
Sony Pictures
Richard Pryor was a unique performer, that’s for sure…but which Richard Pryor?
Are we talking about the early Richard Pryor, young and fresh-faced, who did so-so stand-up routines on network TV and played a cop in a Sid Caesar movie?
Or are we talking about the guy who formed half of an unlikely comedy team with Gene Wilder in several films?
Maybe the one who had a succession of Bob Hope-style comedy movie vehicles in the 1980s? The self-destructive, drug-addled loose cannon who was all but banned from network television for years before reluctantly being given his own series? How about the Richard who presented an intelligent and genuinely funny children’s Saturday morning show?
Or finally, the one who knew no fear on the live stage and broke all barriers that Lenny Bruce hadn’t already broken?
They were, of course, all one and the same, and literally that is what makes Richard Pryor unique! With television and movies not knowing what to do with him, and almost afraid to try because of his well-publicized volatile, drug-fueled nature, it came as a surprise when a feature-length live comedy gig released as Richard Pryor Live in Concert, became a surprise smash big-screen hit in 1979.
Mimicking his career path of ups and downs, it was just the following year when he was involved in a drug-related, life-threatening accident that left him with major burns over 50% of his body. For a short period, he was not expected to recover.
But recover he did, and soon enough was back making movies, including a second live concert film—Richard Pryor, Live on the Sunset Strip, which was released in 1982. I took a date to see this movie 42 years ago. A few years back, I binged all of the movies in which Richard acted, but skipped the two concert films. Today, we’re revisiting that second one.
Always a commanding presence, Richard walks into the arena to great acclaim as soon as the credits end, smoking a cigarette and dressed in an attention-getting black shirt and red suit but seeming a tad nervous. His famous room-lighting grin is nowhere to be seen. He gets a lengthy standing ovation, though, no doubt as many of the folks in the crowd (mostly white I note, although Jesse Jackson is visible in one shot) didn’t expect to ever see him alive, let alone working again.
The grin slowly returns though as Pryor wastes no time in jumping into one of his favorite go-to topics—sex. The audience’s laughter makes him feel comfortable and he soon starts talking about returning to work.
Pryor was never a joke teller, nor did he usually do practiced routines on stage. He was a man who could be naturally funny when speaking on any subject, often doing silly voices mimicking the type of person he’s talking about. Was it all off-the-cuff? Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t, but he made you feel like it was.
In this concert, he goes on to tell stories about lawyers, his clothes, his marriage (he praised his wife. “She paid dues….’cause I am no day at the beach.”), filming in prison, a trip to Africa, Nazis, and the Mafia.
He talks about racism and how he came to his decision to no longer use he dreaded “N word” that had become associated with him through his act and the names of some of his albums. He reluctantly, by audience request, revives a character he played on some of those albums for a bittersweet bit.
Then, after all that, the last third of the concert finally deals with the elephant in the room—his then still recent, life-threatening accident. I remember the incident, which remained in the news for weeks. At one point, Pryor was even widely reported to have died!
Here he was back, though, risen like a phoenix, dressed in fiery red and stalking the stage. He relates a harrowing description of addiction, somehow made funny. He then goes into detail about the drug-related accident that left him with severe burns over nearly all of his body—not so much about how it happened but about the aftermath and recovery. It’s clear that he’s coping the only way Pryor really knew to cope with anything. He’s telling a story and making it funny, something it certainly wasn’t while he was living it!
Richard Pryor’s real life both before, during, and after this period was anything but funny most of the time, but humor was how he coped. Richard Pryor, Live on the Sunset Strip, shares with us a pivotal moment in the life of this charismatic man so important to the history of comedy. Looking at it now in context, and in retrospect, it’s much more than just another funny movie.
Booksteve recommends.
Includes a trailer.


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