WEBVTT - Richard Pryor: Stabbing, Shooting, F***ing, Burning, and Freebasing 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.440 This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:08.319 Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:21.760 a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.439 a child raised in a brothel who went on to 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.560 become one of the biggest stars in the world. It's 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.560 about a stabbing, a shootout, a drug bust. It's about 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:36.519 a man on fire. This is a story about Richard Pryor, 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.159 a comedian who made some of the funniest films of 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.479 all time, A man who played his role on stage 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.040 as a stand up like a great musician would play 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:50.560 his instrument. And great musicians, of course, make great music. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:53.520 Unlike that music I played for you at the top 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.040 of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.400 preset loop from my melotron called this Man's on Fire MK. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:02.280 Two. 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.120 I played you that loop because I can't afford the 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.679 rights to Funky Town by Lips Incorporated. And why would 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.440 I play you that specific slice of puffy parted cheese. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.360 Could I afford it? Because that was the number one 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:22.399 song in America on June ninth, nineteen eighty and that 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.960 was the day that Richard Pryor nearly died after he 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.560 set himself on fire, winding up in the hospital covered 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:33.520 in third degree burns. On this episode stabbing. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.440 Shooting, Burnie freebasing and one of the greatest to ever 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:43.560 do it, Richard Pryor. I'm Jake Brennan and this this 0:01:43.680 --> 0:02:00.640 disgrace Sland. 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.400 Richard Pryor was in pain. Most of his body was burned, 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.640 the worst of it the third degree burns. There were 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.800 on his chest, his back, his arms, his neck, and 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:24.080 his face. They oozed pus and blood. The doc gave 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.720 him a one to three chance of survival, and if 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.680 he did survive, Richard Pryor would have to face something 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.239 else besides the pain. He would have to face the fear, 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.560 the fear that after years of searching from Peoria to Germany, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.040 Youngstown to Pittsburgh, Vegas, to Berkeley in New York to 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:45.720 Los Angeles, he had finally found him, the real Richard Pryor, 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:50.960 and that guy scared the shit out of him. They 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.600 all said that Richard Pryor was fearless, that he was 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:55.639 a pioneer when he came to what could be said 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.040 on stage or what could be written for the screen. 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.640 That after the paradigm shift ushered in by groundbreaking black 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.560 comedians including Dick Gregory and Bill Cosby. Richard Pryor was 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.040 a new kind of comic for a new age. But 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.639 even Richard Pryor knew that there was a fine line 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:14.480 between being fearless and being incapable of living in moderation. 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.639 And being incapable of moderation was what got him here, 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.280 covered in third degree burns, fearing that the real Richard 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.520 Pryor was about to be revealed to the world. That 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.000 guy the real hymn, he stepped right out of a 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.639 wall at Richard's home. He stood there in his underwear, 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:33.960 looking at Richard, looking back at him like a reflection 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:36.400 in a mirror, and then he said he was the devil, 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.880 which meant they were both the devil, since Richard and 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.880 this thing were one and the same. Are you really me? 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.800 Richard asked him, just to make sure, yes, I am you, 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.880 it replied, and then it disappeared back into the wall. 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.520 At first, Richard wrote it off as the state of 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.040 his mind. It was just a hallucination, paranoia. Night was 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.560 day up was down, and there were no friends and 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.000 family anymore, just people in the walls and on the 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.080 other side of the windows. Out to steal his money 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.000 and maybe even his mind. That was one hundred percent 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.320 the cocaine talking. And I don't mean a couple of 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.760 lines shared at some chic industry party. I'm talking rocks 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.600 of pure coke heated up with a big lighter until 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.080 the vapors start to rise and you just breathe in deep. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.400 I'm talking freebase, just like Dirty Dick tott him. Dirty 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:25.599 Dick had been dealing Richard the good shit for years 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:29.320 and hadn't steered him wrong yet. So Richard steered himself 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.760 right into an empty room and locked the door behind him. 