Black Is The New White Part 11

In a television studio in Burbank, we get the boulder rolling faster, all right, but it rolls over us at the same time.

THE SHOW.

CHAPTER 21.

At Ye Little Club in 1975 I see a vision of prettiness and strangeness stand up in front the crowd on open-mic night. She's scattered with nervousness and all over the place in her act, which features lots of high school humor. All I see are lips and a bone-thin body.

But there's something there. She's funny, for one thing. I mean the whole way she approaches the world is funny. The actual bits aren't quite there yet. But when you got that natural comic att.i.tude, the lines will come sooner or later. I always think comedians are born, not made. It's something in our DNA.

The thin-as-a-rail woman closes her act with her introduction. "I'm Sandra Bernhard," she says, waving herself off the stage. I go over to her.

"Girl," I say, "you're a cigarette come to life."

She looks at me. "Thanks, I think," she says. She's twenty years old, a manicurist in Beverly Hills.

"The manicurist to the stars," she says, fluttering her hands in the air.

"I bet," I say. "You found your way here, so you have to be getting some inside information somewhere."

She's not a cla.s.sic beauty. Then again, a lot of cla.s.sic beauties aren't cla.s.sic beauties. Like Bette Davis. Take a look at her and tell me you'd ever guess she was a movie star.

Ah, yes, "n.i.g.g.e.r lips." That's what they call Sandra all her life. They put her through h.e.l.l in school. She tells me that people point and stare at her in airports as though she is a freak. As a teenager it makes her cry. She is the ugly duckling. Onstage, in front of a microphone, she becomes a swan.

I always love the underdog. So I start to take Sandra around. I take her to shows at army bases. I take her down to South Central, to Maverick's Flat and Redd Foxx's. Black folks go nuts for her. It's like magic. The first people to really get Sandra Bernhard are the audiences down on Crenshaw.

Richard comes to see her. "Boy, you can really pick them," he says. As a female, she doesn't get through to him because she's one of those rare women he doesn't want to f.u.c.k. But as a comic, he understands at once. She's a natural.

It's lucky for her that Richard likes her, because the next year is his breakout year in Hollywood. He finally gets what he's wanted all his life. When Silver Streak Silver Streak hits theaters, he's a movie star. On top of that, his new alb.u.m, hits theaters, he's a movie star. On top of that, his new alb.u.m, Bicentennial n.i.g.g.e.r Bicentennial n.i.g.g.e.r, sells even better than That n.i.g.g.e.r's Crazy That n.i.g.g.e.r's Crazy and wins Richard another Grammy. and wins Richard another Grammy.

The Sh.e.l.l oil company had commercials back then with the tag, "And that's the way it was." I get a T-s.h.i.+rt made that says, "Bicentennial n.i.g.g.e.r: And dat's the way it wuz." Richard sees it and goes nuts, using it for the name of his alb.u.m.

When you get to be a big dog in Hollywood, you see a lot of bones tossed your way. NBC offers Richard a chance to do his own Lily Tomlinstyle comedy special, to be aired in the spring of 1977. Producer Rocco Urbisci develops the concept, and we pitch it with a question mark in the t.i.tle-The Richard Pryor Special?-to set it apart from other shows, but also because we talk about mixing it up, putting a few dramatic skits in with the comedic riffs.

"Mr. Mooney, you do the casting s.h.i.+t," Richard tells me. He doesn't want to bother a.s.sembling the actors. For the big names, he pulls in a few favors, like getting John Belus.h.i.+ on, but mostly it is up to me. I feel like I am given the keys to the Cadillac.

I hire the most talented people I know. Sandra Bernhard is among them, in her first TV appearance. It's not much- just a small role of a token woman writer in a room full of black radicals-but it gets Sandra her AFTRA card.

The special itself is a mixed-bag of comedy and drama, just like Richard wanted. He wanders around the NBC Studios in Burbank, trying to scare up ideas for the show. He encounters one hard case after another. The first is LaWanda Page, fresh from playing Fred's nemesis on Sanford and Son. Sanford and Son. She does a church-lady riff as "Sister Mabel Williams." She does a church-lady riff as "Sister Mabel Williams."

The Sister Mabel sketch leads into Richard playing his donation-grubbing preacher character, Rev. James L. White, done up with a huge natural, white Crenshaw pumps, and gold-chain chest bling. A chorus of singers behind him sends up a chant of "Money" all through his appearance.

