Becoming Richard Pryor (76 page)

135   
they had tuned their TV:
Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5.

135   
Bitter End:
Variety
, Oct. 21, 1964;
Café au Go-Go:
Billboard
, Sept. 19, 1964;
Variety
, May 5, 1965.

136   
“self-imposed curb” . . . “a racial balancing”:
New York Times
, Feb. 4, 1964, p. 32; Clarence Taylor,
Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1997);
middle ground . . . seemed to be disappearing:
On the fraying black-white civil rights coalition in New York City in 1963–64, see Tamar Jacoby,
Someone Else’s House: America’s Unfinished Struggle for Integration
(New York: Free Press, 1998), pp. 15–32; Daniel Perlstein,
Justice, Justice: School Politics and the Eclipse of Liberalism
(New York: Peter Lang, 2004), pp. 101–5;
the shooting of a black ninth-grader:
Fred C. Shapiro and James W. Sullivan,
Race Riots, New York, 1964
(New York: Crowell, 1964).

136   
“[The artist] is a man”:
LeRoi Jones,
Home: Social Essays
(Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1998 [1966]), p. 183.

136   
a prominent voice of black radical disenchantment:
Lorraine Hansberry, “The Black Revolution and the White Backlash,”
National Guardian
, July 4, 1964, pp. 5–7; Amiri Baraka,
The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones
(Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, 1997), p. 278.

136   
introduced Richard to Jones:
E-mail communication with Henry Jaglom, Aug. 31, 2011; author’s interview with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010.

138   
“Reality is best dealt with”:
Author’s interview with Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Jan. 25, 2011; Sylviane Gold, “Richard Pryor Finds a Lot Not to Laugh About,”
New York Post
, Aug. 6, 1977, p. 32.

138   
Malcolm X was assassinated:
Manning Marable,
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
(New York: Viking, 2011), p. 436;
“[b]ack in the homeland”:
Baraka,
Autobiography of LeRoi Jones
, p. 295.

138   
the freedom to date white women:
According to Pryor’s friend and neighbor in his New York days, Pryor “never went with chocolate” when it came to romance (author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012).

138   
Maxine Silverman:
Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011.

139   
the cutest white girl” . . . “grooved right along”:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 77–78.

140   
classy doorman building:
Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012.

140   
high drama:
Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011;
“white lady”:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 75–81; author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11 2010.

140   
Maxine got the last jab:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 80–81; author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012.

141   
they considered themselves . . . husband and wife:
Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011. There is some dispute as to whether Maxine Silverman and Richard Pryor were “really” married. In later interviews, Pryor did not count her among his wives. But according to their daughter, Elizabeth, the two referred to each other as husband and wife when they were together—a judgment confirmed by an
Ebony
profile from September 1967, in which Pryor claimed to be married (“Beyond Laughter,”
Ebony
, Sept. 1967, p. 90).

141   
calling card as a comic:
“George Carlin Interview,” Archive of American Television, accessed at http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/george-carlin.

142   
“My name is Rumpelstiltskin”:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, Aug. 8, 1966 (audio in author’s possession).

143   
Richard
looked
young:
Photograph of Pryor on
The Ed Sullivan Show
in author’s possession. Tellingly, when Pryor remembered his first encounter with Lenny Bruce, he recalled being blown away not by Bruce’s obscene language—the connection many critics use to link the two—but by his affectionate impersonation of a kid who couldn’t help but reveal his deepest desires. In the Bruce sketch, the kid, a glue-sniffer, goes to a toy store and can’t bring himself to order airplane glue outright, so he buys a clutch of random things (a nickel’s worth of pencils, some Jujubes) before asking for two thousand tubes of airplane glue.
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 71–72; Lenny Bruce, “Airplane Glue,”
Lenny Bruce—American
(Fantasy Records, 1961).

143   
more than twenty appearances:
Fields, “Kook from Peoria,” p. 19;
General Artists Corporation:
Author’s interview with Craig Kellem, Nov. 5, 2010.