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.280 Fucked out of the guy in the wall. Richard hit 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.520 the pipe and didn't stop. The binge lasted for what 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.400 two three days. He dipped the cotton swab and rum 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.080 and lit it with his lighter. This was his torch. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.719 He didn't want to use an actual lighter to heat 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.640 up the pipe, or else you'd be inhaling lighter fluid. 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.680 The rum made it less toxic. Thus was the logic 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.120 of a junkie in the throws of addiction. But this 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.880 rum was one hundred and fifty one proof, and Richard 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.280 Pryor was capitalized. Fucked fucked up, that is, before long 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:05.760 the rum was everywhere, it was all over him, and 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.640 all it took was one flick of that big letter, 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:12.159 one spark for it all to go out in the flames. 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.279 Richard Pryor literally set himself on fire, just like that 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.760 monk did protesting the Vietnam War. But Richard Pryor was 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:25.719 no monk Jack. Richard Pryor didn't abstain. He indulged in everything. 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:30.480 Pussy booze, cocaine, cocaine. Man, That shit be fucking with you. 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.400 That shit brought on an entirely different person when you 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.560 were on it, or maybe it was the person you 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.880 truly were on the inside that finally emerged, like that 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.280 apparition from inside the wall, the person you hid from 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.080 everyone else. And as much as you want to deny it, 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:51.680 that person is real. But just what was real? Peoria 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.640 was real? If it played in Peoria, I could play anywhere, 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.160 or so that old vaudeville same way. They called Peoria 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.280 the model city. But as rich Pryor himself said later 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:03.840 in his stand up act, the ones calling his hometown 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.000 the model city were the ones keeping Peoria's black residence 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.760 in their place. In the nineteen forties, and nineteen fifties. 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.920 That place was light years from the bullshit family life 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.560 that played out on Father Knows Best. Sitcoms like that 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.000 were science fiction. Over on North Washington Street, in the 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.920 black part of town, Peoria was populated with pimps, drunks, bootleggers, 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.160 and sex workers. Richard's grandfather owned the local pool hall, 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.839 his grandmother ran the town brothel. His own mother worked 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.640 at the brothel. And so as a kid, Richard Pryor 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.440 saw some shit. He saw a baby in a shoe 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.000 box deader than a motherfucker. He saw a man who 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.320 lost a knife fight struggling to push his guts back 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.240 into his stomach. He saw his own mother in bed 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.279 with a john. He also saw his mother get hit 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.479 by his father, and that only happened twice. After the 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.080 first time, she told him, Okay, motherfucker, don't hit me 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.800 no more, and after the second time, she didn't need 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:02.760 her words. She took one look at Richard's father standing 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:04.360 in front of her poop bearing it, wearing nothing but 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.479 a T shirt and underwear, and she swung her long 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.600 fingernails at his crotch. Richard's father screamed, blood ran down 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.600 his leg. She ripped his nutsack right open. Yes, that 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:19.000 actually happened. Look it up in Richard Pryor's Peoria. This 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.480 is how you handled your shit. You did it fast 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.960 and maybe with your fingernails, even better with a knife 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.080 or a gun. When some guy talked shit to Richard's 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.360 grandfather and the family tavern, a place called the Famous Door, 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.560 Richard's father drew a pistol and emptied every last round 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.240 into his ass, and that motherfucker hit the floor, bleeding 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.400 and screaming. But he wasn't dead. He dragged his bullet 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.080 written body across the floor, pulled out a knife and 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.440 sliced Richard's father right across his leg. And between that 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:48.760 and the torn nutsack, dude was good and fucked up 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:50.920 for the rest of his life. And that wasn't the 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.720 life Richard wanted to live. Though work, you're asked to 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:55.760 the bone in the pool hall and the cat house 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.320 or the slaughterhouse every day, only to get shot up 0:07:58.320 --> 0:07:59.880 when you were busy trying to get fucked up at 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:03.160 the end of a long night. Fuck that. He joined 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:07.920 the army and he get the hell out of Puria. 