Richard and I come up with the punch line to the riff: When the phones on his religious telethon don't ring fast enough, Rev. White says it's because he's not getting the "crossover" money from white audiences. He announces that all the money received will be donated to the BTAM-the Back to Africa Movement, to send black folks back to their homeland. The switchboards immediately light up.

I get the Pips to come on, the same folks who used to crash at our Sunset Boulevard bungalow when I lived there with Carol. Gladys Knight herself isn't with them, but we make that the joke and have the backup singers do their same act without the lead. They do all their moves toward an empty microphone. It's funny and weird and meaningful all at the same time. Richard loves it because he thinks the special should be about bringing folks who are always in the background up to the fore.

My favorite line in the show comes when Richard encounters a thief named Booster Johnson. Richard is in a tuxedo, and Booster is in street clothes and a do-rag, but they find common ground.

"Just trying to stay three steps ahead," Booster says. "Because you know they're going to push you two back."

That's pure Oak-Town ghetto wisdom, right there, but it transfers well enough to Hollywood, to New York, to the wider world. White, black, red, yellow, or brown, those are words to live by.

All through the production of the special, Richard is chafing against NBC bra.s.s on the one side and his own private demons on the other. He is still sucking Smirnoff and snorting cocaine like a madman. It's funny, the special shows Richard roaming NBC's studios like they're his home turf, but in reality we feel like outsiders there.

The episode in the show where the security guard checks Richard's and Booster's names in his "black book" isn't that far from the truth. Heading for the commissary, I get shut out of Studio Two one afternoon without ID, and security won't let me back in until Richard sends someone to fetch me.

Richard likes to play it cool, as though he doesn't give a s.h.i.+t whether his special succeeds or fails, but the mask always slips. He's needy. He's afraid of disappointment. This all leads to his becoming a bundle of anxiety, which in turn leads to more c.o.ke and alcohol.

I know that sooner or later the stripped wires of Rich-ard's manic energy and nervous stress are going to cross somewhere in his brain, and it will spark a meltdown. I tell him that his main stressor, one that he can't resolve, is that whenever he does something popular, he's afraid he's not keeping it real.

"I see it happen," I tell him. "The minute you hear white people applauding you, you get all p.i.s.sed at yourself because you think you ain't being black enough."

He knows it's true, but he can't see a way out of the bind. The pressure doesn't let up when Richard's comedy special is a top-rated success, crossing over to black and white audiences both.

NBC offers Richard his own weekly comedy-variety show. They offer Richard what he calls "bad money"-so much cash that he can't refuse it: $2 million a year.

"What am I going to do, Mr. Mooney?"

I know him well enough to know he's not really asking. The answer is already clear. "You're gonna take the f.u.c.king money and run," I say.

"Those a.s.sholes at NBC'll never let me do my material," he says. "They'll mess with it until it's nothing but s.h.i.+t."

I don't argue with him, and as it turns out, Richard is right. We both find it easy to tell the future where TV executives are concerned. They are stupidly predictable.

Getting the NBC series, along with a small art-house movie role, ultimately leads Richard to the crash I have been expecting all along. It's like witnessing a slow-motion auto accident. Just as Richard takes me along with him as he becomes a star, when he spins out, I'm right there, too.

CHAPTER 22.

Once again, Richard hands over the keys to the Caddy. He wants me to do all the casting for his comedy series (which, in a stroke of originality, NBC is calling The Richard Pryor Show The Richard Pryor Show). I begin by signing up some young comics I see at the Store or down at the Improv, a club that opens in the mid-1970s on Melrose.

The Store is my true playground. I am there almost every night. At about this time I start using a phrase in my act that spreads like wildfire all over the country. Whenever I catch some homeboy trying to front in some outrageous way, I have a two-word reality check for him: "n.i.g.g.e.r, please."

Those two words have a lot of history to them. I think back on Mama. Whenever I say something that's obviously a lie, she just checks me with a look. Not quite a scowl, just an expression that immediately establishes that Mama ain't going to take not one bit of s.h.i.+t from a silver-tongued grandson like me.

Everybody raised by a black grandmama knows that look cold. It makes me smile just thinking about it. It's the "n.i.g.g.e.r, please" expression. Yes, I know what you just said, I speak English, I recognize the words coming out of your mouth, but if you think for one single second I am going to buy any of that nonsense, you are out of your pea-picking mind. Yes, I know what you just said, I speak English, I recognize the words coming out of your mouth, but if you think for one single second I am going to buy any of that nonsense, you are out of your pea-picking mind.

