Becoming Richard Pryor (77 page)

155   
“like oil to water”:
“Bottoms Up,”
Time
, Apr. 3, 1964;
befriended Hanson and his wife, Sally:
Author’s interview with Zalman King, Aug. 18, 2010; William Murray, “Jack Hanson, the Man behind the Daisy,”
Los Angeles Times
, Apr. 16, 1967, p. A22.

156   
“The Daisy, on any given night”:
Dan Jenkins, “Life with the Jax Pack,”
Sports Illustrated
, July 10, 1967.

157   
“sensational catch”:
Nancy Adler, “Sunday Batters Score in the Affluence League,”
New York Times
, July 4, 1966, p. 11; Jenkins, “Life with the Jax Pack”; author’s interview with James B. Harris, July 30, 2010.

157   
joked with Sandy Gallin:
Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, Nov. 11, 2010;
skipped rehearsals . . . “really in his own world”:
Author’s interview with John Davidson, May 9, 2011.

158   
cross-eyed:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired June 6, 1966;
medley of “river songs”:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired Aug. 8, 1966;
children’s circle games:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired July 25, 1966.

159   
“Rumpelstiltskin,” the pantomimes:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired Aug. 8, 1966;
pickup artist:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired July 25, 1966.

159   
“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”:
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, aired Aug. 1, 1966.

159   
the singer Bobby Darin:
Pryor had long been captivated by Darin as a performer: he did an imitation of Darin in his early act. See “Pryor,”
Cause Magazine
, n.d., p. 57 (Richard Pryor file, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS). On Darin, see Michael Starr,
Bobby Darin: A Life
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004); David Evanier,
Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010 [2004]); David Hadju,
Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture
(Cambridge, MA: DaCapo Press, 2009), pp. 45–49.

160   
$2,400 a week:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 83–84.

161   
“the constellation Talent” . . . “wing-dang-doodle” . . . head-turning celebrity summit:
Invitation and photographs in author’s possession;
his wife, Sandra Dee, had filed for divorce:
“Sandra Dee Files Suit to Divorce Bobby Darin,”
Los Angeles Times
, Aug. 13, 1966, p. B8;
uncomfortable with all the attention:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 83–84.

161   
“the god of comedy”:
The Merv Griffin Show
, aired Aug. 1, 1966.

161   
“Young man, you’re a comic?”:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 84–85.

162   
“as big a thrill”:
Ibid., p. 83;
Caesars Palace:
Margaret Malamud and Donald T. McGuire Jr., “Living Like Romans in Las Vegas: The Roman World at Caesars Palace,” in Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire Jr., eds.,
Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 249–55.

162   
basking in an air:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 83; on the Flamingo and Vegas in this era, see Mike Weatherford,
Cult Vegas: The Weirdest! The Wildest! The Swingin’est Town on Earth!
(Las Vegas, NV: Huntington Press, 2001); Jeff Burbank,
Las Vegas Babylon
(London: Robson Books, 2006); Hal Rothman and Mike Davis, eds.,
The Grit beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002);
demolished the all-time attendance record:
Joy Hamann, “Wheeling around Las Vegas,”
The Hollywood Reporter
, Aug. 29, 1966, p. 4.

162   
“wonderfully kookie style”:
“Nitery Reviews,”
Variety
, Aug. 22, 1966, p. 6;
“It’s uncanny”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 83.

163   
Back in LA:
“Dick Pryor’s ‘Busy’ Bow,”
Daily Variety
, Sept. 15, 1966; “Comic Pryor Signs for Movie Role,”
Chicago Daily Defender
, Oct. 5, 1966.

163   
“tiptoe[ing]”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 85;
Acting in a film didn’t come as naturally:
Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5;
“I did every actor”:
Rovin,
Richard Pryor
, p. 66.

163   
“tasteless Runyonesque rehash”:
“To Bury Caesar,”
Time
, June 9, 1967;
“Producer-director William Castle”:
Clifford Terry, “‘Busy Body’ Film Is Gangster Spoof,”
Chicago Tribune
, Sept. 4, 1967, p. E11.

163   
fall 1966 premiere:
“Night of the Eccentrics,”
The Wild, Wild West
, aired Sept. 16, 1966.

