Becoming Richard Pryor (84 page)

342   
“We live, eat, sleep”:
Mike Douglas,
I’ll Be Right Back: Memories of TV’s Greatest Talk Show
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), pp. 109–10.

342   
The Mike Douglas Show
became:
The Mike Douglas Show
, aired Nov. 25–26, 28–29, 1974 (in author’s possession).

343   
Joe Frazier, whom he had teased:
Author’s interview with Murray Swartz, Mar. 30, 2011.

343   
more than four million jokes . . . sixty-seven-year-old comedian:
Tom Shales, “Replay on Mr. Television,”
Washington Post
, Nov. 11, 1974, p. B1;
a sobering book:
Milton Berle with Haskel Frankel,
Milton Berle: An Autobiography
(New York: Delacorte Press, 1974).

343   
“Is this the real audience?”:
The Mike Douglas Show
, aired Nov. 25, 1974.

344   
“one of the strangest moments”:
The Mike Douglas Show
, Nov. 26, 1974.

344   
“I wish . . . I could have laughed”:
The Mike Douglas Show
, Nov. 25, 1974;
“Eleanor Roosevelt”:
Douglas,
I’ll Be Right Back
, p. 111.

345   
the talk of the comedy circuit:
Ibid., pp. 111–12.

346   
Berle had counseled Lenny Bruce:
Shales, “Replay on Mr. Television,” p. B11.

347   
“There ain’t no sense in nobody going on”:
The Mike Douglas Show
, aired Nov. 29, 1974;
“Having my grandmother with me”:
Lisa Collins, “Time Out for Richard Pryor,”
Black Stars Magazine
, June 1976, p. 44.

347   
threw together a birthday party:
Author’s interview with Murray Swartz, Mar. 30, 2011.

347   
sometimes scatted to Clark Terry’s “Mumbles”:
Author’s interview with Jimmy Binkley, July 1, 2010;
one of Richard’s favorite tunes:
The Tonight Show
, aired July 22, 1968 (NBC).

347   
a larger home above the Sunset Strip:
Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 11, 2011;
a swimming pool, billiards room:
Robert A. DeLeon, “Richard Pryor Looks to ’75,”
Jet
, Jan. 9, 1975, pp. 60–61;
a large aquarium:
Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 11, 2011;
“To avoid ill feeling”:
McPherson, “The New Comic Style of Richard Pryor,” p. 20;
“Yeah, nigger—this means you”:
Collins, “Time Out for Richard Pryor,” p. 41.

348   
tailspin of Richard and Patricia’s relationship:
Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 11, 2011

348   
cruelty to Patricia was sharpened:
Ibid.

349   
the worst of his vindictiveness:
Ibid.

349   
fifty-thousand-dollar advance . . . “We did it”
. . .
“three great things”:
Author’s interviews with Ron DeBlasio, Dec. 28, 2010, and Jan. 8, 2011;
damaged by his tax troubles:
Ron Kisner, “The Money Problems of the Stars,”
Ebony
, May 1977, p. 148;
“My house is rented”:
DeLeon, “Richard Pryor Looks to ’75,” p. 61.

350   
Their relationship unraveled in a single conversation:
Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Jan. 8, 2011;
“my best friend in the business”:
The Mike Douglas Show
, aired Nov. 28, 1974.

350   
“That’s right, that’s how I feel”:
Author’s interview with Ron DeBlasio, Jan. 8, 2011.

350   
proudly wore the nicknames Big Dollar Dave and the Smiling Cobra:
Author’s interview with Michael Ashburne, May 7, 2011; Orde Coombs, “The Voice of the New Vulnerability,”
New York
, Feb. 15, 1982, p. 47;
baby-faced . . . “A Black man in this country”:
Ronald Harris, “The Man Who Makes Multimillionaires,”
Ebony
, June 1979, p. 61;
“real power” . . . his grandfather had sat:
Peter Ross Range, “Making It in Atlanta: Capital of Black-Is-Bountiful,”
New York Times Magazine
, Apr. 7, 1974, p. 70.

351   
masterminded the successful mayoral campaign:
Ibid., pp. 70–72;
a $5.5 million, ten-album deal:
Harris, “The Man Who Makes Multimillionaires,” pp. 56.

