Groundbreaking Social Commentator From Peoria, Ill. Used Film, TV, Stage, Concert Albums, Feature Films In His Dissection of Society

by Kevin J. Walker, Film Critic Cinema Views with Film Critic Kevin J. Walker

WalkerWorld

The passing of Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor following a heart attack at a Los Angeles based assisted living center was the cause of a flurry of noting the impact of one of American society's most incisive observers. Peoria, Illinois is the town where Pryor was raised after being born in St. Louis 65 years ago.

Pryor suffered from health complications of the degenerative nerve disease of Multiple Sclerosis that had been plaguing Pryor since his diagnosis more than a decade ago. He kept a low profile over the years since, shelving his standup comic career and giving few interviews. But he appeared in Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall's period film "Harlem Nights," a gathering of other comic giants such as the late Redd Foxx and Robin Harris.

Pryor was married six times, and had several children whom he was close to from his various wives and paramours. One daughter, Rain Pryor is an actress. In her series "Chicago Hope" in 1995, her stricken father guest-starred as a MS patient.

In his live shows Pryor took his life experiences that would have turned a lesser person into dysfunction and used then as raw material for his observations disguised as comedy.

Although he renounced the word after visiting Zimbabwe, two of Pryor's award-winning comedy albums were titled "That Nigger's Crazy" in 1974 and 1976's "Bicentennial Nigger."

His autobiography book title was even witty and funny. "Pryor Convictions And Other Life Sentences" was his tell-all treatise on his unorthodox upbringing, which included a mother who was a whore and a grandmother who was a brothel's Madam.

"Live On The Sunset Strip" was a comedy album that won an award, as his "Richard Pryor Live In Concert."

One of the golden moments of TV is the Saturday Night Live skit of word association where Chase as the analyst slips in increasingly racial tags, as Pryor makes his [right?] eye nervously twitch and answers with racially tinged answers of his own.

He portrayed a panoply of bounds-stretching characters. They included Mudbone, an old Black man dispensing his worldly wisdom; the Junkie character, talking loud and directing street traffic; Dracula in the Ghetto; a gentle deer in the woods being sighted by a hunter; an overly critical woman during sex; White Racist college boys; a gang of Homeboys who jack a spaceship after Aliens land in the 'Hood; and the First Black President.

Pryor's role as an Exorcist on Saturday Night Live was turned into a skit that was one of their most favourite and included on their look-back SNL specials. Pryor's exorcist assistant loses his religion and starts choking the bound but devilish little girl after she not only tosses her bowl of pea soup in his face, then talks about his mama!

Pryor was an enthusiastic smoker of Freebase as they called it in the pre-Crack days. During one interlude with his drug of choice, the fumes ignited and set him afire, burning over half his body. The incident was even made into the "Ignited Negro College Fund" joke at the time, pairing Pryor with Michael Jackson after his own fiery Pepsi commercial blowup. Pryor even joked about that, talking about beating the 100 yard dash speed of the current Olympians as he raced down the street afire, crackling and popping as he went.

Pryor even courted controversy such as when he was with one of many a White woman paramour at an event passing through a hallway. Seeing the cameras, Pryor put a wide open grin on his face, shuckin' and jivin' for the shutterbugs while he was parading around with his Snowflake.

This was around the time of the infamous comment by Wilt Chamberlain about the shortcomings of African Descended women. The photo made its way in the Jet magazine weekly and launched a vigourous negative response, primarily by Black woman at yet another successful Black man who went over the fence for a White woman and throwing it in their face!

If illness had not felled him early with the new avenues and technology of today, who knows what he would have crafted, considering his past incisive works.

"Jo Jo Dancer Your Life Is Calling" of 1987 was his semi-autobiographical story that he directed, and was gently reviewed by a early incarnation of the PBS syndicated "Siskel and Ebert" film review show, then operating out of Chicago from Tribune Broadcasting.

