Becoming Richard Pryor (69 page)

I owe another sort of debt to the following writers, some of whom counseled me on the art and mechanics of biography, others of whom generously opened up their Rolodexes and shared their contacts: Robin D. G. Kelley, Harvey Kubernik, Gerald Nachman, Ann Powers, Arnold Rampersad, Carlo Rotella, R. J. Smith, Steve Stanley, James Sullivan, Mike Weatherford, Oliver Wang, Eric Weisbard, Richard White, Jon Wright, and Richard Zoglin. A related thanks go out to those whose writings on Pryor were an especially generative source of insights and leads: Hilton Als, Cecil Brown, David Felton, James Haskins, James McPherson, Paul Mooney, Fran Ross, Jeff Rovin, Mel Watkins, and the father-son team of John A. Williams and Dennis Williams.

A project of this magnitude would have been impossible to incubate and develop without assorted forms of material support. I am grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for crucial seed funding; the Stanford Humanities Center for providing the most clean, well-lighted place imaginable; and Stanford’s Spatial History Project for helping sponsor the development of the book’s companion website and for loaning the services of Erik Steiner, cartographer extraordinaire. At UC-Berkeley, I’ve benefitted from the support of the Office of the Dean of the Arts and Humanities, the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, and the Department of English. Special thanks go to UC-Berkeley’s Janet Broughton, Anthony Cascardi, Samuel Otter, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, and Sue Schweik for all their kind offices.

I have been blessed to work, over the past five years, with a remarkable group of research assistants—William Bottini, Camille
Brown, Alex Catchings, Ismail Muhammad, Jonathan Shelley, and Alex Tarr—who often served as my closest advisers and helped me refine my ideas enormously. Bottini deserves special thanks as he continued to contribute to the project, with intelligence and good humor, long after leaving UC-Berkeley and its employ.

I wish to thank my tremendous team at HarperCollins: editor David Hirshey, for his galvanizing faith in the project; editor Barry Harbaugh, for his scrupulous sculpting of my prose; editorial assistant Sydney Pierce, for her graceful help with the mechanics of publication; and copy editor Jenna Dolan, for her meticulous labors. My agent Chris Calhoun gave this project a great boost three years ago and has been a continuous source of sage counsel ever since.

For forms of moral support too various and mind-boggling to enumerate, I would like to thank the following friends and family: Kathy Donegan, Joseph Entin, Dan Fishman, Ethan Goldstine, Melissa Hillier, Dave Landreth, Waldo Martin, Louis Matza, Marjorie Perloff, Gautam Premnath, Corey Robin, my brother Lawrence Saul and his family, my parents, Beth and Ronald Saul, Penny Sinder, Dan Smith, and Bryan Wiley. Ken Parille read each chapter as it rolled off the printer and was both rigorous and generous in his feedback. A special sort of writerly thanks go to the Beanery, a happy local oasis at which I consumed roughly 100 gallons of fine coffee while writing this book, day-in and day-out, on its premises.

My wife, Elana, has lived the writing of this book on an intimate level; her contributions to it, and to me, are incalculable. I could not have written this book without her. And last, I would like to thank my seven-year-old son, Maxie, who, having listened to much Richard Pryor while in the womb, proceeded then to grow in mass along with my manuscript. Unfailingly he gave me a fresh perspective on it. I dedicate this book to him lovingly.

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your e-book reader.

ix     
“A trickster does not live”:
Lewis Hyde,
Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), p. 6.

ix     
“The world around us”:
Nancy Anderson, “‘Lightning’ Is Not a Black Film,”
Mt. Vernon Register-News
, Aug. 17, 1977, p. 7A.

Author’s Note

xii     
Pryor himself had declared that he’d reinvented himself:
Richard Pryor, with Todd Gold,
Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences
(New York: Pantheon, 1995), pp. 115–18 (hereafter
Pryor Convictions
);
His previous biographers couldn’t even agree:
John A. Williams and Dennis A. Williams,
If I Stop, I’ll Die: The Comedy and Tragedy of Richard Pryor
(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991), p. 63; Fred Robbins and David Ragan,
Richard Pryor: This Cat’s Got 9 Lives!
(New York: Delilah Books, 1982), pp. 48–49; Jeff Rovin,
Richard Pryor: Black and Blue: The Unauthorized Biography
(New York: Bantam, 1983), pp. 77–78; Jim Haskins,
Richard Pryor: A Man and His Madness
(New York: Beaufort Books, 1984), pp. 57–61.

xii     
His struggle was that of an artist searching for his true medium:
For more on Pryor’s time in Berkeley, see chapter 14.