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.160 But even in the service, even in Germany, in Europe, 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:13.400 where the world was supposed to be enlightened and free, 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.760 shit was still the same one hundred and fifty bars 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.679 in Kaiserslat and only three of them allowed black people 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.360 to walk through the door. And that shit surprised him. 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:24.680 What didn't surprise him was that when his unit was 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.520 taking in some rn R and watching a melodrama about 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.920 race and class in America, one of his fellow soldiers, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.439 a white guy, laughed a little too hard at the 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.280 wrong part, and why you could take Richard out of Peoria, 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.120 you sure as hell couldn't take Peoria out of Richard. 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.760 Richard pulled a switchblade. He stuck it in the white 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.600 soldier's back deep, and then he pulled it out, and 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.720 the blade glistened with blood, and Richard stabbed him again 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.040 and again and again. He stabbed that dude six or 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.160 seven times, each time, hoping it would be the final 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.560 blow and that this backwoods pack ahead honky would just 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.360 fucking die. But just like the guy Richard's father shot 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.920 back in the whorehouse in Puria, this kid lived, and 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.880 they tossed Richard in a jail cell. He spent his 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.560 final days as an enlisted man on a cold cement 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.480 floor he received the mercy of a base commander more 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.120 concerned with his own retirement than actually dealing with Richard's 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.640 mutinous ass. And then he received an early discharge and 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.600 he was shipped back home. It was the first time 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.920 Richard Pryor cheated death, but it wouldn't be the last. 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.880 Richard Pryor was a born performer. He'd been putting on 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.600 a show since he was just a kid, and ever 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:59.400 since he was a kid, there was incentive to perform. First, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.760 it was the reward, the performance itself. His elementary school 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.079 teacher cut him a deal. If he could actually get 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.040 to school on time every day, then each Friday afternoon 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:09.800 he could perform a stand up set in front of 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:15.960 the class. The next incentive was laughter. Tasted sweet like revenge, 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.160 but you could get it without violence. And now, in 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.800 nineteen sixty seven, at twenty six years old, the incentive 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:27.240 for Richard Pryor was money. Get on stage, say something funny, 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:29.760 make him laugh, get paid, and get the fuck out. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.360 Didn't matter if Richard's stand up at the time was 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.240 a faint echo of Bill Cosby's shick, he got paid, 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.800 didn't He But as much of a born performer as 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.200 Richard Pryor was as much as he learned on the 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.800 stage as a Greenwich village and beyond. It was always 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.199 that occasional tough crowd, like the one at the United 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.640 States Customs on the Mexican border. The customs agent didn't 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.200 have a laugh or a smile, or he didn't say shit. 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.240 That dude just looked at Richard from behind his ray bands, 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.640 one long look as Richard slowly inched his car closer 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.160 and to the checkpoint. And there was no turning around, now, 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.760 no take backs. Richard was in this and he was fucked. 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.480 He pulled up to the checkpoint and applied the brake, 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.360 and the agent got close, craned his neck to look 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:14.480 in the back of the car. What were you doing 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.800 in Mexico? Just visiting, seeing the sights? It was good, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.000 real good movie bueno. Richard didn't say anything about the 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.480 Tijuana brothel he visited her, the women he focked, or 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.360 the tequila that flowed like an honorary body fluid. And 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.120 the agent kept on with that long look, and then 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.960 he pointed to an area off to the side pull over. 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.199 Richard Pryor had been in Tijuana because he was running away, 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:38.960 not unlike he had run away from Peoria to the 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.920 army all those years ago, but now he was running 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.880 from responsibility. His girlfriend was nine months pregnant, and she 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.880 wanted Richard to commit. She wanted Richard to settle down 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.840 and start a family. He'd already done that once before, 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.760 didn't end well. He didn't feel like doing it again, 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.000 not right now. So instead, Richard jumped at a car 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:02.120 and just drove. Getting over theer was easy enough. Coming back. 