The G.O.A.T.

The G.O.A.T.

Labels: In Memory of...

The phrase "Greatest of All-Time" has been thrown around a lot in many circles of entertainment including Hip-Hop and basketball, with many laying claim to the title, thus leaving the topic open for debate. However, in the realm of black comedy and in a comedy in a larger sense, Richard Pryor is the indisputable greatest of all time! His stand-up routines has surpassed those he admired such as Pigmeat Markham and Lenny Bruce and Dick Gregory. His contemporaries Bill Cosby and Flip Wilson have long faded from the comedic light and he gave life to Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, the Wayans Family, Mike Epps, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker and various others.

Filthy, foul-mouthed, but always real, Pryor turned his life into his strongest material; from his upbringing in a whorehouse, his battles with addiction and many marriages, he became the proverbial open book. His audiences loved it then, his admirers use it now. Who else could stand on stage three years after nearly burning himself to death while freebasing and turn it into some of the funniest shit you've ever seen in your life? That's what Richard Pryor did in 1983's "Live on Sunset Strip", it was his life being delivered to a waiting audience, thinking they were getting jokes, they got to peer into his diary.

He had various hits and misses on film, "Stir Crazy" and "Bustin' Loose" being among the hits, "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" and "Brewster's Millions" were definite misses. Yet, he always stood out on film, even as Pianoman in "Lady Sings The Blues", he stole the show from Diana Ross' "Lady Day". There's a scene in "Stir Crazy" that I will always remember, just as his character and Gene Wilder are walking into jail and Pryor breaks into a mean strut and start acting "bad", he looks over in what seems to be a definite ad-lib and tells Wilder to say, no shit! It was something so subtle, but it marked the genius of his comedy.

This is not a forum to rehash his struggles with addiction, but that is what makes him so beloved. He seems like one of your family members, the one you love in spite of their demons, but you love them honestly. That's what we'll always remember and love about Richard Pryor, his life was never hidden from us, he displayed it in "JoJo Dancer: Your Life Is Calling", put it on front street in his comedy and when multiple scerosis began to invade his body in the 1980's he kept on going.

That's what Richard Pryor embodied, the struggle of all African-Americans, through addiction and illness, he battled on. He looked frail in "Harlem Nights" aside mentor Redd Foxx and successor, Eddie Murphy. But, it was a moment of historic proportions for African-American Comedy, three of our most successful and influential comics sharing screen time in a film panned by critics, but loved by the African-American community.

We will miss Richard Pryor, the actor, the comedian, his family and friends will miss Richard the man, but we will all have memories of Richard Pryor. Memories like, him running on water from pirahana in "The Toy", strutting in front of the KKK in "Bustin' Loose" and his short role as "Daddy Rich" in "Car Wash". We have the memories and the laughter to carry with us throughout the rest of our lives, but we also have his struggles to inspire us.