144   
“lean, literate, quick-witted”:
Fields, “Kook from Peoria” p. 19;
“most elastic face in show business”:
“TV Previews,”
Milwaukee Journal
, Nov. 7, 1966;
“stormed by teen-agers”:
“New York Beat,”
Jet
, Sept. 23, 1965, p. 64.

144   
the police were
cracking down:
“Prostitution Down from Year Ago, Survey Unit Says,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Dec. 2, 1965; “Open City’s Merry-Go-Round Never Stopped,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Jan. 26, 1986;
where Peoria’s brothels had migrated:
Bill Mitchell, “ ’70s Reform Took Its Toll, but These Days a New Fear Emerges from the Shadows,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Oct. 3, 1993, p. A1.

144   
Sheriff Ray Trunk:
“Guilty Verdict in Trial of Alleged ‘Madam,’”
Peoria Journal Star
, Oct. 6, 1965; “Appellate Court Upholds Vice Count Conviction, Sentence,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Sept. 24, 1966; “Upholds Ruling in Vice Case,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Oct. 3, 1967.

144   
another impromptu raid:
“Prostitution Counts Name 5 Defendants,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Sept. 19, 1965; “5 of 10 Vice Raid Counts Dismissed,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Nov. 10, 1965.

145   
not so fortunate:
“Guilty Verdict in Trial of Alleged ‘Madam’”;
attending night school:
“Convicted Madam Out as Student,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Oct. 8, 1965;
People of the State of Illinois v. Viola Ann Pry
[
sic
] (alias Jane Doe), Case No. 65A 1463, Peoria County Circuit Court (Oct. 6, 1965), handwritten note in case file.

145   
Ramrod-straight Peoria:
“Convicted Madam Out as Student”; “Convicted Madam Draws 1 Year Term,”
Peoria Journal Star
, Oct. 27, 1965.

145   
headlining the Blue Angel:
“Refreshing Comic Graces Blue Angel,”
Chicago Daily Defender
, Nov. 1, 1965, p. 20;
“Sure enough”:
Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5.

146   
twenty thousand in cash:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 103. Buck and Ann’s new home at 1319 Millman was purchased between Richard’s 1965 date at the Blue Angel and his October 1966 visit to Peoria.

Chapter 9: An Irregular Regular

147   
in a West Hollywood high-rise:
Author’s interviews with Henry Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010, and Jan. 8, 2011;
little known outside certain bohemian circles:
Jay Stevens,
Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream
(New York: Grove Press, 1998).

147   
a set of gigs down the hill at the Troubadour:
Advertisement,
Los Angeles Times
, Oct. 17, 2012, p. Q23;
a hotbed of the new comedy:
Barney Hoskyns,
Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes, and the Sound of Los Angeles
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); Barney Hoskyns,
Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons, 1967–1976
(New York: HarperCollins, 2007). Pryor’s time in LA seemed to loosen him up a bit: at the Troub, he started cracking jokes about smoking weed—speculating, for instance, on what would happen if a pilot started “flying high in the friendly skies” (author’s interview with Harvey Levine, Jan. 22, 2012).

147   
Later that night:
Author’s interviews with Jaglom, Oct. 25, 2010, and Jan. 8, 2011.

148   
How differently these two friends traveled:
Eight years after he dropped acid with Jaglom, Pryor began to perform a stand-up routine about the first time he took acid, one in which the person who gives Pryor the drug is merely a generic white hippie—a revision to his life story that reflects both the dissolution of his friendship with Jaglom and Pryor’s engagement with a certain strain of black radicalism in the interim. For more on Pryor’s routine, see chapter 17.

148   
writing new material constantly:
Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012;
Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Michael Jackson:
Claudia Eller, “Managing in Turbulent Times,”
Los Angeles Times
, Jan. 16, 1994, p. 8;
“What are you going to do with him?”:
Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11, 2010;.

