Becoming Richard Pryor

by Scott Saul

  95 “Man, I know Jesus”: Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin’, directed by Richard Blum, MPI Home Video, 1985 (filmed Apr. 29, 1971) (hereafter Live and Smokin’).

  95 “What do you do?”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 59–60; bartender: Author’s interview with David Sprattling..

  96 “Boy Wonder of Peoria” . . . “hottest thing this side of Khrushchev” . . . Chicago-bred chorus girl: Ole Nosey, “Everybody Goes When the Wagon Comes,” Chicago Defender, Sept. 26, 1959, p. 18; “give ward residents”: “Fourth Ward,” Peoria Journal Star, Feb. 11, 1961. Parker lost the aldermanic election.

  97 Regal Theater . . . Chorus girls: Author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, Sept. 6, 2011; Musicians suited up: Author’s interview with David Sprattling; elegance itself: Photograph of Harold’s Club in author’s possession; about one-third white and two-thirds black: Author’s interview with Fred Tieken, Sept. 8, 2011; scent of cologne . . . Cab Calloway . . . framed portrait: Ibid.

  98 bribed the musicians’ union . . . “Sometimes when he didn’t pay”: Author’s interview with David Sprattling; “meanest cats”: Pieters, “‘Hurt Pride’ Leads to Comic Career,” p. 3A; Parker’s own mother: Author’s interview with Fred Tieken.

  99 “anything goes” attitude: Author’s interview with Fred Tieken.

  99 Santa Claus: Author’s interview with David Sprattling; jackleg preacher . . . car salesman: Author’s interview with Jimmy Binkley, July 1, 2010.

  99 wino character: Author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, July 9, 2010.

  100 Bob Hope: Lahr, Show and Tell, p. 202; Caesar . . . Winters: Gerald Nachman, Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s (New York: Pantheon, 2003), pp. 105–7, 240–53.

  100 not even the house musicians: Author’s interview with David Sprattling.

  100 In the spring of 1961: Author’s interview with Richard Pryor Jr., Oct. 4, 2011; author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, Sept. 6, 2011.

  101 “for better, for worse, and forever”: Pryor, “Unwed Mutha,” p. 86. Like Pryor, Patricia Price grew up in an environment that made 1950s sitcoms seem like broadcasts from another planet. According to Richard and Patricia’s son Richard Jr., Patricia’s father, Gladstone “Fox” Watts, often drank himself into a rage and then brutalized her mother, Jessie; as an older man, he served time in a penitentiary for having gunned down someone who slandered his manhood (author’s interview with Richard Pryor Jr.).

  101 “Son, you don’t have to” . . . “If Buck hadn’t said that”: Pryor, “Unwed Mutha,” p. 86; ill equipped his son was . . . Fewer than ten people . . . the ceremony had already ended . . . dressed more formally than the bride: Author’s interview with Barbara McGee, May 13, 2011.

  101 June 11, 1961: “Complaint for Divorce,” Richard F. Pryor v. Patricia B. Pryor, No. 66D 746, Peoria County Circuit Clerk’s Office archives, (Mar. 4, 1966), p. 1 (hereafter “Complaint for Divorce”).

  102 moving into Marie’s: Author’s interview with Barbara McGee, May 13, 2011; paper from clothes hangers . . . the hospital was closed: Author’s interview with Richard Pryor Jr.

  102 “I’m sick of potatoes” . . . “The next time he hits you”: Ibid.

  102 He broke into song: Ibid.

  103 Around September 1: “Complaint for Divorce,” p. 1; Fourth Street: Author’s interview with Barbara McGee, May 13, 2011; “It’s part of show business”: Pryor Convictions, p. 61; Author’s interview with Rosalyn Taylor, Dec. 2, 2010. In his autobiography, Pryor misspells Stenson’s last name and misidentifies him as a singer.

  103 On April 1, 1962: “Fatally Shot,” Chicago Defender, Apr. 3, 1962; author’s interview with David Sprattling; author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, Oct. 3, 2011; “Churchman, Father of 5, Dies Grabbing Tap Interloper’s Gun,” Peoria Journal Star, Apr. 2, 1962; “Grand Jury Recommended on Shotgunning,” Peoria Journal Star, Apr. 5, 1962.

  104 “looked like a little ape”: Pryor Convictions, p. 62.

  104 stopped by the home: Author’s interview with Barbara McGee, Sept. 8, 2011.