Pryor's many films included lightweight comedies such as "Bustin 'Loose" but also dramas that were critically noticed such as "Jo Jo Dancer " and his nearly forty other films. He was nominated early on as his role as the Piano Man opposite a young and strung-out newcomer to film Diana Ross playing Billy Holiday in the biopic "Lady Sings The Blues." That auspicious beginning wasn't continued in his subsequent film roles where Pryor was re teamed with both its leads Billie Dee Williams and Ross.

Other movies of Richard Pryor's included "The Mack", "Uptown Saturday Night", "Car Wash," and "Bingo Long and the Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings." Pryor also co-wrote Mel Brook's" Blazing Saddles" co-starring his later cinematic pal Gene Wilder of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the popular and commercially successful movies "Silver Streak" and "Stir Crazy"; "Another You," and "Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" about a pair of handicapped heisters.

Pryor often was included as a bit part or cameo actor in movies such as "Car Wash" where he was a white on white-on-white wearing Pimpin' Preacher whose license plate read "TITHE" while his multiethnic band of a half-dozen heavenly 'Hoes attended him.

In "The Wiz" he played the title character helping the over-age spinsterish Dorothy return to New York's Harlem, played by his co-star in "Lady Sings The Blues."

This casting of Pryor, although popular at the time –- and unexpected because his role was unbilled dearly on -- was a travesty because one of the most rousing songs "So, You Wanted To Meet The Wizard?" had to be dropped because singing wasn't among Pryor's many talents.

In addition to the many movies where he made at least an appearance was the featured commentator in the "WattStax" concert movie and documentary of the gigantic arts, culture and music celebration of the Los Angeles Black enclave taken over after Pearl Harbour when the American born Japanese Nisei were expelled and interned in Utah and Arizona.

"The Toy" with Ned Beatty and Jackie Gleason featured the Great One in one of his last feature films as a racist manipulative billionaire who purchased his spoiled brat son Pryor as his plaything. Gleason was an early TV pioneer and the comic produced his own shows.

Featuring Pryor in the film was in the unwritten but clearly understood pact among many comics where if one of them Makes It, he/she pulls the others in. That's why you have Jim Carrey and several pals in the comic-packed "The Mask," or in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective II" with former "In Living" co-star Tommy Davidson; and Louie Anderson with Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy in "Coming To America."

In "Which Way Is Up?" Pryor starred in the remake of an Italian movie about a union organizer and husband with two families and many misadventures with women where he played multiple roles a generation before "The Klumps."

Chris Rock is another such as was Pryor who is more of a socio-political commentator who uses comedy to pierce through people's outward defenses. If a different person said the things they did it would be considered a militant rant, and rejected instinctively. Many young Black people of the time considered a still active George Carlin "the White Richard Pryor."

"Harlem Nights" paired Pryor and one of his idols. Redd Foxx of St. Louis was the godfather of Black comedians. His raunchy Blue Albums (of which TV dad Bill Cosby of NBC made a few) opened the way for ones like Pryor and Cosby's later success. Foxx also became a G-rated screen dad in his sitcom which was itself another of a long line of American reincarnations of British sitcoms, this one called "Steptoe and Son."

Lenny Bruce was himself a preceder in the 1950s, whose social commentary and drug use made him a target for the authorities. He is often recalled with Pryor because of their parallel lives.

"A White racist system created Richard Pryor. He wasn't the only brilliant Black person, he was just one that got through!" said Dick Gregory during a call-in on radio station WMCS 1290 AM of Milwaukee during Morning Show co-host Keith Murphy's tribute to Pryor broadcast on Monday following the announcement of Pryor's passing.

"It was Richard Pryor who opened the way for Saturday Night Live" Gregory observed.

Gregory, who came to Milwaukee this summer during the annual NAACP convention, was also once well known as a standup comic before his activities as a social activist, philanthropist of the Civil Rights Movement and diet guru made him the consort of those such as MLK and Harry Belafonte.

Eddie Griffin, much like Eddie Murphy paid homage to his elders, even if it was a scene in the semi-autobiographical "Foolish" where before a stage performance he sought communion with the shades of departed comics in the lavatory, with only their feet visible beneath the stalls as they dispensed their comic wisdom.

