posted on December 10, 2005 02:51:42 PM new
Comedian-actor Richard Pryor is shown as he performs in ...
LOS ANGELES - Richard Pryor, the caustic yet perceptive actor-comedian who lived dangerously close to the edge both on stage and off, died Saturday. He was 65.
Pryor died shortly before 8 a.m. of a heart attack after being taken to a hospital from his home in the San Fernando Valley, said his business manager, Karen Finch. He had been ill for years with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system.
"He did not suffer, he went quickly and at the end there was a smile on his face," his wife, Jennifer Pryor, said. "I'm honored now that I have an opportunity to protect and continue his legacy because he's a very, very, very amazing man and he opened doors to so many people."
Pryor's audacious style influenced an array of stand-up artists, including Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall and Damon Wayans, as well as Robin Williams, David Letterman and others.
He was regarded early in his career as one of the most foul-mouthed comics in the business, but he gained a wide following for his expletive-filled but universal and frequently personal insights into modern life and race relations.
A series of hit comedies in the '70s and '80s, as well as filmed versions of his concert performances, turned him into one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood. He was also one of the first black performers to have enough leverage to cut his own Hollywood deals. In 1983, he signed a $40 million, five-year contract with Columbia Pictures.
His films included "Stir Crazy," "Silver Streak," "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling," and "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip."
Throughout his career, Pryor focused on racial inequality, once joking as the host of the 1977 Academy Awards that Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier were the only black members of the Academy.
Pryor once marveled "that I live in racist America and I'm uneducated, yet a lot of people love me and like what I do, and I can make a living from it. You can't do much better than that."
In 1980, he nearly lost his life when he suffered severe burns over 50 percent of his body while freebasing cocaine at his home. An admitted "junkie" at the time, Pryor spent six weeks recovering from the burns and much longer from drug and alcohol dependence.
He battled multiple sclerosis throughout the '90s.
In his last movie, the 1991 bomb "Another You," Pryor's poor health was clearly evident. Pryor made a comeback attempt the following year, returning to standup comedy in clubs and on television while looking thin and frail, and with noticeable speech and movement difficulties.
In 1995, he played an embittered multiple sclerosis patient in an episode of the television series "Chicago Hope." The role earned him an Emmy nomination as best guest actor in a drama series.
"To be diagnosed was the hardest thing because I didn't know what they were talking about," he said. "And the doctor said `Don't worry, in three months you'll know.'
"So I went about my business and then, one day, it jumped me. I couldn't get up. ... Your muscles trick you; they did me."
While Pryor's material sounds modest when compared with some of today's raunchier comedians, it was startling material when first introduced. He never apologized for it.
Pryor was fired by one hotel in Las Vegas for "obscenities" directed at the audience. In 1970, tired of compromising his act, he quit in the middle of another Vegas stage show with the words, "What the (blank) am I doing here?" The audience was left staring at an empty stage.
He didn't tone things down after he became famous. In his 1977 NBC television series "The Richard Pryor Show," he threatened to cancel his contract with the network. NBC's censors objected to a skit in which Pryor appeared naked save for a flesh-colored loincloth to suggest he was emasculated.
In his later years, Pryor mellowed considerably, and his film roles looked more like easy paychecks than artistic endeavors. His robust work gave way to torpid efforts like "Harlem Nights," "Brewster's Millions" and "Hear No Evil, See No Evil."
"I didn't think `Brewster's Millions' was good to begin with," Pryor once said. "I'm sorry, but they offered us the money. I was a pig, I got greedy."
"I had some great things and I had some bad things. The best and the worst," he said in 1995. "In other words, I had a life."
Recognition came in 1998 from an unlikely source: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington gave Pryor the first Mark Twain Prize for humor. He said in a statement that he was proud that, "like Mark Twain, I have been able to use humor to lessen people's hatred."
Born in 1940, to a Peoria, Ill., construction worker, Pryor grew up in a brothel his grandmother ran. His first professional performance came at age 7, when he played drums at a night club.
Following high school and two years of Army service, he launched his performing career. He played bars throughout the United States, honing his comedy skills.
By the mid-'60s, he was appearing in Las Vegas clubs and on the television shows of Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson.
His first film role came with a small part in 1967's "The Busy Body." He made his starring debut as Diana Ross' piano man in 1972's "Lady Sings the Blues."
Pryor also wrote scripts for the television series "Sanford and Son," "The Flip Wilson Show" and two specials for Lily Tomlin. He collaborated with Mel Brooks on the script for the movie "Blazing Saddles."
Later in his career, Pryor used his films as therapy. "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling," was an autobiographical account of a popular comedian re-examining his life while lying delirious in a hospital burn ward. Pryor directed, co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the film.
"I'm glad I did `Jo Jo,'" Pryor once said. "It helped me get rid of a lot of stuff."
Pryor also had legal problems over the years. In 1974, he was sentenced to three years' probation for failing to file federal income tax returns. In 1978, he allegedly fired shots and rammed his car into a vehicle occupied by two of his wife's friends.
Even in poor health, his comedy was vital. At a 1992 performance, he asked the room, "Is there a doctor in the audience?" All he got was nervous laughter. "No, I'm serious. I want to know if there's a doctor here."
A hand finally went up.
"Doctor," Pryor said, "I need to know one thing. What the (blank) is MS?"
Pryor was married six times, most recently to Flynn. The two had a son, Steven. His other children included son Richard and daughters Elizabeth, Rain and Renee.
