Becoming Richard Pryor

Author : Scott Saul
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062123335
Total Pages : 485 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Becoming Richard Pryor written by Scott Saul and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major biography—intimate, gripping, revelatory—of an artist who revolutionized American comedy. Richard Pryor may have been the most unlikely star in Hollywood history. Raised in his family’s brothels, he grew up an outsider to privilege. He took to the stage, originally, to escape the hard-bitten realities of his childhood, but later came to a reverberating discovery: that by plunging into the depths of his experience, he could make stand-up comedy as exhilarating and harrowing as the life he’d known. He brought that trembling vitality to Hollywood, where his movie career—Blazing Saddles, the buddy comedies with Gene Wilder, Blue Collar—flowed directly out of his spirit of creative improvisation. The major studios considered him dangerous. Audiences felt plugged directly into the socket of life. Becoming Richard Pryor brings the man and his comic genius into focus as never before. Drawing upon a mountain of original research—interviews with family and friends, court transcripts, unpublished journals, screenplay drafts—Scott Saul traces Pryor’s rough journey to the heights of fame: from his heartbreaking childhood, his trials in the Army, and his apprentice days in Greenwich Village to his soul-searching interlude in Berkeley and his ascent in the “New Hollywood” of the 1970s. Becoming Richard Pryor illuminates an entertainer who, by bringing together the spirits of the black freedom movement and the counterculture, forever altered the DNA of American comedy. It reveals that, while Pryor made himself a legend with his own account of his life onstage, the full truth of that life is more bracing still.

Author : Scott Saul
Publisher : Harper Perennial
ISBN 13 : 9780062123329
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Becoming Richard Pryor written by Scott Saul and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major biography—intimate, gripping, revelatory—of an artist who revolutionized American comedy. Richard Pryor may have been the most unlikely star in Hollywood history. Raised in his family’s brothels, he grew up an outsider to privilege. He took to the stage, originally, to escape the hard-bitten realities of his childhood, but later came to a reverberating discovery: that by plunging into the depths of his experience, he could make stand-up comedy as exhilarating and harrowing as the life he’d known. He brought that trembling vitality to Hollywood, where his movie career—Blazing Saddles, the buddy comedies with Gene Wilder, Blue Collar—flowed directly out of his spirit of creative improvisation. The major studios considered him dangerous. Audiences felt plugged directly into the socket of life. Becoming Richard Pryor brings the man and his comic genius into focus as never before. Drawing upon a mountain of original research—interviews with family and friends, court transcripts, unpublished journals, screenplay drafts—Scott Saul traces Pryor’s rough journey to the heights of fame: from his heartbreaking childhood, his trials in the Army, and his apprentice days in Greenwich Village to his soul-searching interlude in Berkeley and his ascent in the “New Hollywood” of the 1970s. Becoming Richard Pryor illuminates an entertainer who, by bringing together the spirits of the black freedom movement and the counterculture, forever altered the DNA of American comedy. It reveals that, while Pryor made himself a legend with his own account of his life onstage, the full truth of that life is more bracing still.

Author : David Henry
Publisher : Algonquin Books
ISBN 13 : 1616204478
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Furious Cool written by David Henry and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a rare glimpse into the life of an outrageously human, fearlessly black, openly angry and profanely outspoken comedic genius whose humble beginnings as the child of a prostitute helped shaped him into one of the most influential and outstanding performers of our time.

Author : Audrey Thomas McCluskey
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253220114
Total Pages : 610 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Richard Pryor written by Audrey Thomas McCluskey and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-17 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This anthology captures the spirit, zest, and cultural impact of Pryor's complex artistry."--Back cover.

Author : Richard Pryor
Publisher : Barnacle Book
ISBN 13 : 9781947856059
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pryor Convictions written by Richard Pryor and published by Barnacle Book. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published by Pantheon Books in 1995.