Pryor, decades before musicians and rappers made the N-Word into astrange love/hate sobriquet, renounced its use after a lengthy life-altering visit to Africa of the sort that recently also affected groundbreaking TV show producer David Chappelle that may have caused him to reevaluate his comedic stance and imperiling his cable TV career.

He said he observed that while he walked the streets of big cities in Zimbabwe in the Motherland, he saw people shopping, cops on the beat rousting drunks, winos sleeping against buildings, and the normal interplay of life. He said he saw pretty much all the types of humanity possible in Africa. But he was visited with a revelation while removed from America.

"I said to myself, I see some of everybody here but I don't see any Niggas.' And that's why I will NEVER use that word again!" he said. And Pryor kept his word, banishing it from his comical repertoire. Again, he was years ahead of society.

Armchair psychology might speculate that being born in a brothel, and with one's dear old mom a prostitute and a grandmother the owner of cathouse would influence your outlook on marriage, and child rearing. Of course this found its way into his routines.

In one of his comedy albums he portrayed a sweet girlfriend transformed into a Nazi after he's made her a wife, pacing back and forth, holding an imaginary cigarette with the palm up, speaking crisp German accented English. "Szo, ve vil zee how you vill ..." Like a lot of Pryor's best humour, there was the sort of uneasy laughter from the audience, and nervous glances to ones attending mate or spouse.

With several wives and living in a state with community property the travails of alimony also made it in Pryor's routine. "Half!?!" he said he exclaimed to his wife. "You ain't told nair one joke!"

"Well, perhaps you'll think THIS is funny," as he mimicked her serving him with notice of her divorce proceedings.

In one of popular comedy tour concert films Pryor once posed as a little child who broke a window, blaming it on "a Stranger" who ran into the house, unseen by anybody else but him. Speaking haltingly and intertwining his fingers, he made viewers see the small child. Pryor said he didn't believe in whupping kids, that parental disappointment seemed to be enough to correct them.

Dick Gregory cautioned Pryor about the travails of network televsion.

"I told him 'Richard, when you on TV you have to act like you in Gooseneck, Tenn.' It was Evolution, like with Malcolm X. The thing she was saying didn't make no sense back then, either. How could I teach your 5 year old about advanced math until he can grow into it? Like Lenny Bruce, America had to grow into the knowledge.

Mark Twain made observations that were controversial as well, and the two were linked when Pryor was the first recipient of the award named after the social commentator of his time of America's halfway point, by way of the very first Life Achievement award named after a man who was also controversial for his use of the N-word and portrayal of those of Enslavement.

Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Bill Cosby, Eddie Griffin, George Wallace, Redd Foxx, Lenny Bruce, Godfrey Cambridge, and other comics paid homage to Pryor in helping their careers or comic structure and approach. Watching Eddie Griffin's semi-autobiographical pair of movies "Foolish" and "DysFunktional Family" shows the clear influences of Pryor on Griffin.

"Lily," an award-winning telefilm about comedienne and actress Lily Tomlin featured Pryor as one of the team of writers. His own TV series on NBC featured 2 young and unproven but promising comics Robin Williams and Sandra Bernhardt.

Tyrone Dumas is the infrastructure manager for Milwaukee Public Schools and formerly a standup comic who later turned to architecture. He recalled Monday morning for 1290 WMCS-AM radio listeners when he and some others picketed the local NBC affiliate which is on the northern edge of the Milwaukee Black community when they pulled the other showings of the Richard Pryor Show that even the national network had allowed!

The station manager said it was offensive according to prevailing community mores and sensibilities. "Well then we want you to show the shows to us," Dumas said of a private screening. WTMJ said that on a Saturday people could see it then without commercial interruption.

The Pryor TV hourly show was an old fashioned variety show much like the later SNL and late--nite talk shows, with musical interludes from jazz people, and with comic sketches interspersed.

