Richard Pryor

Also known as Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor

American comedian and actor (1940–2005)

OverviewAI-generated

Richard Pryor (1940–2005) was an American television and film actor, comedian, and screenwriter. Born in Peoria, Illinois, he began his professional work in 1963 and continued until 1997. Pryor served in the United States Army and resided in New York City and Berkeley. He is the father of Rain Pryor.

His career included the release of works such as *Pryor convictions, and other life sentences*, *Is it something I said?*, *The Legend of Comedy*, *Cactus Pryor Inside Texas*, and *Richard Pryor Anthology 1968-92 (Funny as F**k)*. Pryor received numerous accolades, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He was also recognized in the Hollywood Walk of Fame collection.

Pryor died in Encino from natural causes, specifically a myocardial infarction and multiple sclerosis. He had previously undergone coronary artery bypass surgery.

Synthesized by Vinony from 44 facts across 9 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Wikiquote, Open Library, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born: 01 December 1940
Died: 10 December 2005
Works: 7

Top works

Pryor convictions, and other life sentences
Is it something I said?
The Legend of Comedy
Cactus Pryor Inside Texas
Richard Pryor Anthology 1968-92 (Funny as F**k)

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Acting · Peoria, Illinois, U.S.

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, film director, social critic, satirist, writer, and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant…

Known for

Breakdown: 1975 — Self (archive footage)2025
John Candy: I Like Me — Self - Actor (archive footage)2025
I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not — Self (archive footage)2025
Remembering Gene Wilder — Self (archive footage)2024
Zeitgeist: Requiem — Self (archive footage)2024
Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution — Self (archive footage) (uncredited)2024
Group Therapy — Self (archive footage)2024
Stand-Up: The Laughing Therapy — Self (archive footage)2024
Hollywood Black — Self (archive footage)2024
Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight2023

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Origin: United States
Active from: 1940
Active to: 2005

comedy

Discography

Official site Discogs Stream

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 104,535
Total plays: 1,091,042

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data
· 1977 · cited 63,319x
The Sequence Alignment/Map format and SAMtools
· 2009 · cited 59,210x
Fast and accurate short read alignment with Burrows–Wheeler transform
· 2009 · cited 47,632x
ImageNet: A large-scale hierarchical image database
· 2009 · cited 47,223x
Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
· 2021 · cited 43,543x

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

“I expected Dracula to come jumping out any second. If he did I'd have held up a cross, cause he's allergic to bullshit.”
“Let me tell you what really happened... Every night before I go to bed, I have milk and cookies. One night I mixed some low-fat milk and some pasteurized, then I dipped my cookie in and the shit blew up.”
“Why me? Ten million motherfuckers freebasing, and I'm the one who blows up!”
“I went through every phone book in Africa, and I didn't find one god damned Pryor!”
“I went to penitentiary one time, not me personally, but me and Gene went there for a movie. "Arizona State Penitentiary" Population: 80 percent black people. But there are no black people in Arizona, they have to bus motherfuckers in!”
“When that fire hit your ass, it will sober your ass up quick! I saw something, I went, "Well, that's a pretty blue. You know what? That looks like... FIRE! Fire is inspirational. They should use it in the Olympics, because I ran the 100 in 4.3.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born: ( 1940-12-01 ) December 1, 1940, Peoria, Illinois , U.S.
Died: December 10, 2005 (2005-12-10) (aged 65), Los Angeles , California, U.S.
Children: 7, including Rain
Years active: 1963–1999
Medium: Stand-up film television
Genres: Observational comedy black comedy improvisational comedy sketch comedy racial humor
Subjects: African-American culture American politics race relations sex pop culture self-deprecation recreational drug use
Website: richardpryor .com

via Wikipedia infobox

~33 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Known for reaching a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974.

Pryor's body of work includes numerous concert films and recordings. He won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for That Nigger's Crazy (1974), ...Is It Something I Said? (1975), Bicentennial Nigger (1976), Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982), and Richard Pryor: Here and Now (1983). He is also known for Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin' (1971), Wanted: Live in Concert (1978), and Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979). Pryor served as a co-writer for the Mel Brooks satirical western comedy film Blazing Saddles (1974).

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Richard Pryor” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.