Richard Pryor Ultimate Collection
If Richard Pryor seems prescient, it’s because he was the Black comedian whose confrontational monologues addressed police violence and the pervasive racism of American society. But at the same time, he dissed gay activists and was abusive, even violent, toward women. Political correctness, whether in the 20th or the 21st centuries, was something he chaffed under. He was unfiltered on stage.
“The Ultimate Richard Pryor Collection: Uncensored” is a 13-DVD set that delivers on the promise of its name. The set collects all four of his full-length concert films; his NBC special and the four episodes of his short-lived series; his autobiographical film Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling; five episodes of his wacky kids’ show; snippets of guest appearances on talk shows; and no less than two full-length documentaries, among other materials.
One of those documentaries, I Am Richard Pryor (2019), is essential for putting it all in context. The angrily hilarious commentator on the American condition for which he’s remembered is far from the accommodating figure who debuted on national television in 1964. Pryor began his rise by emulating the sole Black comedian to reach nationwide acclaim at the time, Bill Cosby, who presented himself as smooth and unthreatening. In an early skit seen in the documentary, Pryor sounds more Borscht Belt rather than Chitlin Circuit. But his success felt false to his own experience. The Pryor who emerged in 1970 after spending time with the Black Panthers was defiantly Black, determined to transmute his lived experience into comedy.
Pryor grew up in segregated Peoria. His mother was a sex worker, his father was the brothel’s enforcer and his grandmother—chiefly responsible for his raising—owned the joint. The first whites he encountered were customers and some thought they could rent him, too. As his last wife, Jennifer Lee Pryor, puts it in I Am Richard Pryor, he was deeply conflicted about women, yet was a kind and vulnerable man when he stayed clear of cocaine.
Maybe cocaine as well as ambition explains Pryor’s marathon run from 1970 through 1980, zigzagging between Hollywood movies, stand-up tours and comedy albums. He faced entrenched racism in Hollywood, yet his live-wire dynamism stole the show in many otherwise mediocre movies. He cemented his “difficult” reputation with the 1974 LP That N*****’s Crazy, followed by1976’s Bicentennial N*****, a provocative finger raised in a year of sentimental patriotism. However, Pryor learned to modulate himself for Hollywood comedies while preserving enough attitude to remain true to himself.
Unfortunately, Pryor will also be remembered for setting himself on fire in a freebasing accident. The friends and associates interviewed for I Am Richard Pryor agree that he declined as a comedian afterward, even before being diagnosed with MS. Some said he was uncomfortable in his role as a Black spokesperson yet as much as anyone, he raised consciousness among whites in a way that was palatable to them. Humor can be the best form of protest.