The N N word in "n.i.g.g.e.r, please" is more of an identifier than a racial insult. What it's saying is, word in "n.i.g.g.e.r, please" is more of an identifier than a racial insult. What it's saying is, Listen, we're all in the same community. We grew up on the same streets. We know all the scams, all the dodges, all the bulls.h.i.+t. So don't try to run none of that on me. Listen, we're all in the same community. We grew up on the same streets. We know all the scams, all the dodges, all the bulls.h.i.+t. So don't try to run none of that on me. As I sometimes say, "I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night, so I know something." As I sometimes say, "I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night, so I know something."

The reason "n.i.g.g.e.r, please" catches on so fast, the reason the phrase is revolutionary, is that it is the first time black-on-black criticism goes public. We are usually so careful to back up the brothers and protect the sisters in front of the white folks. The att.i.tude is, We don't need to air our dirty linen in public. The white folks are going to cut us down with insults soon enough.

Between us, of course, the insults fly, the dozens go down, the long knives come out. Ain't n.o.body can call black people on their bulls.h.i.+t like a black person. But "n.i.g.g.e.r, please" drags that business into the open. It says, See? We're strong enough to dish it and take it, we can give each other reality checks better than anyone. We're keeping it real. See? We're strong enough to dish it and take it, we can give each other reality checks better than anyone. We're keeping it real.

The phrase becomes the "Where's the beef?" of the black community. What's great is that even though white people have been feeling the sense of it for years, they can't say it anymore in public unless they're some cracker racist redneck who doesn't care if he gets a beatdown.

As soon as I start dropping the phrase into my show, it becomes a virus. The timing is weird, because during this period I'm traveling cross-country for the first time to appear at comedy clubs in New York-the Improv, Catch A Rising Star, and the Comic Strip Live. And when I start hanging out in the city, my trademark phrase starts showing up everywhere in my wake.

"n.i.g.g.e.r, please." I hear it from the mouths of other comics in the clubs, on the streets, and in the subways. I should have copyrighted that s.h.i.+t. I could be retired on royalties.

I say it to Richard all the time. "I'm not feeling this comedy series, Mr. Mooney," he says. "It's gonna be s.h.i.+tty, s.h.i.+tty, s.h.i.+t-tie! The worst show ever on TV. I can't do it! I'm in a trap. I cannot do this s.h.i.+t!"

n.i.g.g.e.r, please. Take the money and run with it.

Casting the series, I give Robin Williams his first television job, long before his appearances as Mork on Happy Days Happy Days and his own starring role doing the same character on and his own starring role doing the same character on Mork & Mindy. Mork & Mindy. I see Robin all the time at the Store. He and Richard are f.u.c.king the same waitress. I always like Robin's act, but I am not crazy about him the way other people are. I see Robin all the time at the Store. He and Richard are f.u.c.king the same waitress. I always like Robin's act, but I am not crazy about him the way other people are.

Happy Days producer Garry Marshall, who gives Robin his job as Mork, is the guy who usually gets credit for discovering him. Richard is there first, but anyone who is at the Store in those days knows Robin has great potential. I introduce him to Richard, and we use him on the series because he's funny and can do any part we send his way. We sign Sandra again, too. producer Garry Marshall, who gives Robin his job as Mork, is the guy who usually gets credit for discovering him. Richard is there first, but anyone who is at the Store in those days knows Robin has great potential. I introduce him to Richard, and we use him on the series because he's funny and can do any part we send his way. We sign Sandra again, too.

Other people I sign up are Marsha Warfield, who goes on to play Roz on Night Court, Night Court, "Detroit" Johnny Witherspoon, Tim Reid, and the comic who will go on to "Detroit" Johnny Witherspoon, Tim Reid, and the comic who will go on to Everybody Loves Raymond, Everybody Loves Raymond, Brad Garrett. Garrett's young as s.h.i.+t when we hire him, not even twenty years old, just starting out, years away from winning Brad Garrett. Garrett's young as s.h.i.+t when we hire him, not even twenty years old, just starting out, years away from winning Star Search Star Search and breaking out on and breaking out on The Tonight Show The Tonight Show.