351   
“ripped off . . . by white people”:
“Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Vol. III,”
Richard Pryor v. David McCoy Franklin
, Case No. TAC 17 MP 114 (Mar. 3, 1982), p. 271 (hereafter
Pryor v. Franklin
);
“have someone around who’d protect him”:
Harris, “The Man Who Makes Multimillionaires,” p. 60.

351   
a novel business arrangement . . . operate without a written agreement:
“Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Vol. I,”
Pryor v. Franklin
, Mar. 1, 1982, p. 32.

352   
Franklin had seen Richard:
Author’s interview with Michael Ashburne, May 7, 2011;
“one of the most brilliant men” . . . “take a percentage”:
“Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Vol. IV,”
Pryor v. Franklin
, pp. 563–65.

352   
a monthly salary of $2,000 . . . “I wish you would let me be the one”:
“Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Vol. I,”
Pryor v. Franklin
, pp. 28–30.

352   
had mentored everyone from Al Jolson:
“Sam Weisbord Dead; William Morris Aide,”
New York Times
, May 9, 1986;
“one of the most brilliant,”
“a very tough negotiator”:
Harris, “The Man Who Makes Multimillionaires,” p. 56.

353   
litigated in front of California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office:
“Determination,”
Pryor v. Franklin
(Aug. 12, 1982), p. 36; “Ex-Talent Agent Told to Pay Richard Pryor $3.1 Million,”
Los Angeles Times
, Aug. 20, 1983, p. A13.

353   
“Over here, Rich”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 143.

353   
“Killed a guard in Lou-ez-ze-ana,”
“Say, boy”:
McPherson, “The New Comic Style of Richard Pryor,” p. 20.

354   
“inebriated diction made it seem”:
William Jelani Cobb, “Richard Pryor’s Mudbone,”
NPR News & Notes
, aired Jan. 2, 2008;
“something between a preacher’s Sunday mornin’ sermonizin’”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 3.

354   
Mudbone made Richard speak in his voice:
“Mudbone,” . . .
Is It Something I Said?
, Warner Bros., MS 2227, 1975 (hereafter
Is It Something
).

356   
a spectacular riff:
“Little Feets,”
Is It Something
;
have long been a feature:
Charles Chestnutt,
The Conjure Stories
, ed. Robert B. Stepto and Jennifer Rae Greeson (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011); Eric Sundquist,
To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Glenda Carpio,
Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

356   
“My goddamn feets”:
“Little Feets,”
Is It Something
.

Chapter 19: Every Nigger Is a Star

361   
he riled ABC . . . “so far out . . . as to be close”:
Steve Allen
, Funny People
(New York: Stein and Day, 1981), pp. 232–33; Aaron Gold, “Tower Ticker,” Mar. 20, 1974, p. B2; “
I won’t be on the same stage”:
Author’s interview with Carl Gottlieb, Aug. 25, 2010;
fled to her dressing room:
Gertrude Gipson, “Gertrude Gipson’s Candid Comments,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, Feb. 27, 1975, p. B5.

362   
putting together . . . a new Saturday late-night program:
Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller,
Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2002), pp. 19, 64; Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad,
Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live
(New York: William Morrow, 1986);
“the funniest man on the planet”:
Jeff Sorensen,
Lily Tomlin
, p. 66; author’s interview with Craig Kellem, Nov. 5, 2010.

362   
“I can’t do a contemporary comedy show” . . . laid out his conditions . . . “He’d better be funny”:
Shales and Miller,
Live from New York
, pp. 63–64; Hill and Weingrad,
Saturday Night
, pp. 76, 116; Mooney,
Black Is the New White
, pp. 160–61.

363   
the shift, in Hollywood:
Ed Guererro,
Framing Blackness:
The African American Image in Film
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), pp. 69–101;
“Blaxploitation went brain dead”:
Ed Guerrero, “The So-Called Fall of Blaxploitation,”
Velvet Light Trap
(Fall 2009): 90.

364   
Richard might have landed:
The Lowdown on Uptown: A Retrospective
(2003), on
Uptown Saturday Night
DVD.

364   
clashing with the executives:
Aram Goudsouzian,
Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), p. 345;
“healthier exploration of black life”:
Carol Kramer, “For a Black Pioneer, the Burden Turns Gold,”
Chicago Tribune
, June 30, 1974, p. E16;
“pimps, prostitutes, and dope pushers”:
Goudsouzian,
Sidney Poitier
, p. 345.