Daughter Rain became an actress. In an interview in 2005, she told the Philadelphia Inquirer that her father always "put his life right out there for you to look at. I took that approach because I saw how well audiences respond to it. I try to make you laugh at life."
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on December 10, 2005 03:04:06 PM new
I wasn't a big fan of the Prior movies but I loved his routines. So much a part of the culture at the time that they even made it into the Jackson Browne song Load-Out
Now we got country and western on the bus, R & B
We got disco on eight tracks and cassettes in stereo
We've got rural scenes and magazines
We got truckers on CB
We got Richard Pryor on the video
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on December 10, 2005 08:29:50 PM newHe was regarded early in his career as one of the most foul-mouthed comics in the business, but he gained a wide following for his expletive-filled but universal and frequently personal insights into modern life and race relations.
I remember seeing Pryor one time on an HBO special and he was standing on stage telling some white guy in the audience what he'd like to do to him with his penis. The stupid white guy sat there and laughed his head off. I saw this and i was thinking that if that were me that i'd be throwing my beer at the sob and probably my chair and whatever else i could get my hands on too. To say that he was one of the most foul-mouthed comics in the business, is an understatement. The reality about Richard Pryor is that he was a bigot and he practiced reverse discrimination on a regular basis.
posted on December 10, 2005 09:52:35 PM new
That is correct that anyone can be a racist, no matter what their own color is and reverse discrimination is discrimination against members of a majority group, especially when resulting from policies established to correct discrimination against members of a minority or disadvantaged group.
In otherwords, as Pryor himself practiced this form of discrimination he acted out in a manner that he tried to portray members of a majority group, being caucasians, discriminating against members of the group that he was in merely because they were in that group but with no basis in fact to back it up and as if because he said they were discriminated against must mean it's true and this form of discrimination clearly showed through in his comedy routines in the manner with which he openly talked about and to caucasian people in the audience, merely because they were caucasin and he could get away with it on stage and protected by security guards and all.
posted on December 10, 2005 10:24:01 PM new
I understood what your definition of reverse discrimination was, my point is that minority groups practice discrimination too, and by definition that just means they practice discrimination - not reverse discrimination.
By definition, reverse discrimination would mean non-discrimination, or that by practicing reverse-discrimination, they are undoing discrimination, when in fact - as I stated, discrimination is discrimination, and racism is racism, regardless of who is in the minority or the majority.
I hardly think anybody would consider the Apartheid-era rulers of South Africa as "reverse racists", or feel they practiced "reverse discrimination", just because the whites were a small minority in South Africa.
posted on December 10, 2005 10:59:22 PM new
To me reverse discrimination is as i said before but it's also where one group or person, in the manner with which they talk about another group, invites discrimination upon themselves. Like they are percieving how others discriminate against them with no basis in fact to back it up but merely because they are from a group other than their own and so that other group must be discriminating against them.
posted on December 11, 2005 06:33:10 AM new "The reality about Richard Pryor is that he was a bigot and he practiced reverse discrimination on a regular basis."
Pryor's humor was effective in focusing on the really horrific discrimination that blacks have endured. Calling his humor discriminatiory against whites in a thread meant to pay tribute to his life is chickenshit.
posted on December 11, 2005 07:52:07 AM new
Although I disagree with the term "reverse discrimination", I have to agree that Richard Pryor opened the doors to alot of bigoted comedians. It seems to be a double-standard between what a white comedian can say and what black comedian can say. Regardless of what may have happened in the past, double-standards don't help the situation, they only cause resentment, which leads to more racism.
Only a small minority of white people are actually decended from slave masters, and a lot of white people have given there lives in defense of black people and black peoples civil rights, so it is never fair to paint with such a broad brush.
posted on December 11, 2005 08:22:52 AM new
What is chickenshit is when someone tells their side of how they feel and as usual when the truth doesn't fit the small world they feel the need for some inane comments.
But then again they don't seem to mind to do the same style of posting to others threads they don't agree with.
Pii, I don't think he was all that bad but it seems people will let themselves be demeaned because of some imaginary guilt.
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
[ edited by WashingtoneBayer on Dec 11, 2005 08:35 AM ]
"Although I disagree with the term "reverse discrimination..."
That's interesting...Wikepedia addresses that disagreement.
The term reverse discrimination has been criticized by advocates of affirmative action as casting affirmative action in a negative light, without due consideration of its aims. It is also criticized as being politically charged.
Opponents of "Affirmative Action" point out that the "reverse" in reverse discrimination indicates that "normal" discrimination is an attribute of "white" people, inherently. Thus, when racial discrimination is targeted at white victims instead on non-whites it is "reverse". This is considered a misnomer since racial discrimination is discrimination against any human being (even "white" ones) on the basis of race or color. "Reverse" does not come into it. Practitioners of "reverse discrimination" do not generally tolerate dissent, to the point of insisting on speaking objections for their critics rather than listening to them.
Advocates claim that using "reverse" or "positive" as qualifiers has been criticized as diminishing the significance of this kind of discrimination, since it seems to imply a special status for "ordinary" discrimination against women and minorities.
Wikipedia defines reverse discrimination as a term used to describe discriminatory policies or acts that benefit a historically sociopolitically nondominant group (typically minorities), rather than the historically sociopolitically dominant group...sometimes considered synonymous with the terms affirmative action and positive discrimination.