We work on the Pryor Show Pryor Show scripts up at Richard's house in Northridge, upstairs in the study. It's a big room with lots of chairs and couches, and overlooks the rest of the house and the mountains beyond. The whole arrangement makes it easy for Richard. He never has to be away from his comfort zone. scripts up at Richard's house in Northridge, upstairs in the study. It's a big room with lots of chairs and couches, and overlooks the rest of the house and the mountains beyond. The whole arrangement makes it easy for Richard. He never has to be away from his comfort zone.

A stenographer sits there, taking down our every word, no matter how stupid. "Richard picks his nose-write that down!" Richard says, making the secretary his straight man. Rocco Urbisci, the producer, sits in, and some other writers, including David Banks, Richard's record producer. It's a cla.s.sic spitball situation, with everybody throwing out ideas and seeing what sticks.

"Mr. Mooney's the only one telling me no," he shouts at everybody. "The rest of you sit there and motherf.u.c.king nod like a bunch of bobble-head dolls!"

His screaming at them makes no difference. They continue to suck up to the star. It makes for an uneven atmosphere, but eventually we come up with a thick sheaf of ideas for skits, sight gags, and parodies. Like he insisted on for the special, Richard wants a mix, not just comedy, but drama and even political sketches, too.

Not many people know it, but before she becomes the Clinton-inauguration poet laureate and Oprah's friend, Maya Angelou is a singer, dancer, and actress. She's already well known for writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I introduce her to Richard, who had never heard of her before.

We cast her to do a great dramatic riff, a black woman doing a monologue over the body of her pa.s.sed-out drunken husband-Richard as a wino. Maya plays it straight, and even the first time we do it in rehearsal, it's great. I see women in tears afterward. Maya writes the monologue herself, and it gets to the soul of what goes on between black men and black women.

But all of a sudden, it looks as though the show is going nowhere. NBC tosses a wrench into the works by reneging on a clause in the contract. Richard demands that the show go on late, so we can do more adult-oriented bits. He even gets it in writing. But instead of scheduling the show after "family hour," NBC announces it as going on at 8 o'clock on Tuesday evening.

Richard freaks. He pulls the plug. The Richard Pryor Show The Richard Pryor Show is over before it ever gets started. is over before it ever gets started.

CHAPTER 23.

One reason why Richard is all bent and moody during this time is he is just coming off a Paul Schrader movie, a drama that he's real proud of but that puts him through h.e.l.l. Schrader is brilliant-he's the screenwriter for Scorsese's Taxi Driver Taxi Driver and and Raging Bull Raging Bull-but n.o.body could ever call him Mr. Suns.h.i.+ne.

The role Richard takes is Zeke in Blue Collar, Blue Collar, where he's acting alongside Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel. The production films in late spring 1977. The set is a pressure cooker. Schrader does nothing to cool it out. where he's acting alongside Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel. The production films in late spring 1977. The set is a pressure cooker. Schrader does nothing to cool it out.

"Dude likes tension on the set," Richard complains to me. "He thinks it will show up dramatically in the art of the movie."

Richard is miserable all through the shoot. He has fist-fights with his costars, throwing punches at both Harvey and Yaphet on separate occasions. He flings scripts, props, and other stuff around the set.

Off the set, when I see him at night, he's drinking and doping like a real addict. He runs Amy, his drug mule, ragged. One evening, during a single six-hour period between six and midnight, he sends her out three times on re-supply runs. I counted.

Not all of that s.h.i.+t is going up Richard's nose, since he's got a whole host of hangers-on to take care of, but a lot of it does. But he never bleeds, he never rots out his nostrils like a lot of c.o.ke hounds do. He's got a cast-iron septum.

When I finally see Blue Collar, Blue Collar, I realize it's a great movie and that Richard is great in it. But I wonder if it is worth it. The shoot puts Richard through an emotional obstacle course. He feels as though he can never be friends with his costars again. Too much bulls.h.i.+t, too much bad blood. Richard comes off that movie sh.e.l.l-shocked. I think today we'd call it posttraumatic stress. I realize it's a great movie and that Richard is great in it. But I wonder if it is worth it. The shoot puts Richard through an emotional obstacle course. He feels as though he can never be friends with his costars again. Too much bulls.h.i.+t, too much bad blood. Richard comes off that movie sh.e.l.l-shocked. I think today we'd call it posttraumatic stress.