Dumas continued: "When you look at it was amazing how ground breaking it was." Host Keith Murphy suggested that the new Black-owned and oriented cable channel TV One could use Pryor's landmark TV show for its material.

The Richard Pryor Show in 1977 was advanced for its time on TV. NBC canceled it after only a half-dozen episodes, also co-written by actress Maya Angelou who appeared in the skits. The humour was poignant, as was their skit about a blustering alcoholic beaten down by the world, yet turning his stress inward and against his woman.

The world renown poet also had a pioneering producer's contract with NBC as a female. She was on a stage bare except for those two ,and explained why she still loved him despite everything as he snores away in a drunken stupor, occasionally twitching and saying something blustery. Her soliloquy was delivered while a single spot light illuminated his sleeping form. It was visually poetic, and unlike anything seen much on television.

"This was 1977 when he was talking about African history," said Dumas, who like many were aghast when NBC yanked the Richard Pryor show after just 5 outings.

Witnesses to the public screenings didn't understand the network concerns. "This isn't anything controversial!" several exclaimed; "he's just telling it like it is" was some of the most repeated remarks. "We sent the petitions to NBC and Pryor, and they were coming in from all around the country" Dumas said.

People didn't know what quite to make of this new TV show, which pushed right the boundaries of the formulaic TV show. It wasn't the language, Pryor made sure about that. It was the ideas, the unabashed statements on race relations, and personal male female interaction. It wasn't nasty; it was just ... different.

Therefore Pryor's TV show was inherently controversial in a time when the three member private club Network TV didn't have threat from competitors such as home media stations, video and DVD rentals, game consoles, PayTV and OnDemand cable offerings, and the Internet.

People who only knew Pryor from his middling movies and brief appearances on variety shows such as "The Ed Sullivan Show," which once owned Sunday nights, saw another side of what tuned out to be someone who had a philosophy, and lots more talent than was known before. The controversy also helped propel Pryor further into the stratosphere of multiple threat entertainers, and he had careers now in standup tours, the spin-off movies made from the tours (there was no video then for the masses) and LP comic albums made from the same.

The cover for the concert LP "Was it Something I Said?" featured a tied-up perplexed looking Richard Pryor, against a tree lit by a circle of torches out in the woods surrounded by angry white-robed Ku Klux Klansmen. Pryor knew the effect of his comical observations on American society, much like the rap group Public Enemy, whose emblem was the silhouette of a young Black man in a bowler hat, arms crossed defiantly and non-chalantly, but superimposed in the cross-hairs of a sniper rifle.

NBC also was the risk-taking network that made a bold play putting on the Richard Pryor Show, then backed off after they made their move. They were called the Peacock Network because they were the first to broadcast "in living colour," and put the ground breaking formula breaking Science Fiction series "Star Trek" on the air which featured the first interracial kiss between Capt Kirk and Lt. Uhuru. They later canceled the controversial show as they later did Pryor's. NBC is often forth in the ratings of the now 6 or so free TV networks

Pryor's hometown of Peoria a year or so ago passed on erecting a monument or publicly acknowledging their native son after local boosters broached the idea.

RICHARD PRYOR MOVIES:

Lady Sings The Blues -- Pryor was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor in this period biopic of Billie Holiday for his role as her pal the Piano Man.

Bingo Long and the Traveling all Stars and Motor Kings --a sprawling historical period film about the early years of the barnstorming Negro Leagues re-teaming Pryor with "Lady Sings" the Blues'" Billy Dee Williams

Greased Lightning -- Much like "Bingo Long" this was a biopic about an early Black stock car driver.

Superman III -- Pryor is a rogue computer programmer who pilfers his defense contactor's funds. After discovery he uses him and his skills to entrap Superman. A comic-bookish third of fou rexisting Superman films with the late Christopher Reeves, co-staring Robert Vaughn ("Magnificent Seven", "Battle Beyond The Stars."

WattStax -- Pryor was the running colour commentator in the documentary about the Los Angeles community's arts, culture and entertainment festival.

