| 9780062123305 |
| 0062123300 |
Available:*
Library | Material Type | Call Number | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... East Library | Book | 792.76028 P973S | Biography | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
Richard Pryor may have been the most unlikely star in Hollywood history. Raised in his family's brothels, in Peoria, Illinois, by a grandmother who often threatened to kick him upstairs with her size-twelve shoes, he always considered himself a bottom dog. He took to the stage originally to escape the tough realities of his childhood but later discovered he could alchemize his stand-up by delving fully, even painfully, into the "off-color" life he'd known. He brought that vitality to a movie career whose best moments--Blazing Saddles, Blue Collar, the buddy comedies with Gene Wilder--flowed directly out of his spirit of creative improvisation. The major studios considered him dangerous. Audiences felt plugged directly into the socket of life.
Built on groundbreaking research, Becoming Richard Pryor brings into sharp focus the man and his genius as never before. From his heartbreaking childhood, his trials in the army, and his improv days in Greenwich Village to his soul-searching interlude in Berkeley and his rise in the "New Hollywood" of the 1970s, Becoming Richard Pryor sheds light on an entertainer who, by uniting the spirits of the Black Power movement and the counterculture, forever altered the cultural DNA of America.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Drawing on interviews with family and friends, unpublished journals and court records, Saul (Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't) jauntily chronicles the year-by-year, and almost day-by-day, evolution of the young man from Peoria who developed into the man that Jerry Seinfeld called "the Picasso of our profession." Saul examines the forces that propelled Pryor to the top of his game in the late 1970s, tracing the comedian's early years being raised in a brothel and his introduction to improvisational acting by teacher Juliette Whittaker to his days in New York's Greenwich Village and Manny Roth's Cafe Wha? honing his skills. In his heady days in L.A. he played baseball with Aaron Spelling and Bobby Darin. Saul then documents Pryor's retreat to Berkeley in 1969, where he found himself part of the city's counterculture movement. Glaringly honest, Saul shines a light on Pryor's descent into drugs, his brutal treatment of his wives, and his fretful insecurities about his own abilities. In the end, Pryor emerges as a revolutionary stand-up comic who perfected the art of dramatizing his own imperfections, and the world's; a trenchant social critic, often called "Dark Twain"; and a crossover artist whose work in film often failed to achieve the incendiary raw power of his live comic shows. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* For all his autobiographical bravado on stage, Pryor was tight-lipped about his life when he was offstage. He had a proprietary sense regarding his life, wanting to tell his own story in his own way, according to music scholar Saul. Drawing on interviews with Pryor's family, wives, lovers, friends, and colleagues as well as documents from court transcripts and screenplay drafts, Saul delivers an intimate look at Pryor's life, from childhood to the late 1970s. Raised in brothels among characters he later brought to life in his gritty stage acts, Pryor took refuge in his ability to make people laugh. His life was his raw material, from a rough childhood to failed marriages and relationships, racial struggles, drug addiction, and regular human foibles all filtered through a crackling personality. Pryor ascended to stardom in Hollywood in the 1970s, bringing vitality and improvisation to his work on stage and in such films as Blazing Saddles and Blue Collar. Saul explores Pryor's creative process and the unpredictability that thrilled audiences and often horrified agents and directors. Saul portrays a complicated man, who reveled in the absurdities of life, tingeing harsh realities with biting, often obscene, humor, leaving an enduring mark on American comedy.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2014 Booklist
Library Journal Review
There are many things to praise about this title, not least of which that it is an exhaustive historical account of the legendary entertainer Pryor's life (1940-2005) and career up to the late 1970s. Saul (Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't) marshals more archival resources and personal interviews than any previous biographer of the comedian, providing a comprehensive chronology of his early years. The exacting detail is often painful reading. Pryor grew up in a brothel (a contested biographical detail until now), and even while striving toward themes of liberation in his work, he abused lovers and substances prodigiously. Yet the author demonstrates how Pryor's background and turmoil, as well as larger social and political forces of the 1960s and 1970s, fueled his creativity and willingness to take artistic risks. For now this book serves as the final word on how its subject rose to occupy a singular spot in the American comedy and cinema landscape. VERDICT This essential book for Pryor enthusiasts will be equally valuable to scholars of modern American history and popular culture.-Chris Martin, North Dakota State Univ. Libs., Fargo (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Author's Note | p. xi |
| Prologue | p. 1 |
| Part 1 Up from Peoria | |
| Chapter 1 Dangerous Elements | p. 7 |
| Chapter 2 The Backside of Life | p. 20 |
| Chapter 3 The Law of the Lash | p. 37 |
| Chapter 4 Glow, Glow Worm, Glow | p. 59 |
| Chapter 5 The Boot | p. 75 |
| Chapter 6 The Measure of a Man | p. 92 |
| Part 2 Man of a Thousand Rubber Faces | |
| Chapter 7 In Search of Openness | p. 111 |
| Chapter 8 Mr. Congeniality | p. 128 |
| Chapter 9 An Irregular Regular | p. 147 |
| Chapter 10 The Person in Question | p. 166 |
| Part 3 In the House of Pain | |
| Chapter 11 The King Is Dead | p. 187 |
| Chapter 12 Black Sun Rising | p. 209 |
| Chapter 13 Irreconcilable Differences | p. 225 |
| Chapter 14 I'm a Serious Mother | p. 245 |
| Part 4 King of the Scene Stealers | |
| Chapter 15 The More I Talk, the Less I Die | p. 273 |
| Chapter 16 Black Goes First | p. 299 |
| Chapter 17 Be Glad When It's Spring, Flower | p. 318 |
| Chapter 18 Number One with a Bullet | p. 336 |
| Part 5 The Funniest Man on the Plant | |
| Chapter 19 Every Nigger Is a Star | p. 361 |
| Chapter 20 Hustling | p. 384 |
| Chapter 21 A Man of Parts | p. 404 |
| Chapter 22 Giving Up Absolutely Nothing | p. 427 |
| Chapter 23 Can I Speak to God Right Away? | p. 448 |
| Epilogue | p. 471 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 489 |
| Notes | p. 493 |
| Index | p. 565 |
