Becoming Richard Pryor (89 page)

Epilogue

471   
“couldn’t pry him loose without a struggle”:
“Richard Pryor Joins Grieving Family,” pp. 14–15.

471   
a night funeral:
Ibid., pp. 14–16; “Rites Set for Grandmother of Comedian Richard Pryor,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Dec. 12, 1978;
the reverend who had helped inspire Richard’s grandiloquent stage minister:
Author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, Nov. 16, 2010; “Peoria, Ill. Church Split into Two Warring Groups,”
Jet
, July 22, 1991, p. 18;
a second funeral:
“Richard Pryor Joins Grieving Family,” pp. 14–16;
cloudy winter skies:
www.wunderground.com.

472   
Richard played host:
Author’s interview with Rosalyn Taylor, Dec. 2, 2010.

472   
Richard did not dwell in his grief so much as lose himself in it:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 170–72, 177–91;
starting in November 1979:
Lee,
Tarnished Angel
, pp. 208–32.

472   
awake for somewhere in the vicinity of four days straight:
“Richard Pryor Talks about Richard Pryor,” p. 42;
“Voices swirled in my head”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 187.

473   
“You have to have a lot of courage”:
Handleman, “The Last Time We Saw Richard,” p. 84.

473   
Richard poured the liquor:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 188–90.

473   
A gathering mass of drivers:
Jerry Belcher, “Chemical Set off Fire That Burned Pryor, Police Say,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 11, 1980, pp. B3, B20.

474   
“Lord, give me another chance”:
Haskins,
Richard Pryor
, pp. 187–89;
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 190–91;
deep shock:
“Comedian Richard Pryor Found Afire, Critically Hurt,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 10, 1980, p. B3. Though it’s hard to imagine how Pryor physically jogged half a mile after setting himself aflame, the Associated Press likewise reported that he was found “more than a mile from home” (“Richard Pryor in Critical Condition After Explosion of Drug Mixture,”
New York Times
, June 11, 1980, p. A20).

474   
the third-highest-grossing film of 1981 . . . “In a troubled period for movies”:
Richard Corliss, “Pryor’s Back—Twice as Funny,”
Time
, Mar. 29, 1982, p. 62;
Live on the Sunset Strip:
Lee Grant, “Looking Down from the Top,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, Apr. 11, 1982, p. 17;
bested the returns:
Linda Ruth Williams and Michael Hammond, eds.,
Contemporary American Cinema
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006), p. 187;
“Whatever happened to the black film”:
Dale Pollock, “Pryor in High Demand as Black Film Declines,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 8, 1981, p. G1

474   
“approach it very scientifically”:
Stephen Farber, “Success Holds No Laughter for Richard Pryor,”
New York Times
, June 12, 1983, p. H1.

475   
“What’s wrong with Richard Pryor?”:
Michael Sragow, “What’s Wrong with Richard Pryor?,”
Rolling Stone
, Feb. 17, 1983, pp. 37, 41;
After
Brewster’s Millions
:
Vincent Canby, “Richard Pryor in Search of His Comic Genius,”
New York Times
, June 2, 1985, p. H19; Owen Glieberman, “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” May 6, 1986, pp. C1, C12; “The Current Cinema,” Pauline Kael,
The New Yorker
, May 5, 1986, p. 114. See also David Ehrenstein, “Beginning of the End of Richard Pryor,”
Los Angeles Reader
, Apr. 9, 1982, pp. 17, 19; Jonathan Rosenbaum, “The Man in the Great Flammable Suit,”
Film Comment
(July/Aug. 1982): 17–20; David Edelstein, “Torched Song,”
Village Voice
, May 6, 1986;
for which Richard instructed its screenwriters:
Interview with Herschel Weingrod, “Natsukashi” podcast, posted Mar. 20, 2009, at http://natsukashi.wordpress.com.

476   
“The Sherman Oaks Burn Center”:
Fred Robbins and David Ragan, “Man on Fire,”
US Weekly
, May 11, 1982, p. 30;
“gentle . . . mellow”:
Corliss, “Pryor’s Back—Twice as Funny,” p. 63;
“People call me up and say”:
Farber, “Success Holds No Laughter for Richard Pryor,” p. H1;
“Sure, my moods go up and down”:
David T. Friendly, “Richard Pryor—Your Life Is Calling,”
Los Angeles Times
, Apr. 27, 1986, p. Z4.

476   
it wasn’t only Richard who became more risk-averse:
Biskind,
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
, pp. 408–39; Peter Biskind, “Blockbuster: The Last Crusade,” in Mark Crispin Miller, ed.
Seeing through Movies
(New York: Pantheon, 1990), pp. 112–49;
as wrenching as the coming of sound:
Stephen Prince,
A New Pot of Gold: Hollywood under the Electronic Rainbow, 1980–1989
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), pp. xi–xvii, 287–340; Geoff King,
Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster
(New York: St. Martin’s, 2000); Tom Shone,
Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer
(New York: Free Press, 2004). For a correction to the overemphasis on how the blockbuster changed Hollywood style, see David Bordwell,
The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).

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).

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