  104 Harold Parker lost his liquor license: “Cop in Closet Sees Bribe Try as Club Owner Faces Charge,” Peoria Journal Star, June 26, 1961; “Harold’s Club Liquor License Revoked,” Peoria Journal Star, July 21, 1961; Day v. Illinois Liquor Commission, Illinois Appellate Court, Second District, Second Division (Jan. 24, 1963), accessed at http://il.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19630124_0000026.IL.htm/qx. Caterpillar Corporation would build: Steve Tarter, “Caterpillar Still Studying Options for New Peoria Headquarters,” Peoria Journal Star, Jan. 13, 2014.

  105 died a few years later: Author’s interview with Harold Parker Jr., Oct. 6, 2011.

  105 operated a tavern . . . since 1939: Polk’s Peoria Directory (St. Louis, MO: Polk, 1939), p. 645; Richard’s grandfather Pops took over: Polk’s Peoria Directory (St. Louis, MO: Polk, 1954), p. 91; seventy-two dollars a week: Vanocur, “Richard Pryor,” p. F5; Bill Knight, “Musicians Remember Pryor’s Friendship,” Peoria Journal Star, May 11, 1985; “Carbristo Collins, Former Restaurant Owner, Dies at 72,” Peoria Journal Star, Dec. 3, 1980; he had recently opened: Al Monroe, “So They Say,” Chicago Defender, Mar. 26, 1962, p. 16.

  105 supporting the Carver Center: Author’s interview with Kathryn Timmes, May 15, 2011; refusing to carry any liquor: John L. Clark, “John L. Clark Discovers Negroes Now Talking; Ike Gets ‘Suggestions,’” Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 11, 1952, p. 19; white strippers who straggled in: Author’s interview with Jimmy Binkley, July 1, 2010; a handful of whites: Author’s interview with Fred Tieken, Sept. 8, 2011; author’s interview with David Sprattling, July 16, 2010; house band . . . “Bris Collins would say”: Author’s interview with Jimmy Binkley, July 1, 2010.

  105 For Richard, Collins Corner was: Ibid.

  106 a baby being born: Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, directed by Richard Pryor (Columbia Pictures, 1986) (hereafter Jo Jo Dancer); author’s interview with Tim Reid, Oct. 4, 2010; author’s interview with Jimmy Binkley, July 1, 2010. For a different inflection on a similar idea, listen to “Being Born,” Richard Pryor: Are You Serious???, Laff Records A196 (released 1976, recorded late 1960s) (hereafter Are You Serious???).

  107 asked him to beat her: Pryor Convictions, pp. 63–64; “She hit me”: Vanocur, “Richard Pryor,” p. F5.

  107 “What the fuck are you doing?”: Pryor Convictions, p. 64.

  107 Richard scrambled to gather a few things: Author’s interview with Barbara McGee, May 13, 2011.

  107 His head swimming: Pryor Convictions, p. 64; Juliette Whittaker, Grossinger’s: Author’s interview with David Sprattling, July 16, 2010; Haskins, Richard Pryor, p. 31; author’s interview with Jimmy Binkley, July 1, 2010; author’s interview with Richard Pryor Jr., Oct. 4, 2011.

  108 “One day you’ll pay to see me”: Author’s interview with Cecil Grubbs, July 9, 2010; they expected him to return, humbled: Author’s interview with Loren Cornish, May 19, 2011; a South Pacific–style burlesque show: “Richard Pryor interviewed with Congress of Wonders, 08/25/71, Berkeley, Calif.,” transcript in author’s possession (hereafter “Congress of Wonders interview”).

  108 “probably the best thing we ever did for him”: Jean Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor Visiting Family Here,” Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 28, 1966, p. A5.

  108 For Richard, Peoria would always be: Phil Luciano, “Comedic Genius,” Peoria Journal Star, Dec. 12, 2005.

  Chapter 7: In Search of Openness

  111 “good Negro folks”: Mel Watkins, On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), pp. 488–89; the Chitlin Circuit: See Preston Lauterbach, The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010); “We was so poor”: Haskins, Richard Pryor, p. 33.

  111 “Every day was different”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 64–66; “Hey, y’all can boo me now”: Watkins, On the Real Side, pp. 488–89.

  112 “You’ve got to talk”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 64–66.

  1
12 taken his clothes with them: Fields, “Kook from Peoria,” p. 19; owners of the Casablanca Club: The incident at the Casablanca was replayed for laughs in Pryor’s film Live on the Sunset Strip and in his autobiographical film, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, and Pryor seems to have embroidered the tale for these performances. Much of the humor in his retelling came from the incongruity of seeing him dropped into a scene from The Godfather—“Look at the pair of gaguzzis on that kid . . . What a pack of zingis . . . Hey, Paolo, fix up some frono”—but the Casablanca’s owners were Lebanese, not Sicilian, Watkins, On the Real Side, pp. 488–89; “Hey, do it again, Rich”: Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip, directed by Joe Layton (1982) (hereafter Live on the Sunset Strip); Jo Jo Dancer. Though it was not unusual for performers to be underpaid by club owners on the Chitlin Circuit, I have found no evidence that the owners of the Casablanca were involved in any wrongdoing.

