1. Richard Pryor received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998.
65 Facts About Richard Pryor
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Richard Pryor won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974.
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Richard Pryor was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians.
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Richard Pryor won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for That Nigger's Crazy,.
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Richard Pryor served as a co-writer for the Mel Brooks satirical western comedy film Blazing Saddles.
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Richard Pryor gained acclaim for his collaborations with Gene Wilder, including the films Silver Streak, Stir Crazy, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Another You.
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Richard Pryor acted in films such as Uptown Saturday Night, Blue Collar, The Wiz, California Suite, Superman III, Harlem Nights, and Lost Highway.
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Richard Pryor appeared as himself on Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live before hosting The Richard Pryor Show, and Pryor's Place.
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Richard Pryor was born on December 1,1940, in Peoria, Illinois.
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Richard Pryor grew up in a brothel run by his grandmother, Marie Carter, where his alcoholic mother, Gertrude L, was a prostitute.
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Richard Pryor's father, LeRoy "Buck Carter" Pryor, was a former boxer, hustler and pimp.
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Richard Pryor was one of four children raised in his grandmother's brothel.
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Richard Pryor served in the US Army from 1958 to 1960, but spent virtually the entire stint in an army prison.
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Richard Pryor was a member of Henry Brown Lodge No 22 in Peoria, where he became a Prince Hall Freemason.
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In 1963, Richard Pryor moved to New York City and began performing regularly in clubs alongside performers such as Bob Dylan and Woody Allen.
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Richard Pryor shook like he had malaria, he was so nervous.
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Richard Pryor began appearing regularly on television variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
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Richard Pryor's popularity led to success as a comic in Las Vegas.
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In 1966, Richard Pryor was a guest star on an episode of The Wild Wild West.
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In September 1967, Richard Pryor had what he described in his autobiography Richard Pryor Convictions as an "epiphany".
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In 1969, Pryor moved to Berkeley, California, where he immersed himself in the counterculture and met people like Huey P Newton and Ishmael Reed.
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Richard Pryor signed with the comedy-oriented independent record label Laff Records in 1970, and in 1971 recorded his second album, Craps.
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Not long afterward, Richard Pryor sought a deal with a larger label, and he signed with Stax Records in 1973.
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When his third breakthrough album That Nigger's Crazy was released, Laff, which claimed ownership of Richard Pryor's recording rights, almost succeeded in getting an injunction to prevent the album from being sold.
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Richard Pryor co-wrote Blazing Saddles, directed by Mel Brooks and starring Gene Wilder.
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Richard Pryor was to play the lead role of Bart, but Mel Brooks didn't want to share credit with the quickly-rising comic.
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Brooks has always maintained Warner Brothers' executives vetoed Richard Pryor's casting, but no studio executive has ever corroborated this claim.
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In early-1972, Richard Pryor was reportedly dumbfounded when he had to first learn from Cleavon Little that Mel Brooks wasn't going to use him on-screen.
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In 1975, Richard Pryor was a guest host on the first season of Saturday Night Live, making him the first black host.
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In 1980, Richard Pryor became the first black actor to earn a million dollars for a single film when he was hired to star in Stir Crazy.
31.
On June 9,1980, while on a freebasing binge during the making of the film, Richard Pryor doused himself in rum and set himself on fire.
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Richard Pryor joked that the event was caused by dunking a cookie into a glass of low-fat and pasteurized milk, causing an explosion.
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Likewise, Richard Pryor was scheduled for an appearance on The Muppet Show at that time, which forced the producers to cast their British writer, Chris Langham, as the guest star for that episode instead.
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Richard Pryor wrote and directed a fictionalized account of his life, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, which was inspired by the 1980 freebasing incident.
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Richard Pryor was originally considered for the role of Billy Ray Valentine on Trading Places, before Eddie Murphy won the part.
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Richard Pryor co-hosted the Academy Awards twice - the 49th Academy Awards in 1977 with Warren Beatty, Ellen Burstyn, and Jane Fonda and again at the 55th Academy Awards in 1983 alongside Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, and Walter Matthau.
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Richard Pryor was nominated for an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series on the television series Chicago Hope.
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Richard Pryor is one of only three Saturday Night Live hosts to be subjected to a five-second delay.
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Richard Pryor developed a reputation for being demanding and disrespectful on film sets, and for making selfish and difficult requests.
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Richard Pryor was accused of using allegations of on-set racism to force the hand of film producers into giving him more money:.
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The next day, Richard Pryor announced that he knew very well what the significance of watermelon was.
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Richard Pryor said that he was quitting show business and would not return to this film.
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Richard Pryor appeared in Harlem Nights, a comedy-drama crime film starring three generations of black comedians.
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Richard Pryor often said that MS stood for "More Shit".
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Richard Pryor appears on the scooter in his last film appearance, a small role in David Lynch's Lost Highway playing an auto-repair garage manager named Arnie.
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In December 1999, Richard Pryor appeared in the cold open of an episode of The Norm Show entitled "Norm vs The Boxer".
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Richard Pryor played Mr Johnson, an elderly man in a wheelchair who has lost the rights to in-home nursing when he kept attacking the nurses before attacking Norm himself.
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Grier helped Richard Pryor learn to read and tried to help him with his drug addiction.
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Richard Pryor dated actress Margot Kidder during the filming of Some Kind of Hero.
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Some sources say that late in the evening of June 9,1980, Richard Pryor poured 151-proof rum all over himself and set himself on fire.
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Richard Pryor was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for second- and third-degree burns covering more than half of his body.
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Richard Pryor spent six weeks in recovery at the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital in Los Angeles.
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In November 1977, after many years of heavy smoking and drinking, Richard Pryor had a mild heart attack at age 36.
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In 1990, Richard Pryor had a second heart attack while in Australia.
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Richard Pryor campaigned for better welfare for animals, including through involvement in a successful campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals targeting KFC, Burger King, and others for sourcing meat from suppliers that PETA claimed used inhumane practices.
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Richard Pryor's body was cremated, and his ashes were given to his family.
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Richard Pryor's ashes were scattered in the bay at Hana, Hawaii, by his widow in 2019.
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In 1998, Pryor won the first Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
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In 2004, Richard Pryor was voted number one on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.
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Richard Pryor was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.
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Richard Pryor was active in animal rights and was deeply concerned about the plight of elephants in circuses and zoos.
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In 2002, a television documentary entitled The Funny Life of Richard Pryor depicted Pryor's life and career.
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On December 19,2005, BET aired a Richard Pryor special, titled The Funniest Man Dead or Alive.
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On March 12,2019, Paramount Network debuted the documentary I Am Richard Pryor, directed by Jesse James Miller.
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Richard Pryor is portrayed by Brandon Ford Green in Season 1 Episode 4 "Sugar and Spice" of Showtime's I'm Dying Up Here.