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.600 There's another thing, altogether. There wasn't a joke or a 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:07.400 well rehearsed routine that was going to get him out 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.760 of having his car searched. He didn't even try it. 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.120 The customers agent poked around and found a little grass, 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.080 all right, that was Richard's fault. He should have smoked 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.080 the rest of it before he hit the road, and 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:20.360 the agent examined it with his eyes and decided it 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.400 was an ounce. An ounce, damn, there was barely enough 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:27.000 to roll a joint an ounce his ass. Running away 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.320 from his problems was proven to be a lesson brilliant 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.720 plan for Richard Pryor. Thankfully, business was booming. He was 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.560 making that money, so his wallet was fat that he 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.520 could afford to pay his own baill, So maybe nineteen 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:44.760 sixty seven would be alright after all. Nineteen sixty seven 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.400 was the year Richard met Paul Mooney, the man who 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.119 would become his co writer and one of his closest friends. 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:52.840 It was also the year he met Dirty Dick, the 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.480 dealer with the top shelf stuff, the cocaine that Richard 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:57.640 was dishing out one two hundred dollars a day for 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.480 the Nineteen sixty seven was also of the year that 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.480 he had the epiphany. It happened in Vegas. Dean Martin 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.839 and those other rap pack dudes half drunk, laughing in 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.960 the audience. Richard up on stage, telling jokes, getting last 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.800 getting paid. He had an appearance on Ed Sullivan to 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.600 thank for this opportunity, or maybe it was the Carson Show, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.920 but he knew it was all in act. Literally. The 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.080 more he went through the motions, the more jokes didn't 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.040 resonate with him. They weren't about his life. What was 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.480 the people said, write what you know, Richard Pryor was 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.760 it writing what he knew? And what did he know? 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.120 He knew Peoria, He knew junkies and drunks, pimps, and pushers. 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:36.840 He knew sex, he knew pain, and he knew what 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:38.800 it was like to be a black man navigating a 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.080 world of ignorance and fear. The lights on the Vegas 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.480 stage were bright, and they burned into his eyeballs, and 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.960 they flooded his peripheral vision. Soon all I could see 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.040 was the blinding light. It's talking dead in his tracks. 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:54.920 Must have looked like a goddamn idiot just standing there. 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.840 The hell am I doing here? He realized after the 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.000 fact that he had actually said that line out loud. 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.640 It was a rhetorical question. He already knew the answer. 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.960 He turned around and walked off the stage. They told 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.000 him he'd never work in Vegas again, and you know what, 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.000 that was just fucking fine with him. He didn't want 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.200 to be that guy. He wanted to be Richard pryor 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.440 the real Richard Pryor. They weren't gonna believe their ears. 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.040 He would shock them, He would make them piss themselves, 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.720 laughing until their slacks were soaked, and not just because 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.040 what he said was funnier, because it was provocative, but 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:31.720 because it was real, Just like Miles, Miles, Davis did 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.040 whatever the hell he wanted but whatever the hell Miles 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.200 Davis wanted to do was one hundred percent the opposite 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.400 of what everyone else wanted him to do. You think 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.680 Columbia Records wanted Miles Davis doing when he did, no 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.720 fucking way, man, But Miles did Miles period, no two 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.400 ways around him. And when Miles Davis and Richard Pryor 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.120 did some shows together in New York City, Miles flipped 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.960 the script. Those shows weren't your typical shows with a 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.080 comic warming up the crowd before the musician took the 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.320 stage for a headlining set. Miles told Richard, hey man, 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.360 I opened for you. And that was far out. That 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.480 was Miles Davis giving Richard Pryor his blessing. That was 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.640 Miles saying, I see what you're doing, I hear you, 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.520 I feel you. But just as Richard Pryor's realness was 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:13.600 having a profound effect on his career and on the 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.960 evolution of American comedy, it was making everything else in 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.720 his life worse. Every year was some new bullshit. He 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:23.760 was arrested again for getting in a fight with the 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.720 guy working at the desk at his apartment building. That 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.760 dude ensued Richard for seventy five thousand dollars and won. 