( Richard Pryor: Here and Now, from 1983, is a shaky shadow in comparison, although, being a Richard Pryor concert, it’s still worth seeking out.)
#RICHARD PRYOR ICON CAST MOVIE#
What follows in the 82-minute movie is perhaps Pryor’s last - and best - great stand-up performance ever captured on film. (Even if there are reports that Pryor’s first show of the two pieced together for the film went much worse than the second).
Whatever rust there may have been is atomized in an instant. “We are gathered here today,” Pryor begins, letting his audience settle into his rhythm, “to make sure everyone eats.
(Eventually overtaken by Pryor’s eventual Harlem Nights costar and stand-up comedy descendant Eddie Murphy, with Eddie Murphy Raw in 1988.) The accompanying album also hit big, winning Pryor a Grammy for Best Comedy Recording, and cementing Pryor’s already formidable place in stand-up history.Įmerging through the packed audience in a bright red suit and matching black shirt and bowtie (whose high collar served to hide the burn scars Pryor carried until his death from a heart attack and multiple sclerosis in 2005), Pryor took to the Palladium stage and immediately launched into his preacher’s cadence. With the dapper and energized Pryor delivering, throughout two sold-out performances at the Hollywood Palladium, one of the greatest sets of his career, the film went on to bring in more than $36 million at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing concert film of all time. The concert film Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip was released less than two years later, on March 12, 1982.
With severe burns over 50 percent of his body, the 39-year-old Pryor’s doctors gave the comic and actor a one-in-three chance of survival. On June 9, 1980, his long and storied history of drug and alcohol abuse culminated in literal self-immolation that looked to doom his life and career. Before 40, Richard Pryor was written off by many as a cautionary show-business tale.
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