  112 December 1962: George E. Pitts, “Negro Stars Must Give Negro Promoters Break,” Pittsburgh Courier, Dec. 8, 1962, p. 16; Civic Arena: Sharon Eberson, “Arena Timeline,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 30, 2010; “Officer, about that young fellow”: On Broadway Tonight, aired Aug. 31, 1964 (CBS) (viewed at UCLA Film and Television Archive; hereafter On Broadway Tonight).

  112 Davis let him bum a cigarette: Pryor Convictions, pp. 67–68; “a hard grind at best”: On Broadway Tonight.

  112 in Pittsburgh, he started dating a singer: Pryor Convictions, pp. 66–67; “Black Panther Racial Matter,” Richard Pryor FBI file, Feb. 5, 1969, p. 3. In his memoir, Pryor claimed that he gambled his way out of jail by playing “313” (the number of his childhood address on North Washington Street), using his winnings to secure his release. This account of events does not jibe with how the legal system tends to work. Convicted defendants are generally asked, by the terms of their sentence, to serve jail time or pay a fine—not to serve jail time until they can pay a fine.

  113 “hillbilly bar” . . . gay wrestlers: Vanocur, “Richard Pryor,” p. F5.

  113 flipped open Newsweek: Pryor Convictions, p. 68.

  114 “Riiight,” Newsweek, June 17, 1963, p. 89.

  114 “sick” humor: On the sick comics, see Nachman, Seriously Funny; and Stephen Kercher, Revel with a Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

  114 “Goddamn it”: Pryor Convictions, p. 68; “composed mainly of Bohemian youths”: Paul Gardner, “Comic Turns Quips into Tuition,” New York Times, Jun. 25, 1962, p. 23.

  115 train ticket . . . ten dollars: Pryor Convictions, p. 69.

  115 “It was a lot to take in”: Ibid.

  116 “In two blocks, I saw more black people”: Only in America interview.

  116 At the Apollo: Pryor Convictions, pp. 69–70.

  116 “It was a time”: Orth, “The Perils of Richard Pryor,” p. 61.

  117 the incubator of the new comics: “Greenwich Village Becoming Top N.Y. Showcase for New Acts,” Variety, Oct. 9, 1963.

  117 “Coney Island, carnival atmosphere”: Edith Evans Asbury, “Greenwich Village Argues New Way of Life,” New York Times, Aug. 4, 1963, pp. 1, 62; “One good mistress”: Bitter End menu in author’s possession (proverbs originally written by surrealists Paul Eluard and Benjamin Péret); open until midnight: Beth Bryant, The New Inside Guide to Greenwich Village (New York: Oak Publications, 1965), pp. 10–14; the local avant-garde: Sally Banes, Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Performance and the Effervescent Body (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993); John Strausbaugh, The Village: A History of Greenwich Village (New York: Ecco, 2013).

  117 tried every drug: Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012.

  118 “with jacket sleeves”: Joan Rivers with Richard Meryman, Enter Talking (New York: Dell, 1987), p. 332; a small, dark apartment: Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012; “I didn’t make the Village scene”: David Felton, “Jive Times: Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin and the Theater of the Routine,” Rolling Stone, Oct. 10, 1974, p. 46.

  118 “The man was amazing”: Pryor Convictions, p. 72.

  118 “Richard Cosby”: Ibid., pp. 72–73; studying Cos’s records: Harvey Pack, “History of Negro Humor on Special,” Winona Daily News, Apr. 2, 1967, p. 14; “screaming takeoffs”: Henry Benjamin, “Del Shields’ Jazz Show Is Mighty Fine,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 9, 1964, p. 17.

  118 “I grabbed the crook”: On Broadway Tonight, aired Aug. 31, 1961 (CBS).

  119 “I’m going for the bucks”: Pryor Convictions, pp. 72–73.

  119 first media coverage of Richard’s career: Robert Salmaggi, “After Sunset,” New York Herald Tribune, Mar. 19, 1964; “You can’t be Cos”: Author’s interview with Manny Roth, July 17, 2010.

  119 an air of unqualified success: Nachman, Seriously Funny, p. 563.