xiii     
He hated the standard format of Q&A:
David Felton, “This Can’t Be Happening to Me,”
Rolling Stone
, Oct. 10, 1974, p. 44; Frederick D. Murphy, “Richard Pryor: Teetering on Jest, Living by His Wits,”
Encore American & Worldwide News
, Nov. 24, 1975, p. 27;
J. Edgar Hoover:
John H. Corcoran Jr., “The Peoria Stroker Has Arrived,”
National Observer
, May 24, 1975;
when film critic Elvis Mitchell:
Tirdad Derakhshani, “Godfather of Soul Guilty of Domestic Abuse,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, June 15, 2004.

xiv     
“It’s hard to get information from these people”:
“John A. Williams interview with Steve Logue, Nov. 29, 1983,” Box 171, John A. Williams Papers, Special Collections Library, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.

xiv     
John A. Williams was the one early biographer:
Williams and Williams,
If I Stop, I’ll Die
, pp. 20–23; see also the interviews collected in Box 171, John A. Williams Papers. In the last year, as I was putting the finishing touches on this book, two other Pryor biographies were published: David Henry and Joe Henry,
Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World that Made Him
(Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2013), and Cecil Brown,
Pryor Lives! How Richard Pryor Became Richard Pryor
(CreateSpace, independent publishing platform, 2013). Unfortunately, these appeared too late for me to incorporate their insights.

xvi     
A recent documentary film on Pryor:
Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic
, directed by Marina Zenovich (Fresh One Productions and Tarnished Angel, 2013).

Prologue

1     
the most celebrated stand-up comedy performance of all time:
Richard Pryor: Live in Concert
, directed by Jeff Margolis (Special Events Entertainment, 1979) (hereafter
Richard Pryor Live in Concert
). For more on
Live in Concert
, see chapter 23.

2     
At this point the routine:
For a related take on the complex morality of this sketch, see Jonathan Rosenbaum, “The True
Auteur
,”
Take One
, May 1979, p. 14.

3     
“25 or 30 different people”:
Louie Robinson, “Richard Pryor Talks,”
Ebony
, Jan. 1978, p. 122.

Chapter 1: Dangerous Elements

7     
On the morning of October 19, 1929:
“Boy Slapped, Woman Routs Proprietor of Confectionary,”
Decatur Herald
, Oct. 20, 1929, p. 3.

8     
The city’s black citizens were expected to stay “in their place”:
Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, “A Warlike Demonstration: Legalism, Violent Self-Help, and Electoral Politics in Decatur, Illinois, 1894–1898,”
Journal of Urban History
26, no. 3 (July 2000).

8     
a straight razor she reportedly stashed in her bra:
Author’s interview with David Sprattling, July 16, 2010; author’s interview with Rob Cohen, Aug. 18, 2010.

8     
Richard’s “Mama” was born Rithie Marie Carter:
The Mike Douglas Show
, aired Nov. 29, 1974, DVD in author’s possession;
only three survived:
1900 U.S. Federal Census (Population Schedule), Decatur City, Decatur Township, Macon County, IL, ED 46, Sheet23b, Family 480, Dwelling 495, S. Colfax, Richard Carter household. Marie’s mother had better luck with her next four children: three of them survived. See 1910 U.S. Federal Census (Population Schedule), Decatur City, Decatur Township, Macon County, IL, ED 104, Sheet 8A, Family 191, Dwelling 191, S. Colfax, Richard Carter household.

8     
Marie’s grandfather Abner Piper had been a Union volunteer:
Consolidated Lists of Civil War Registrations, 1863–1865,
NM-65, entry 172, 620 volumes, Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau (Civil War), Record Group 110, National Archives, Washington, DC; “Historical Register of National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866–1938,” Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, DC;
lived at home with Marie:
“The Death Record,”
Decatur Herald
, Jan. 5, 1906, p. 6.

9     
early settlers felt:
Otto John Tinzmann,
Selected Aspects of Early Social History of DeKalb County
(Chicago: Loyola University of Chicago, 1986), p. 106;
it prospered by attracting cereal mills:
Mabel E. Richmond,
Centennial History of Decatur and Macon County
(Decatur, IL: Decatur Review, 1930), pp. 368–69; “F. P. Howard Returns to Business,”
The Soda Fountain
20 (June 1921): 78; Dan Guillory,
Decatur
(Chicago: Arcadia, 2004);
black Decaturites were shunted to a shabby part of town:
Cha-Jua, “A Warlike Demonstration,” p. 599.

9     
The lynching of Samuel Bush in 1893:
“A Dastard’s Deed,”
Decatur Weekly Republican
, June 28, 1894, p. 1; Cha-Jua, “‘A Warlike Demonstration,” pp. 599–604. Even as late as 1929, the lynching of Bush was described in the official
Centennial History of Decatur and Macon County
as “one of the exciting events” of the 1890s (Richmond,
Centennial History of Decatur and Macon County
, p. 357). Cha-Jua, “‘A Warlike Demonstration,” pp. 609–13.

