, 125
RP and, 153, 217
RP emulating, xii, xvi
signature routine: God and Noah, 114