December 1, — December 10, was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Known for reaching a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most important stand-up comedians of all time. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in He was listed at number one on Comedy Central 's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians.
Pryor's body of work includes numerous concert films and recordings. Is It Something I Said? Pryor served as a co-writer for the Mel Brooks satirical western comedy film Blazing Saddles As an actor, he starred mainly in comedies. Pryor was born on December 1, , in Peoria, Illinois. He grew up in a brothel run by his grandmother, Marie Carter, where his alcoholic mother, Gertrude L. Pryor was one of four children raised in his grandmother's brothel. He was sexually abused at age seven, [ 7 ] and expelled from school at the age of Pryor served in the U.
Army from to , but spent virtually the entire stint in an army prison. According to a profile article about Pryor in The New Yorker , Pryor was incarcerated for an incident that occurred while he was stationed in West Germany. Angered that a white soldier was overly amused at the racially charged scenes of Douglas Sirk 's film Imitation of Life , Pryor and several other black soldiers beat and stabbed him, although the soldier survived. He was a member of Henry Brown Lodge No.
Simone recalls Pryor's bout of performance anxiety :. He shook like he had malaria , he was so nervous. I couldn't bear to watch him shiver, so I put my arms around him there in the dark and rocked him like a baby until he calmed down. The next night was the same, and the next, and I rocked him each time. Inspired by Bill Cosby , Pryor began as a middlebrow comic, with material less controversial than what was to come.
His popularity led to success as a comic in Las Vegas. In September , Pryor had what he described in his autobiography Pryor Convictions as an " epiphany ". He walked onto the stage at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas with Dean Martin in the audience , looked at the sold-out crowd, exclaimed over the microphone, "What the fuck am I doing here!? Afterward, Pryor began working profanity into his act, including the word nigger.
