R.I.P., Richard Pryor

A wonderful and observant obituary by Roger Ebert.

A lot of great stuff in there – but I loved the part about the blackface scene in Silver Streak – which honestly? It’s rare that a movie brings THAT kind of laughter out of me. Like – the kind of laughter where you miss the next 3 scenes because you can’t stop laughing. That one scene in Silver Streak was like that for me.

But here’s the bit from Ebert’s obit about that one scene:

In “Silver Streak,” Mr. Pryor told me, there was concern about a scene where Wilder appears in blackface and fools a white man. Mr. Pryor suggested a simple change that turned a possibly embarrassing scene into one of the biggest laughs in the film:

“Instead of a white dude being fooled by the disguise, a black dude comes in and isn’t fooled. Here’s Gene snapping his fingers and holding his portable radio to his ear, and the black dude takes one look and says, ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, man, but you got to get the beat.'”

In looking back – yes, it’s funny to see Gene Wilder pretending to be a hip jive-talking black guy – but what is REALLY funny is the black guy taking one look at him and being like: What the fuck …

A wonderful look back at this amazing journey.

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14 Responses to R.I.P., Richard Pryor

  1. Mr. Bingley says:

    A great read and tribute. But I had to laugh when I read this:

    Mr. Pryor was born Dec. 1, 1940, in Peoria, in a brothel his grandmother owned.

    How do you insult a guy who actually is the son of a hooker (or an hijo de puta as my spanish-speaking friends would say)?

  2. red says:

    Yeah, really. Many avenues of insults closed IMMEDIATELY!

  3. JFH says:

    Of all the movies, they pick a screen shot of Brewster’s Millions?! Both are comic geniuses but this movie is so-so.

    BTW, just so ya know, black Kiawii shoe polish, like they used in the movie, results in minor chemical burns to the skin… I dressed up as Peter Criss for Halloween as a Plebe at USNA and had to walk around like a red and white cat for the next week or so (If only I was a “drama freak” in high school; I’m sure most of you drama students knew this)

  4. red says:

    JFH –

    I actually had no idea.

    … note to self: do not use shoe polish …

  5. Timmer says:

    For me it was him and Chevy Chase on SNL playng the “word association” game. By the time he said, “DEAD honky.” I couldn’t breathe.

  6. red says:

    Totally. “dead honky”

    So genius

  7. John says:

    This is a new one. One of those links is to a Chinese blog. (I copied the links and put them in another browser, Sheila, so don’t worry about them getting hits from your site). They are probably trying to generate hits to boost their ad rates. They need a lesson in civilized behavior, as does much of the PRC “elite”.

  8. red says:

    John –

    That IS a new one – I’d never seen it before – also the fact that they are in my first post means … what? Usually spam shows up in long-ago posts. I was going to get around to deleting them – grrrrr – pisses me OFF. Look how they try to disguise the fact that they’re links too.

  9. John says:

    How many of your readers read Chinese? This just pisses people off for no reason.

    Don’t try to find a rational reason for the things that people in Communist countries do. It will just make your head hurt. Even the capitalists over there are infected with illogic from their schooling. My wife and I have had many conversations over this. She maintains that she is not truly American in her outlook because she came here when she was 11 (remember, Taiwan was stil under martial law when she left). Similarly, it will take a generation or two of people being raised in a competitive market system in the PRC for people to begin to see the advantages of enlightened self interest, rather than the pure self interest system in which they now operate.

  10. John says:

    As you can see, the Russians are begining to get a glimmer of the “enlightened” part ;-).

    http://mosnews.com/news/2005/07/25/spammerdead.shtml

  11. red says:

    John – good Lord! That link!!!!

  12. John says:

    When I was there, a lot of computer businesses were run by the mafia, because of the quasi-legal status of importing certain microprocessors into the USSR. After that article, I have a hunch the mafia still has a hand in computer businesses over there.

  13. red says:

    I have often WANTED to murder spammers … but to really do it?

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