10     
a ten-chapter history of the city’s black population:
Aug. 27–Sept. 3, 1929; see also Richmond,
Centennial History of Decatur and Macon County
.

10     
worked as a bouncer in the city’s brothels . . . yelling obscenities in public:
“Are Sorry They Spoke,”
Daily Review
(Decatur), Apr. 27, 1895, p. 1;
beating his wife:
“Presto Chango,”
Decatur Bulletin-Sentinel
, Feb. 1, 1896, p. 1;
whipping his wife:
“Pleaded Guilty,”
Decatur Evening Republican
, June 26, 1899, p. 2;
assaulting someone with brass knuckles:
Decatur Daily Review,
Oct. 3, 1906, p. 10;
pointing a firearm at his brother:
“At Peddecord’s,”
Decatur Bulletin-Sentinel
, Feb. 1, 1896, p. 1;
A tall, wiry amputee:
“Bothered the Dago,”
Herald-Dispatch
, (Decatur), Aug. 22, 1896, p.6; “A Strange Burglary,”
Bulletin-Sentinel
(Decatur), July 13, 1895, p. 4;
bootlegged liquor:
“Carter Arrested for Selling,”
Decatur Review
, Oct. 26, 1908, p. 8;
gaming room:
“Mayor M’Donald Stops Craps Game,”
Decatur Review
, Dec. 24, 1907, p. 3; “Negroes and Whites Captured in Raid,”
Decatur Review
, July 7, 1912, p. 19;
when Congress passed the Opium Exclusion Act:
On the 1909 Opium Exclusion Act, see David Courtwright,
Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001 [1982]).

11     
“opium joint”:
“Opium Seized in Opium Joint,”
Decatur Sunday Review
, Oct. 26, 1908, p. 8. The fact that police discovered opium ashes, or
yenshee
, rather than fresh smoking opium suggests that Carter’s clientele ran to the down-and-out, not the sporting classes.

11     
“disturbing element”:
“‘Tip’ Carter Says He Will Vote ‘Dry,’”
Decatur Review
, Mar. 31, 1910, p. 4;
arrested simply for taking a room:
“Two Arrested,”
Decatur Evening Republican
, May 29, 1899, p. 3;
a robbery:
“Even Took His Teeth,”
Decatur Review
, Nov. 23, 1903, p. 8; “Two Arrested,”
Daily Review
(Decatur), Nov. 24, 1903, p. 8; “Carter Arrested for Selling,”
Decatur Review
, Jan. 27, 1904, p. 5.

11     
a stunning 150 times:
“Events of 1903 in Decatur in Short Sentences,”
Decatur Herald
, Jan. 5, 1904, p. 2;
a “cakewalk” party:
“Tip’s Cake Walk,”
Decatur Herald
, July 2, 1902, p. 5. Tip Carter was even the local Republican Party’s nominee for pound master, the city official responsible for the management of loose livestock (“Republican Ticket,”
Daily Review
[Decatur], Mar. 18, 1903, p.2).

11     
“It is a noticeable fact”:
“Capture a Crap Game,”
Herald-Dispatch
(Decatur), Jan. 13, 1897, p. 4.

12     
evening of August 15, 1914:
“Married,”
Decatur Review
, Aug. 17, 1914, p. 12;
Church of the Living God:
“Barbecue,”
Decatur Review
, July 10, 1914, p. 14;
“using bad language”:
“Is Fined $6.30,”
Decatur Review
, June 22, 1916, p. 11;
altercation with a police officer:
“Chauffeur Talked Back to Policeman,”
Daily Review
(Decatur), Apr. 1, 1910, p. 1.

12     
born in June of the following year:
“LeRoy Pryor Jr.,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Oct. 2, 1968;
“grand ball”:
“Claimed Wife Attended Ball,”
Decatur Herald
, Dec. 6, 1915, p. 12;
another assault charge:
Decatur Herald
, Apr. 3, 1917, p. 10.

13     
carrying a revolver:
Decatur Review
, May 27, 1917, p. 5.

13     
struck him on the head with a common hammer:
“Wife’s Hammer,”
Decatur Review
, Mar. 10, 1904, p. 7;
“on a ripsnorter”:
“Dick Carter in Trouble,”
Decatur Herald
, Dec. 8, 1905, p. 5. Julia Carter may have been something of a hell-raiser herself: at one point her husband had
her
arrested for disturbing the peace (
Decatur Review
, March 10, 1904, p. 10).