Rochard pryor5/16/2023 ![]() On his way to fame and self-destruction, Pryor became the funniest man in America by creating a new kind of comedy-a hilarious, heartbreaking, and conflicted view of life seen from the underside. Yet he is modest enough, and wise enough, to warn his colleagues: “You should not even get onstage and attempt to be funny unless you realize you’re never going to be as funny as Richard Pryor.” One, Chris Rock, has every right to boast about his accomplishments. Other African-American comedians preceded him, and since his death in 2004, a handful of young black performers have earned more money and entertained larger audiences. He also took home numerous life and career achievement awards, including one from the Grammys, the American Comedy Awards, the NAACP Image Awards, and in 1998 received the first-ever Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, handed out by The Kennedy Center.Playwright Neil Simon called him “the most brilliant comic in America.” For humorist Lily Tomlin, he was “a gifted, raging, soaring, plummeting, deeply human man with the tender boy inside-the greatest pioneering comic artist of the last three generations.” Critic Pauline Kael dubbed him “a master of lyrical obscenity the only great poet satirist among our comics.” They weren’t exaggerating. In the category of Best Comedy Recording, he was nominated 10 times in the 11-year-period between 19, winning four times, including for "Live on the Sunset Strip," which was named one of the best ever comedy albums by Idolator and Spin. Pryor is one of the most acclaimed comedians in Grammy history. In 1975, Pryor served in the writers' room that created Mel Brooks' comic western "Blazing Saddles," garnering a screenwriting nomination from the BAFTA Awards and winning the WGA Award for feature screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on "The Lily Tomlin Show" in 1973 and won the following year for the same sketch/variety program. In between his two definitive stand-up comedy periods - innocuous observational humor, and incendiary social satire with personal reflection - Pryor was an in-demand screenwriter, and he won some prizes for his efforts. Yet she still ultimately remarried Pryor and remained with him until his death. I know, I have the bruises and the hospital records to prove it." Nothing funny about that. You told me it was that macho myth that made you think beating up women was the way to be a big, strong man. "You told me you watched your father and the pimps beat up the prostitutes, as if they owned them and had the right to hit them. ![]() His then-ex-wife Jennifer Lee Pryor was interviewed in 1986 in People magazine after the first divorce about Pryor's semi-autobiographical film Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, describing the movie as a "vacuous film" and calling Pryor out as an abuser, saying that it didn't reflect how his life really was. The New Yorker reported that "Pryor regularly beat up women." He also had a thing for guns, shooting up both a car and a fish tank. That, combined with the drugs and drinking, wasn't exactly a good match. His life was never the same again.Īnd while Pryor had a lot of good qualities, he also was still fighting the demons of his childhood and was prone to fits of rage. It didn't help that he was wearing a polyester shirt, as it melted to his skin. ![]() He ran out into the street to get help and ended up in the hospital. According to the 2013 Showtime special Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic, Pryor had just been watching a scene on TV about the Buddhist monk who set himself on fire to protest the war in Vietnam. That's how messed up Pryor's life was - the idea of him burning himself freebasing cocaine was more palatable than what really happened. Ironically, setting himself on fire revived it." But as Pryor's biographer Saul notes, "On June 9, 1980, Pryor doused himself with a bottle of 151 proof rum and set himself on fire - not by accident, as he first claimed, but by choice. People wrote at the time, "Los Angeles police say he was burned by an explosion while 'freebasing' cocaine." The publication said "Pryor's lawyer denies the report, claiming the injuries were caused by burning rum." The attorney was technically right in that burning rum caused Pryor's injuries. In 1980, Pryor suffered severe burns and nearly died after setting himself on fire.
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