  120 Jaglom: Author’s interview with Henry Jaglom, Jan. 8, 2011; “upright hippo of a man”: Mike Thomas, The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theater (New York: Villard Books, 2009), p. 33; Altman: Gene Palatsky, “Stage and Finance,” Newark Evening News, Sept. 9, 1963, p. 16; Friedberg: Author’s interview with Pat Benson, Oct. 27, 2011; author’s interview with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010; Heyman: Author’s interview with Burt Heyman, Oct. 21, 2011.

  120 spring of 1963: Keith Scott, The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel and a Talking Moose (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 212; “everyone you haven’t seen”: Village Voice, Oct. 17, 1963, p. 10; “happy espresso oasis”: Salmaggi, “After Sunset”; “the dregs”: Author’s interview with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010.

  121 “Come on up”: Jeffrey Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away: An Oral History of the Second City and Compass Players (New York: Avon, 1978), p. 354; for nothing other than the joy of performance: Richard Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2008), p. 47. Pryor once accused Improv owner Budd Friedman of taking advantage of him because he was black, to which Friedman replied that he paid Pryor what he paid all the comedians: nothing.

  121 “to almost fool spontaneity”: Viola Spolin, Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher’s Handbook (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1986), p. 5.

  121 “He would just investigate”: Author’s interview with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010; a fortune-telling vending machine: On the Vend-a-Buddy sketch and improv theater more generally, see Lee Gallup Feldman, “A Critical Analysis of Improvisational Theatre in the United States from 1955–1968,” PhD dissertation University of Denver, 1969, pp. 144–47; and Janet Coleman, The Compass: The Improvisational Theatre That Revolutionized American Comedy (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1990).

  121 soldiers: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, p. 355; Mafioso and his mark: Author’s interview with Bob Altman, Oct. 21, 2010; samurai warriors: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, p. 355.

  122 make-believe aquarium: Author’s interview with Pat Benson, Oct. 27, 2011; sat eating an entire meal: Ibid.

  123 edgier performance scenes: Stephen Bottoms, Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004); “flesh jubilation”: Banes, Greenwich Village 1963, p. 197.

  123 button-down shirt, sports coat: Photograph in author’s possession; “there goes another myth”: Author’s interview with Silver Saundors Friedman, Oct. 20, 2010.

  123 “I think I’ll go downtown”: Ibid.

  123 Jaglom came from a spectacularly wealthy family: Author’s interview with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010, and Jan. 8, 2011.

  124 an intellectual and an idealist: “Letters,” New York Times, Aug. 18, 1963, p. 176; Congress of Racial Equality: “CORE Wants Negroes Used in Soap Commercials on TV,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 20, 1963, p. 10; and Jason Chambers, Madison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in the Advertising Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 133–41.

  124
Richard started spilling condiments: Author’s interview with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010.

  125 At Jaglom’s home: Ibid., and interview with Jaglom, Jan. 8, 2011; November 1964: “Cosby to Appear in TV Spy Series,” New York Times, Nov. 16, 1964, p. 63.

  125 CORE leaders . . . set up training workshops: Marilynn S. Johnson, Street Justice: A History of Police Violence in New York City (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003), p. 230.

  126 Jaglom thought he might “get killed”: Author’s interview with Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010.

  126 improv became more than an art form: Author’s interview with Pat Benson, Oct. 27, 2011; and author’s interview with Burt Heyman, Oct. 21, 2011.

  Chapter 8: Mr. Congeniality

  128 “scared little black kid”: Author’s interviews with Manny Roth, May 23, 2010, and July 17, 2010; one of the Village’s many Jewish entrepreneurs: Paul Colby with Martin Fitzpatrick, The Bitter End: Hanging Out at America’s Nightclub (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002), pp. 24–33; Greenwich Village was no interracial idyll in the late 1950s: if an interracial couple walked into the Cock-n-Bull, Roth advised them, “I’m sorry but I can’t let you sit in the window, because there’s going to be a brick coming in the window if you sit there.” On the history of the tension between blacks and Italian Americans in New York City, see Robert A. Orsi, “The Religious Boundaries of an In-Between People: Street Feste and the Problem of the Dark-Skinned Other in Italian Harlem, 1920–1990,” in Robert A. Orsi, ed., Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 257–88; Indiana . . . Ku Klux Klan: On the Ku Klux Klan and segregation in Indiana, see Emma Lou Thornbrough, “Segregation in Indiana during the Klan Era of the 1920’s,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47, no. 4 (Mar. 1961): 594–618; Leonard Joseph Moore, Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921–1928 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991).

  128 “a subterranean cavern . . . facial acrobatics”: Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume 1 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), pp. 9, 11; Robert Shelton, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (New York: William Morrow, 1986), p. 93.