164   
“For real-life stuff”:
“Telepix Reviews,”
Daily Variety
, Sept. 19, 1966, p. 12.

164   
for the first time since he’d left:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 85–86;
conquering hero . . . cops who had treated him:
Pack, “History of Negro Humor on Special,” p. 14;
“the thrill of our son”:
Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5;
he
played cards:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 85–86.

164   
the Pere Marquette hotel:
Author’s interview with Joe Mosley, Dec. 10, 2010.

164   
“It’s a sham”:
Budd, “Young TV Comic Richard Pryor,” p. A5.

164   
“I can walk two blocks”:
Ibid.

Chapter 10: The Person in Question

166   
“If America don’t come around”:
H. Rap Brown speech at Cambridge, Maryland, July 24, 1967, archived at http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2200/sc2221/000012/000008/media/00080003.mp3; Peter B. Levy,
Civil War on Race Street: The Civil Rights Movement in Cambridge, Maryland
(Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2003). Ironically, the flames in Cambridge ended up consuming a great number of black-owned businesses.

166   
“These rebellions are but a dress rehearsal”:
Levy,
Civil War on Race Street
, p. 83. On the 1967 wave of riots, see Kerner Commission,
Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968).
“On certain corners”:
David Llorens, “Miracle in Milwaukee,”
Ebony
, Nov. 1967, p. 29.

167   
no countercultural hole-in-the-wall:
James P. Craft,
Vegas at Odds: Labor Conflict in a Leisure Economy, 1960–1985
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), p. 23;
prime sirloin:
Menu from New Year’s Eve show at the Sands, in author’s possession;
a woman whose son was posted in Vietnam, Bobby Darin was on hand:
Starr,
Bobby Darin: A Life
, p. 162;
bearish, Mob-connected:
Alanna Nash,
The Colonel
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), p. 193.

167   
“swinging from chandeliers” . . . “the top place in the United States”:
Author’s interview with Sandy Gallin, May 4, 2012;
left Vegas with his reputation intact:
Forrest Duke, “Comic Richard Pryor Axed at Aladdin,”
Las Vegas Review-Journal
, Oct. 3, 1967, p. 11.

167   
A month later:
“Name Change for Negro Humor Spec,”
Chicago Daily Defender
, Feb. 22, 1967, p. 10.

168   
Belafonte:
Jeff Sharlet, “Voice and Hammer,”
Virginia Quarterly Review
(Fall 2013);
William Attaway:
Richard Yardborough, “William Attaway,” in Steven Tracy, ed.,
Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2011), pp. 39–52;
“A whole people” . . . “Negro humor has often been loud and bitter”:
Allan Morrison, “Negro Humor: An Answer to Anguish,”
Ebony
, May 1967, pp. 110 and 99; Paul Gardner, “Dark Laughter in Snow White Land,”
New York Times
, Apr. 2, 1967, p. 117.

168   
Foxx and Mabley . . . making their prime-time TV debuts:
Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds.,
African American Lives
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 552; Michael Seth Starr,
Black and Blue: The Redd Foxx Story
(Milwaukee: Applause, 2011), p. 81;
“They wanted Bill Cosby”:
Pack, “History of Negro Humor on Special,” p. 7.

168   
comedy . . . developed along two tracks:
A Time for Laughter: A Look at Negro Humor in America (ABC Stage 67)
, Apr. 6, 1967 (hereafter
A Time for Laughter
). The program’s take on blackface minstrelsy is most eloquently supported in Robert Toll’s
Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1974). Some of the complexities of blackface minstrelsy, glossed over in
A Time for Laughter
, are explored in Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara, eds.,
Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy
(Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1996); Eric Lott,
Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

169   
where he fit into this two-track model:
A Time for Laughter
.

170   
Here he was a young funeral director:
Ibid.;
“would be equally at home”:
“Negro Humor’s Written in Black, White,”
Chicago Defender
, March 28, 1967, p. 10.

170   
“Working in a show like the Belafonte special”:
Pack, “History of Negro Humor on Special,” p. 14.

170   
“shocked by the lie” . . . “I never thought”: “
Beyond Laughter,” pp. 88–92.

171   
“vignettes of a boyhood”:
Aaron Sternfield, “Mitchell Mixes His Tunes in Winning Combo,”
Billboard
, June 24, 1967, p. 24.