Some Kind Of Hero -- Pryor is a Vietnam war vet who drives a busload of children to a new group foster home while pursuedby the authorities. Co-starring Cicely Tyson.

Blazing Saddles -- Pryor was a co-writer of Mel Brook's iconoclastic Western which featured the Black sheriff of the town ofRock Ridge taking on a criminal cowboy gang and Railroad Baron Hedley Lamarr .

Uptown Saturday Nite -- Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor in a bit role as two working class guys head to New Orleans for some fun away from their wives, losing a winning lotteryticket.

Blue Collar -- A dramatic role for Pryor where he, Harvey Kietel and Yaphet Kotto fight union corruption in their Detroit automaker's union.

Brewsters Millions -- Remake of the 1940s movie where Pryor's character has to spend millions within a set time to gain a fortune.

Critical Condition -- Fact-based movie about a walk-inimposter who assumed control of a large city hospital for weeks before being discovered.

Adios, Amigo -- Almost unwatchable movie directed by Fred Williamson about a Westward movement after Emancipation.

Another You -- The fourth pairing with Gene Wilder with Hollywood capitalizing on the popular screen pairings.

Car Wash -- Pryor had one of many screen cameos throughout his career here as a white on white-on-white wearing Pimpin' Preacher whose license plate read "TITHE" while his multiethnic band of a half-dozen Heavenly 'Hoes attended him as he was one of many characters who parade through a day in the lives of those attending a California car wash. Co stars included Franklin Ajaye.

Hit! -- Pryor reteams with Billy Dee Williams' rogue covert agent to take down a high placed drug lord

The Wiz -- Pryor played the title character helping the overage spinsterish Dorothy return to New York's Harlem, played by his co-star Diana Ross in "Lady Sings The Blues."

The Toy -- A racist manipulative billionaire purchases Pryor for his spoiled brat son as his personal plaything. Pryor turns the tables as he tutors the boy in life. Co-stars Jackie Gleason and Ned Beatty.

Which Way Is Up -- Pryor starred in remake of an Italian film about a union organizer and husband with two families and many misadventures with women where he played multiple roles a generation before "The Klumps."

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling -- Pryor directed this semi-autobiographical film.

See No, Evil Speak No Evil -- Pryor and multiple film pal Gene Wilder star as a pair of handicapped heisters.

The Mack -- A Pimp named Goldie builds his empire of womenses who give him their money. Pryor is a local entrepreneur in their underworld.

Moving -- In this kinder, gentler family film Pryor is a beseiged dad relocating in a long cross-country trip filled with misadventures and slapstick.

Bustin' Loose

Television:

• Saturday Night Live -- Pryor was one of the very first Host Performers of the show, and a notable guest whose skits are included in the SNL and NBC network retrospectives.

• The Richard Pryor Show -- The weekly show was a old fashioned variety program much like the later SNL and late-nite talk shows, with musical interludes from jazz people, and with comic sketches interspersed. Sandra Bernhardt and Robin Williams were featured on the limited show, which was cancelled amid controversy after only five showings. (Milwaukee's jumpy NBC affiliate didn't even show that many of them)

Concert Films:

• "Live On The Sunset Strip"

• "Richard Pryor Live In Concert."

Pryor As Director:

Jo Jo Dancer Your Life Is Calling -- (1987) his semi-autobiographical story that Pryor directed.

Writing Credits:

Blazing Saddles -- Pryor was a co-writer of Mel Brook's iconoclastic Western which featured the Black sheriff of the town of Rock Ridge taking on a criminal cowboy gang and Railroad Baron Hedley Lamarr.

Lily -- An award-winning telefilm about Lily Tomlin featured Pryor as one of the team of writers. His own TV series on NBC featured a young and unproven but promising Robin Williams and Sandra Bernhard.

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kevin j. walker, Netitor

The Word NetPaper

WalkerWorld
walkernet@excite.com

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Milwaukee WI USA 53201-1324

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