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.560 And then there were the girlfriends and the ex girlfriends, 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.400 and the wives and the ex wives. They were piling up. 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.640 Some were coming after Richard for child support, some were 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.840 coming for blood, Some were the lawyered up, some had warrants. 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.239 And as the nineteen sixties turned into the nineteen seventies, 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.280 Richard Pryor was a wanted man. But Richard Pryor wanted 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.840 something else. He wanted to do more cocaine. He wanted 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.360 to get drunk. He wanted to fuck. He wanted to 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.120 unpack all the dark corners of his life, all those junkies, pimps, 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.600 and scary family members of his past, his grandmother, his mom, 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:04.440 all the dope he was doing, and the sex he 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:06.560 was happy, get it all out of his head, get 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.080 it down on paper, and transform it all into a 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.080 comedy juggernaut that had never been seen before. To do 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.600 all that, he had to get away. So in nineteen 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.000 seventy one, Richard Pryor once again got behind the wheel 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.720 of a car, this time with his pal Paul Mooney 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.560 at his side, and he escaped away from his obligations, 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.440 away from the soul sucking traps of places like Las Vegas, 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:31.800 and away from the people trying to catch him, the 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.920 people trying to stop him, and Richard Pryor didn't stop 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.880 running until he reached Berkeley, California, that freaky diey place 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.440 on the edge of the world where the Black Panthers, Bradburgers, 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.000 musicians and poets were all conspiring to do whatever it 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:51.800 took to feel free. We'll be right back after this. 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:53.240 We're we're where. 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.359 The gun was on the nightstand inside his north Ridge home, 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.800 three point fifty seven magnum, big motherfucker. It wasn't small 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.440 like his three eighty automatic. It wasn't unweely like his shotgun, 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.800 or useless like his antique flintlock. This was the showpiece. 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.440 This was the what the fuck did you say? Gun? 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.000 Richard Pryor picked it up. This was the piece Richard 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.119 waved around when it was clear he was losing another 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.280 argument with his wife. You're gonna shoot me, then shoot me, 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.359 his wife told him. Richard pointed it away from her. 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:34.840 He didn't actually want to shoot her, which didn't mean 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.200 he didn't want to shoot something, and she told him 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.600 to put the gun down. Fuck you, he said, and 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.280 then he told his wife to round up her friends 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.199 and get the hell out of his house. It was 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.000 just minutes in a New Year's Day nineteen seventy eight. 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.439 The party that Richard Pryor and his now third wife 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.400 were hosting had gone as flat as day old champagne. 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.480 What had started out as a celebration was now all 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.679 out domestic warfare. Moments ago, Richard and his wife had 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.919 shared midnight kiss, and now they were at each other's throats. 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:05.040 Didn't help that they were drunk and high on some 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.480 a dirty dick's supply. Richard decided that his wife and 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.520 her friends weren't moving fast enough. He pointed the magnum 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.639 at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The gun fired, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.000 and the bullet blew apart the ten thousand dollars Tiffany, 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.639 she had a leer hanging from above, and the women 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.560 moved faster. Now outside, they piled into a buick. Richard 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.160 got into the Mercedes, turned the key in the ignition, 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.000 put it in drive, and then he drove it straight 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:33.520 into the buick, over and over. The women screamed, they 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.280 ditched the buick. Richard falled soon and stepped out of 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.840 the Mercedes. He didn't know what his wife's next move 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.600 would be. Maybe she'd push him aside and take the bence, 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.760 get the fuck out. Maybe it would be the last time. 