Richard Pryor Dies

[filkertom]

Damn, damn, damn. Knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it easier. Richard Pryor has passed away at the age of 65.

Comments

[romlc475.livejournal.com]

I found out just after dinner...damn, indeed. The laughter still goes on, even though the jokester no longer makes the rounds.

[nodakwriter.livejournal.com]

It has been a bad year for funny.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

That's right, that's right...we bad...

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Well, hell.

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

Dammit!

I still remember some of his work...

...and some of the stand-up...

..like when he came on stage and asked the audience:
"Do ya know what this is?"
He held up a match, struck it, and waved it through the air.
"This is Richard Pryor running down the street!"

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking of that moment, both appalled and delighted when he did it! I howled!

May he make the gods laugh tonight!

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

I'll drink to that!

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Such sad news. For some reason I thought he was older, like maybe 70. Maybe just because he'd been making me laugh for so many years.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

This feels like "farewell to icons" day. I also see that Eugene McCarthy has passed, at age 89.

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, what I remember Richard Pryor most for right now is something I didn't know was his until just recently.

Mel Brooks brought him in to help write Blazing Saddles -- to make the black characters' lines more, I suppose, authentic or something. Instead, Brooks and his (white) collaborators wrote most of the "black" dialogue.

And Pryor wrote Mongo.

Ever since I found that out (on the DVD commentary track), it's Pryor's voice I tend to hear in my mind's ear instead of Karras'...

"Mongo only pawn in game of life."

[romlc475.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall reading on one of the bios for Pryor that he was originally cast as Black Bart, but because of his "controversial" stand-up routines, they recast the role for Cleavon Little, but kept Pryor on as a writer.

I hadn't heard about Pryor doing Mongo's dialog...now I REALLY want the DVD!

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

Okay, the iron of the gods strikes...

When I clicked the link to his website, and saw a picture of him at the top of the page, with a word bubble labled "I Ain't Dead Yet, M*therF@ck%r!!"

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

saturday night live showed the word association bit between him and chevy chase..."nigger" "DEAD honkey"...i remember seeing it the first time around