Comedian Richard Pryor Dies at 65
Richard Pryor, the groundbreaking comedian whose profanely personal insights into race relations and modern life made him one of Hollywood’s biggest black stars, died of a heart attack Saturday. He was 65.
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Comedy Pioneer
December 10th, 2005
16 Comments
We’ll miss you muthafucka!. His stuff was sidesplitting and poignant. RIP
Pryor took what Bruce started and made it funny. Chris Rock has his moments, but no one else today is even close. This is momentous.
I saw Richard Pryor decades ago at the Comedy Store in LA. It was after midnight, and we were told that the doors would be locked before the next performer came on the stage. We chose to stay, and out came Pryor with a stack of 3×5 cards. He’d read a card like HAL the computer would read commodity prices, make a note or two, and then read the next. He did not look at the audience. We sat and stared at him, not knowing if we were supposed to laugh or not. His subject matter was so strange, and his delivery was so unlike the funny guy we had heard on records.
Six months later I saw Pryor on late night do the bit: It was his heart attack story. I thought it was one of the funniest and most touching comedy bits that I’d ever heard.
I will never forget seeing Pryor on stage at the Comedy Store. It was like watching Einstein figuring out relativity. Pure genius at work.
(P.S. If anyone knows how to get a copy of Pryor’s first television special, let me know. I remember among his guest stars were the Pips, not Gladys Knight, just the Pips.)
Truly a visionary, along with the late Bill Hicks. Too many of the comedians now are playing it safe, we need more like Richard and Bill to stir things up a bit… RIP, Rich, and thanks for all the laughs…
Geez, I know you like Superman, but that’s hardly a fitting remembrance for the brilliance that was Richard Pryor.
Two things I’ll never forget: the whole freebasing sketch, the dealers saying, “No more for you, man”… “Even dealers wouldn’t sell me shit.” and him on fire. It reminds me of many of the stories I’ve heard at 12 – Step meetings. And Jim Brown telling him, “You better cut that shit out.”
The other thing I remember is when he talked about going to Africa. In a hushed tone, he said, “And then I realized something… I didn’t see any niggers.” A hush fell over the crowd, and then tumultuous applause.
Now every comedian curses like a 14 year old in their basement, when their parents aren’t home.
Sad – My thoughts to his family.
Pryor. Bruce, Carlin, Hicks.
Damn, now only Carlin is still left standing.
I still keep wondering what Blazing Saddles would have been like had the studio let him play Sheriff Bart. I’m kinda glad they didn’t because we wouldn’t remember Cleavon Little otherwise, but were there ever a part made for a man, that was it.
There was no one else who could take his childhood sexual abuse or his own cocaine problem and make it so goddamn funny. Whoever said this stuff wasn’t funny didn’t listen to Richard Pryor.
Likewise, what would History of the World have been like if Pryor had been in it instead of Gregory Hines?
Although I’ve never been much for Pryor as a movie actor, or even as a sketch comic. His standup is what really showcased his brilliance. Personal, raw, incisive, socially and politically explosive, and hellaciously funny.
It was painful to watch the slow decline of someone who made such a powerful impact upon our culture. His legacy is not yet fully understood. May he rest with the angels.
I wasn’t expecting this when I logged on to the Internet last night.
With Dangerfield, Bruce, Pryor, and Hicks you can bet that someone is getting one heck of a show up there.
At least he doesn’t have to suffer with MS anymore.
Godspeed Mudbone! Yes…it was something you said…
RIP. I love Silver Streak.
I find it amusing the love for Richard Pryor professed by people whose politics are such that Pryor would rise from the dead just to piss on their legs – if he could.
The funny part, John S., is that you think that he might have ever, in a million years, thought like you.