Funny Man, Richard Pryor

He was born Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III. His mother was a prostitute and his father, a former bartender, boxer and World War II veteran was her pimp. After his mother deserted him when he was 10, he was raised primarily by his grandmother Marie Carter who ran the family business – a brothel. She was a stern disciplinarian and gave him many beatings which he said he thoroughly deserved. He was expelled from school at age 14.

A tough start for any child, especially a black one.

When he was nineteen, he worked at a Mafia-owned nightclub as the emcee. When he heard about the club refusing to pay a stripper, he attempted to hold up the owners with a cap pistol. They apparently thought he was very funny.

He joined the Army, stabbed a fellow solider and spent most of his army stint in jail. He was imprisoned for an incident that occurred while stationed in Germany. Annoyed that a white soldier was a making fun of parts of the racially charged movie Imitation of Life, he and some other black soldiers beat and stabbed him, although not fatally.

In 1963 he moved to New York City and started his career in comedy.

After a life-long struggle with drugs and alcohol, it seemed he had beaten the odds but in 1992 he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. He credited the disease with finally getting clean and sober, saying “God gave me this M.S. shit to save my life.”

But on December 10, 2005, Pryor died of cardiac arrest in Encino, California. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital at 7:58 a.m. He died just 9 days after his 65th birthday. He was brought to the hospital after his wife's attempts to resuscitate him failed. His wife Jennifer was quoted as saying, "At the end, there was a smile on his face."

Some people are born wearing an iron shoe. They're the ones who kick doors down and enter the places that before them have been untouched even by light. Theirs is always a mission filled with loneliness and broken bones. Richard Pryor is one of the bravest of them. ~ Jim Carrey