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.600 Maybe she wouldn't come back. Richard didn't care, but all 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:50.879 the same, he didn't want her getting in that car, 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.560 not because she'd leave, because if she did, then she'd win, 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:59.000 and Richard Pryor wasn't about to lose another argument. Fuck that. 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.240 So we jumped between his wife and the Mercedes, pulled 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.520 back the hammer on the magnum, pointed it at one 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:12.320 of the tires, and pulled the trigger. A few years 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.239 earlier before, he had a house in northrich back when 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:17.919 he was making his Great Escape to Berkeley with Paul Mooney, 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.800 Richard felt like he'd found a new lease on life, 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.720 creatively and personally. Here in the Bay Area, hippies were 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:29.240 protesting the war. Black people like him were declaring that 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.320 there were somebody. He started hanging out with freedom fighters 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.840 like Angela Davis and Hughey Nue, with poets like Ali 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.199 Young and Ishmael Reid. Intellectualism didn't have to be a 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.280 dirty word. You could be smart and cussed. Like one 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.600 of the women who worked at his grandmother's brothel. The 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.639 two weren't mutually exclusive. That was the lesson, along with 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.119 the realization that he had a lyce Worth material to 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:53.359 draw from, a lesson he took with him when he 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:56.920 moved down to Los Angeles. It was all about being fearless. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.240 There was again that word fearless, the word that everyone 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.960 was using to describe him. In reality, Richard Pryor just 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.200 didn't give a shit anymore. He didn't give a shit 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.600 that his material was obscene, that it was profane, but hey, 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.679 selling over a million copies of a live comedy record, 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:15.879 holding on the number one spot on the Billboard arm 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.040 B chart for four straight weeks for a live comedy record, 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.000 and then winning a Grammy Award for a comedy record 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.280 that he could give a shit about because now he 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.119 was in demand, and because now the money was rolling 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.440 in more than it ever had, which meant more money 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.720 for Calrossier and cocaine. But whether it was getting profound, 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.160 getting laughst getting famous, or getting high, Richard Pryor did 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:43.200 nothing in moderation, which was exactly why mel Brooks hired 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.119 Richard Pryor to help write a script for his next film, 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.320 a Western satire about a black railroad worker who's appointed 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.600 sheriff of an all white town. Mel Brooks wanted this 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:58.439 movie to not just be funny, to be outrageously shockingly funny. 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.720 The jokes, the lane, which, the lines that were crossed, 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.320 the whole thing had to be no holds. Barren blazing 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.200 Saddles was a perfect assignment for Richard Pryor. He threw 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.520 himself into the script he wrote with utter abandon. He 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.240 helped create not just one of the funniest mel Brooks movies, 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:18.040 but one of the funniest American comedies of all time. 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:20.560 And he did it while under the impression that he 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.119 Richard Pryor would also play the lead role of Bart, 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.919 the black sheriff. Richard often acted out lines and scenes 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.400 in the writer's room. Everyone involved in the movie could 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.359 see it. He was the obvious choice, but at the 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.920 last minute the studio revealed that they thought otherwise. They 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:41.160 claimed that Richard lacked acting experience, but there was something else. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:46.000 His reputation was equally lacking, his drug use, his run 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.399 ins with the law, the simple fact that he was, 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.560 by nineteen seventy four or one of the most controversial 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.320 people in Hollywood. Warner Brothers took the safe bet for 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.480 a movie that was all about taking huge risks, and 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:04.160 they cast Richard's friend Little as Barne instead. Richard walked 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.719 away from the experience confused and disappointed and more than 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.600 a little mistrustful of the powers of being in Los Angeles. 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:15.639 He felt used, used by mel Brooks, used by the studio. 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.240 He wanted to prove them all wrong, that not only 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.000 was he not an unreliable cokehead, but that he could act, 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.440 and not just in a mel Brooks satire. He took 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.119 a lead role in Blue Collar, the directorial debut by 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.520