149   
“I cannot call a waitress”:
The Merv Griffin Show: The Greatest Comedians
, 2006, DVD.

149   
His “Cary Grant” thing:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired July 25, 1966;
The Merv Griffin Show: The Greatest Comedians
.

149   
Jerry Lewis movies in marathon sessions:
Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012;
“the first man on the sun”:
Author’s interview with Renee Taylor, Dec. 15, 2011;
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired Aug. 8, 1966; “Man on the Sun,”
Holy Smoke
, Laff Records A212, 1976;
“shark-fighting championship”:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired June 6, 1966;
“Japanese robot who’s a karate expert”:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired Aug. 8, 1966.

150   
“Novocaine Martinovich”:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired June 6, 1966.

150   
“unraveled”:
Dorothy Ferenbaugh, “Merv Griffin: Man of 1,000 Faces,”
New York Times
, July 18, 1965, p. X15;
“I just want to thank you”:
Merv Griffin with David Bender,
Merv: Making the Good Life Last
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), pp. 58–59.

151   
he invited British philosopher Bertrand Russell:
Bernard M. Timberg with Robert J. Erler,
Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), pp. 76–77;
a direct pipeline:
Author’s interview with Bruce Scott Zaxariades, Feb. 14, 2012; author’s interview with Burt Heyman, Oct. 21, 2011.

151   
“impression of my sweater talking to my ass”:
“Sick,”
Outrageous
;
“five hundred guys would be in there”:
Pryor, “Nudie Movies,”
Insane
, Laff Records A209, 1976 (hereafter
Insane
).

151   
“Did you hear the one about”:
“Did Ya Hear the One About,”
Insane
.

152   
“You ever take a long ride”:
Author’s interview with Bob Altman, Oct. 21, 2010.

152   
“I would like to make you laugh”:
“Intro,”
Are You Serious???
;
“I would like to make you”:
“The Operation,”
Outrageous
.

152   
“This is a game” . . . “Why don’t you go to Vegas?”:
“Improv, Part I,”
Evolution/Revolution
.

153   
so thrilled:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 73–74.

153   
“making faces and all kinds of funny sounds”:
Jerry Butler with Earl Smith,
Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 196, 198. The management at the Apollo waited almost a full decade to bring Richard back to its stage (Marie Moore, “Richard Pryor: The Funniest of Them All,”
New York Amsterdam News
, May 4, 1974, p. D8).

154   
March 1966:
E-mail communication with Nathan Thomas, Merv Griffin Entertainment, July 13, 2010;
“Hey, Zorro!”:
“
Only in America
interview”; Pryor, “Interview” (1983); . . .
And It’s Deep Too!
.

154   
mother and father both were Baptist ministers:
James Sullivan,
Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
(New York: Da Capo Press, 2010), pp. 75–76;
“showcase of rising young stars” . . . “spontaneous and multitalented”:
NBC publicity material in author’s possession.

154   
where he could more easily audition:
Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11, 2010.

155   
He journeyed out to LA:
Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011;
officially filed in Peoria County Court:
“Complaint for Divorce.” In the complaint, Richard accused Patricia of having “committed adultery with divers other unknown male persons” and argued that she was “not a fit person to have the care, custody, control . . . of the education” of Richard Jr.—perhaps an opening gambit in the negotiations over alimony, as it seems unlikely that Richard wished to have custody of Richard Jr.

155   
dumping a suitcase of clothes:
Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011.

155   
Ferrari Drive:
Ibid.; Richard Pryor FBI file, memo dated June 29, 1970; “Consumer Credit Clearance,” Richard Pryor FBI file, memo dated June 8, 1970;
a black population of 1 percent:
Report 3: Social Indicators for Planning and Evaluation, 1980 Census of Population, Beverly Hills City, California
(Beverly Hills, CA: National Technical Information Service, 1982), p. 1;
Baldwin Hills:
Josh Sides,
L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 161–62, 190.