Author : Scott Saul
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674043103
Total Pages : 409 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't written by Scott Saul and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the long decade between the mid-fifties and the late sixties, jazz was changing more than its sound. The age of Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, and Charles Mingus's The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady was a time when jazz became both newly militant and newly seductive, its example powerfully shaping the social dramas of the Civil Rights movement, the Black Power movement, and the counterculture. Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't is the first book to tell the broader story of this period in jazz--and American--history.

Author : Kliph Nesteroff
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 0802190863
Total Pages : 460 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Comedians written by Kliph Nesteroff and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Funny [and] fascinating . . . If you’re a comedy nerd you’ll love this book.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, National Post, and Splitsider Based on over two hundred original interviews and extensive archival research, this groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past one hundred years. Starting with the vaudeville circuit at the turn of the last century, the book introduces the first stand-up comedian—an emcee who abandoned physical shtick for straight jokes. After the repeal of Prohibition, Mafia-run supper clubs replaced speakeasies, and mobsters replaced vaudeville impresarios as the comedian’s primary employer. In the 1950s, the late-night talk show brought stand-up to a wide public, while Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Jonathan Winters attacked conformity and staged a comedy rebellion in coffeehouses. From comedy’s part in the civil rights movement and the social upheaval of the late 1960s, to the first comedy clubs of the 1970s and the cocaine-fueled comedy boom of the 1980s, The Comedians culminates with a new era of media-driven celebrity in the twenty-first century. “Entertaining and carefully documented . . . jaw-dropping anecdotes . . . This book is a real treat.” —Merrill Markoe, TheWall Street Journal

Author : John Paul Pryor
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780985755003
Total Pages : 515 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alright, Let's Call It a Draw written by John Paul Pryor and published by . This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. John Pryor never thought he was in any real danger as a combat surgeon. After all, he wasn't going out on patrols, risking his life dodging IEDs. Unlike the grunts fighting urban combat, he remained within the safe confines of the field hospital. So, no one was more surprised than John when a rocket blast claimed his life on Christmas morning, 2008. He was 42 years old.This incredible narrative details the life of a modern-day patriot and humanitarian. Throughout his life Dr. Pryor refused to ignore that inner voice compelling him to serve, both his fellow man and the country he loved.Funny, poignant, powerful, and ultimately tragic, this vivid memoir guides you through a personal and intimate account of Dr. Pryor's lifefrom speeding in an ambulance as a teenager, to medical school in Grenada; from operating on trauma victims, to searching the rubble on 9-11and battling death as combat surgeon in Iraq.Dr. Pryor's untimely death not only cheated us of his surgical skills and medical knowledge, but the greater life lessons he championed: integrity, honesty, altruism and humanity. Alright, Let's Call it a Draw is a inspirational narrative meant to salvage these lessons to be shared with those he left behind.

Author : James Haskins
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780825302008
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Richard Pryor, a Man and His Madness written by James Haskins and published by . This book was released on 1984-01-01 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the life of the popular Black comedian, from his childhood in Peoria, Illinois, to his work on the nightclub circuit, and his eventual success in movies and television

Author : David Steinberg
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813197570
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inside Comedy written by David Steinberg and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Steinberg's name has been synonymous with comedy for decades. The Canadian-born comedian, producer, writer, director, and author has been called "a comic institution himself" by the New York Times. He appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 140 times (second only to Bob Hope), and directed episodes of popular television sitcoms, including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld, Friends, Mad About You, The Golden Girls, and Designing Women. From 2012–2015, Steinberg hosted the comedy documentary series Inside Comedy, which featured such comedy greats as Billy Crystal, Chris Rock, and Gary Shandling. In this entertaining history of comedy, Steinberg shares insightful memories of his journey through his career and takes the reader behind the curtain of the comedy scene of the last half-century. Steinberg shares amusing and often hilarious stories and anecdotes from some of the most legendary comedians in the industry—from Groucho Marx, Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, and Richard Pryor to Lily Tomlin, Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Tina Fey. Inside Comedy presents in-depth portraits of some of the most talented and revered comedians in the world of comedy today.