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 Drawing upon a mountain of original research—interviews with family and friends, court transcripts, unpublished journals, screenplay drafts—Scott Saul traces Pryor’s rough journey to the heights of fame: from his heartbreaking childhood, his trials in the Army, and his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 : 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 : 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 : 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 : 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 : Michael Seth Starr
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1557838534
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Black and Blue written by Michael Seth Starr and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BLACK AND BLUE: THE REDD FOXX STORY

Author : Mel Brooks
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 059315911X
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book All About Me! written by Mel Brooks and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • At 95, the legendary Mel Brooks continues to set the standard for comedy across television, film, and the stage. Now he shares his story for the first time in “a wonderful addition to a seminal career” (San Francisco Chronicle), “infused with nostalgia and his signature hilarity” (Parade). ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: New York Post • “Laugh-out-loud hilarious and always fascinating, from the great Mel Brooks. What else do you expect from the man who knew Jesus and dated Joan of Arc?”—Billy Crystal For anyone who loves American comedy, the long wait is over. Here are the never-before-told, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and remembrances from a master storyteller, filmmaker, and creator of all things funny. All About Me! charts Mel Brooks’s meteoric rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to the recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Whether serving in the United States Army in World War II, or during his burgeoning career as a teenage comedian in the Catskills, Mel was always mining his experiences for material, always looking for the perfect joke. His iconic career began with Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, where he was part of the greatest writers’ room in history, which included Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart. After co-creating both the mega-hit 2000 Year Old Man comedy albums and the classic television series Get Smart, Brooks’s stellar film career took off. He would go on to write, direct, and star in The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, and Spaceballs, as well as produce groundbreaking and eclectic films, including The Elephant Man, The Fly, and My Favorite Year. Brooks then went on to conquer Broadway with his record-breaking, Tony-winning musical, The Producers. All About Me! offers fans insight into the inspiration behind the ideas for his outstanding collection of boundary-breaking work, and offers details about the many close friendships and collaborations Brooks had, including those with Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Gene Wilder, Madeleine Kahn, Alfred Hitchcock, and the great love of his life, Anne Bancroft. Filled with tales of struggle, achievement, and camaraderie (and dozens of photographs), readers will gain a more personal and deeper understanding of the incredible body of work behind one of the most accomplished and beloved entertainers in history.

Author : Doug W. Pryor
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814766668
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Unspeakable Acts written by Doug W. Pryor and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A holistic sociological approach that explores why offenders sexually abuse children The sexual abuse of children is one of the most morally unsettling and emotionally inflammatory issues in American society today. It has been estimated that roughly one out of every four girls and one in ten boys experience some form of unwanted sexual attention either inside or outside the family before they reach adulthood. How should society deal with the sexual victimization of children? Should known offenders be released back into our communities? If so, where, and with what rights, should they be allowed to live? In Unspeakable Acts, Douglas W. Pryor argues that much of this debate, designed to deal with abusers after they have offended, ignores the important issue of why men cross these forbidden sexual boundaries to molest children in the first place and how the behavior can possibly be prevented before it starts. Incorporating in-depth interviews with more than thirty convicted child molesters, Pryor explores how men become involved with breaking sexual boundaries with children. He looks at how their lives prior to offending contributed to and led up to what they did, the ways that initial interest in sex with children began, the tactics offenders employed to molest their victims over time, how they felt about and reacted to their behavior between offending episodes, and how they were ultimately able to stop. The author expands our understanding of this often reviled, little understood group, leaving us with the uneasy conclusion that the moral wall separating us from what is defined as extreme, sick behavior is not as opaque as we would like to believe.