171   
“could barely commit to being me”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 86;
hit a final breaking point:
Author’s interview with Elizabeth Pryor, Sept. 30, 2011.

172   
April 24, 1967:
Ibid.;
“big orange balloon”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 87;
For four or five days:
Pryor’s FBI file notes that he was arrested or received by the San Diego Police Department on April 29, 1967—five days after the date of the full moon (Pryor, FBI file, “Black Panther Matter,” p. 2).

172   
sixteen thousand pounds of marijuana:
Robert Berrellez, “Tijuana Marijuana Mecca,”
Daytona Beach Morning Journal
, July 7, 1968, p. 21;
“I was black”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 87;
in jail for six days:
Pryor, FBI file, “Black Panther Matter,” p. 2;
reminded, by a deputy:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 87.

172   
“the most luxurious apartment[s]”:
Los Angeles Times
, Oct. 26, 1958;
Los Angeles Times
, Oct. 7, 1956.

173   
shot himself in the head:
Los Angeles Times
, May 7, 1968, p. 2;
hijack a Chicago-bound plane:
“Agents Nab Skyjacker at O’Hare,”
Chicago Tribune
, Apr. 18, 1972, p. 1; “Jury Brings Quick Indictment of O’Hare Skyjacking Suspect,”
Chicago Tribune
, Apr. 19, 1972, p. A14.

173   
Dirty Dick . . . “fairly well fucked up”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 91;
the full amount he:
Pryor made $1,500 for every six nights of work at the Village Gate in May 1967 (images of checks in author’s possession);
Around 11:30 on the night of July 26:
“Reporter’s Transcript, Preliminary Hearing,”
The People of the State of California v. Richard Frank Pryor,
Case A 051 511 (Sept. 12, 1967) (hereafter
California v. Pryor
), pp. 1–17.

173   
Richard muttered a single word:
Ibid., pp. 17–39.

175   
Trosper had been terminated:
Ibid., p. 28;
“Come on, nigger”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 91.

175   
Tholkes ended up:
California v. Pryor
;
suspicion of assault:
“Actor Held on Charge of Assault,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 28, 1967, p. 22; “Actor Arrest Ordered in Assault Case,”
Hollywood Citizen-News
, Dec. 12, 1967.

175   
“the pith of Pryor legend”:
Mark Jacobson, “Richard Pryor Is the Blackest Comic of Them All,”
New West
, Aug. 30, 1976, p. 58; Duke, “Comic Richard Pryor Axed at Aladdin,” p. 11; “Aladdin, Vegas, Cancels Dick Pryor for ‘Obscene’ Gab,”
Daily Variety
, Oct. 3, 1967, p. 1; “Aladdin Snuffs Its Pryor Lamp,”
Arizona Republic
, Oct. 4, 1967, p. 28; William Sarmento, “CBS Cuts Back Its TV Output,”
Lowell Sun
, Oct. 27, 1967, p. 27; Richard Pryor, “Blackjack,”
‘Craps’ (After Hours)
, Laff Records, 1971 (hereafter
‘Craps’
).

176   
eighteen-hole golf course . . . forty thousand lightbulbs:
Eugene P. Moehring,
Resort City in the Sunbelt: Las Vegas, 1930–2000
(Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2000), pp. 115–16;
Redd Foxx was a Bagdad Room mainstay:
Hamann, “Wheeling around Las Vegas,” p. 9; John L. Scott, “Redd Foxx in Room,”
Los Angeles Times
, Apr. 2, 1968, p. D14.

176   
Godfrey Cambridge:
Murray Hertz, “Comic Loses Pounds—Career Soars,”
Las Vegas Review-Journal
, Sept. 14, 1967, p. 15;
Rusty Warren:
John L. Scott, “‘The Odd Couple’ on Reno Stage,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 1, 1967; Jacob Smith,
Spoken Word: Postwar American Phonograph Cultures
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), pp. 88–95;
two adults-only albums:
Foxx,
Redd Foxx—Live in Las Vegas
, Loma 5906, 1967;
Rusty Rides Again
, Jubilee JGM 2064, 1967.

176   
“blonde beguiler”:
“Hypnotist Is Favorite of the Stars,”
Las Vegas Review-Journal
, Sept. 22, 1967, p. 20.