364   
“the largest black all-star cast”:
“Uptown Saturday Night,”
Ebony
, July 1974, pp. 52–53;
almost half the behind-the-camera jobs:
T. Prescott Simms, “The Living Arts,”
Chicago Tribune
, Aug. 11, 1974, p. O19;
“a picture for the general audience”:
“Uptown Saturday Night,”
Ebony
, July 1974, pp. 52–53;
Richard was offered expenses only:
The Mike Douglas Show
, Nov. 26, 1974.

364   
“I almost went into overtime”:
Uptown Saturday Night
promotional short, Nov. 6, 1973.

365   
“Look at my eye”:
Uptown Saturday Night
, directed by Sidney Poitier (Warner Bros., 1974).

365   
box office gold:
Mark A. Reid,
Redefining Black Film
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 28–30; Goudsouzian,
Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon
, p. 345;
blaxploitation trend had begun to sputter:
Guerrero,
Framing Blackness
, pp. 103–10.

366   
shot in nine days:
Weston, “Richard Pryor: ‘Every Nigger Is a Star,’” p. 57;
“there are dozens of scenes”:
Filmfacts
19, no. 1 (1976): 35;
“two sharp dudes”:
Gerald Martinez, Diana Martinez, and Andres Chavez,
What It Is . . . , What It Was: The Black Film Explosion of the ’70s in Words and Pictures
(New York: Hyperion, 1998), p. 90;
earned back its cost:
Weston, “Richard Pryor,” p. 57;
“Tell them I apologize”:
Weston, “Richard Pryor,” p. 57.

366   
a protégé of Motown’s Berry Gordy:
Gregg Kilday, “Motown Simplifies the Complex,”
Los Angeles Times
, Aug. 3, 1974, p. A7;
a raffish, socially conscious comedy . . . “The slaves done run off”:
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor-Kings
, directed by John Badham (Motown Productions-Universal Pictures, 1976).

367   
“We have a real uphill battle”:
Mary Murphy, “Motown Firms Film Commitment,”
Los Angeles Times
, Sept. 3, 1975, p. G14;
top-shelf talent:
Bruce Cook, “The Saga of Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars,”
American Film
, June 1976, pp. 10–12;
a $3.5 million financing deal:
Author’s interview with Rob Cohen, Aug. 18, 2010;
an extraordinary budget for a “black” film:
Hollie I. West, “The Bingo Long All-Stars Wind Up for a Grand Slam,”
Washington Post
, Aug. 24, 1975, p. H2.

367   
From the start, Richard was fundamental:
Author’s interview with Rob Cohen; “Richard Pryor in ‘Bingo Long’ to Roll June 30,”
Hollywood Reporter
, June 17, 1975;
in the novel:
William Brashler,
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993 [1973]).

368   
slip into the beds of white women:
Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins,
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings
screenplay, n.d., Writers Guild Library, Los Angeles, CA.

368   
preferred to rent his own home:
West, “The Bingo Long All-Stars Wind Up for a Grand Slam,” p. H2.
“quality actors” . . . “quality script” . . . “I don’t think”:
Mary Murphy, “‘Julia’ Role Next for Jane Fonda,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 14, 1975, p. A8;

368   
“James Brown country”:
Murphy, “‘Julia’ Role Next for Jane Fonda,” p. A8;
the rookie film director who had taken over:
Joan E. Vadeboncoeur, “Debut Brings Film Success,”
Syracuse Herald-Journal
, July 22, 1976, p. 35;
“It’s harder to meet a whiter white man” . . . who organized everything in his bedroom . . . :
Author’s interview with Cohen.

370   
One night during filming:
Author’s interview with Badham;
“Richard’s just left the set”:
Author’s interview with Cohen.

370   
in an affluent white area near Mercer University:
West, p. H2.

370   
“You don’t need me to be my foot” . . . “He was very concerned”:
Author’s interview with Badham.

370   
almost killed James Earl Jones:
John Badham and Craig Modderno,
I’ll Be in My Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Directors and Actors
(Studio City, CA: Michael Weise Productions, 2006), pp. 10–11; author’s interview with Badham; director’s commentary,
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings
.

371   
“For what?”:
Author’s interview with Badham; Badham and Modderno,
I’ll Be in My Trailer
, pp. 10–12.

372   
Once, Richard observed Williams:
Author’s interview with Badham;
“If there was a vagina”:
Author’s interview with Cohen.