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Obituary

Comedy loses its profane pioneer

RICHARD PRYOR: 1940-2005. In breaking comedic and societal barriers, Richard Pryor was both brilliant and troubled.

By wire services
Published December 11, 2005

LOS ANGELES - Richard Pryor, the groundbreaking comedian whose profanely personal insights into race relations and life made him one of Hollywood's biggest stars, died of a heart attack Saturday (Dec. 11, 2005). He was 65.

Mr. Pryor died shortly before 8 a.m. after being taken to a hospital from his home in the San Fernando Valley, said his business manager, Karen Finch. He was ill for years with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system.

Music producer Quincy Jones called Mr. Pryor a true pioneer of his art.

"He was . . . a master of telling the truth that influenced every comedian that came after him," Jones said in a statement. "The legacy that he leaves will forever be with us."

Mr. Pryor lived dangerously close to the edge, on stage and off.

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 universal and frequently personal routines. After nearly losing his life in 1980 when he caught on fire while freebasing cocaine, he incorporated the ordeal into his later routines.

His audacious style influenced generations of stand-up artists, from Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock to Robin Williams and David Letterman, among others.

"Richard Pryor is the groundbreaker," comedian Keenan Ivory Wayans once said. "For most of us he was the inspiration to get into comedy and also showed us that you can be black and have a black voice and be successful."

A series of hit comedies and concert films in the 1970s and '80s helped make Mr. Pryor one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood, and he was one of the first black performers to have enough leverage to cut his own deals. In 1983, he signed a $40-million, five-year contract with Columbia Pictures.

His films included Stir Crazy, Silver Streak, Which Way Is Up? and Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip.

Throughout his career, Mr. Pryor focused on racial inequality. He 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."

But he battled drug and alcohol addictions for years, most notably when he suffered severe burns over 50 percent of his body while freebasing at his home. An admitted "junkie" at the time, Mr. Pryor spent six weeks recovering from the burns and much longer from his addictions.

He battled multiple sclerosis throughout the 1990s.

In one of his last movies, the 1991 bomb Another You, Mr. Pryor's poor health was clearly evident. He 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, Mr. Pryor played an embittered multiple sclerosis patient in an episode of the television series Chicago Hope. The role earned him an Emmy nomination.

While Mr. Pryor's material sounds modest when compared with some of today's raunchier comedians, it was startling when introduced. He never apologized.

Mr. Pryor was fired by one Las Vegas hotel 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 (expletive) 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 short-lived 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 Mr. Pryor appeared naked save for a flesh-colored loincloth to suggest he was emasculated.

"I wish that every new and young comedian would understand what Richard was about and not confuse his genius with his language usage," comedian Bill Cosby said through a spokesman Saturday.

Mr. Pryor also 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.

In his later years, Mr. 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 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 the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which gave Mr. Pryor the Mark Twain Prize for humor. He said in a statement he was proud that, "like Mark Twain, I have been able to use humor to lessen people's hatred."

The comedian was poignant in his remarks to a Washington Post reporter after winning the honor.

"I'm a pioneer. That's my contribution. I broke barriers for black comics," he said. "But I was on drugs at the time."

Mr. Pryor is survived by his sixth wife, Jennifer Lee Pryor, sons Steven and Richard and daughters Elizabeth, Renee and Rain.

Information from the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified December 11, 2005, 02:29:57]