But the proof is in the pudding, and Blue Collar Blue Collar is a dramatic role that Richard's proud of. The box office is lousy, but reviews are good. A critic for the is a dramatic role that Richard's proud of. The box office is lousy, but reviews are good. A critic for the LA Times LA Times calls it a triumph. calls it a triumph.

"Many more motherf.u.c.king triumphs like that," Richard says, "and I'll be dead."

No rest for the wicked. Right on the heels of Blue Collar Blue Collar comes the bulls.h.i.+t surrounding comes the bulls.h.i.+t surrounding The Richard Pryor Show The Richard Pryor Show. Richard tells NBC they're not honoring the contract that calls for the network to put the show on after family hour, so he's walking out.

Richard's moves are never simple. There's never just one reason behind his decisions. Part of the face-off over the show is Richard's refusing to get pushed around by corporate types. But another part of it is that he's afraid he's going to bomb.

Stalemate. All of us who got cranked up to do the show are expecting paychecks. But they're not coming. Some fools on the crew go out and hire an airplane to fly over Richard's house in the Valley, trailing a banner that reads SURRENDER RICHARD, as if that would change his mind.

In the middle of this Richard flies to Europe with his family. He's got four kids living with him, and a new wife, Deborah. The trip is supposed to be a vacation to get Richard away from the stresses of Hollywood. But he's not used to acting the family man. He comes back from vacation needing a vacation.

But the break gives him some perspective. Richard suggests a compromise on the show-four episodes, instead of the ten called for in the contract. What can the network do? Everybody wants a piece of Richard. Four shows isn't as good as ten, but it's better than nothing.

From our experience with The Richard Pryor Special? The Richard Pryor Special?, we know we're going to run up against the NBC censors, so we come up with a beautiful sight gag to open the show. Richard comes on, shot from the head up, and swears to the camera he will never be compromised, he's going to be just as edgy and controversial as ever.

"I've given up absolutely nothing to be on network TV," he says. The camera pulls out to show his full body. Richard is naked and d.i.c.kless.

The gag is done with a bodysuit, so he isn't nude at all, but it is still too much for NBC. They hate the criticism, but they use the "nudity" excuse to kill the bit.

Richard is furious, but the censors.h.i.+p backfires on NBC. The controversy shows up on all the network news broadcasts. Many more people see the sketch on the news than ever watch the show. I have a good laugh about it, but Richard doesn't see it as funny. He's too angry at NBC to see that the controversy just makes people love him more.

"See how that s.h.i.+t works? NBC gets all the free publicity. Those motherf.u.c.kers always win," he says. That's how Richard sees it. The way I see it is that we're starting to kick down the walls of Fortress Hollywood brick by brick, gag by gag-"just trying to stay three steps ahead because you know they're going to push you back two."

On the set, Richard swings from highs to lows like some sort of bipolar crazy person. The werewolf comes out repeatedly. The ensemble cast I put together never knows who they're going to get when they approach him. He places himself under enormous pressure. I feel as though it's too much for him, as though he's going to explode and wind up, like he warns me again and again, "with a bullet in my head."

I don't "n.i.g.g.e.r, please" him when he says s.h.i.+t like that. It scares me.

But despite all the tension on the set, we produce some of the best television ever broadcast. The Maya Angelou bit comes off beautifully, unbelievably good. Nothing like it has ever been shown before or since.

I get to act in a Chaplin-style pantomime bit with Richard-no dialogue, just music on the soundtrack. He plays Mr. Fix-It, and I am his customer, with a broken-down car. In a series of sight gags, Richard totally demolishes the car. At the end, miracle of miracles, he manages to start the wreck's engine. Overjoyed, he leaps out to shake my hand. My arm falls off.

It's the purest form of comedy, a sketch that would play in Thailand just as well as in Oakland. You don't need words. I treasure it as one of the highest achievements of my life, to share a stage with my best friend Richard, just me and him, making people laugh.

Other sketches are less stripped-down. A parody of the bar scene in Star Wars Star Wars has Richard as a bartender keeping a rowdy crowd of aliens in check. It reminds me of him trying to keep the ensemble of actors and writers on track, trying to keep it real. Richard loves has Richard as a bartender keeping a rowdy crowd of aliens in check. It reminds me of him trying to keep the ensemble of actors and writers on track, trying to keep it real. Richard loves Star Wars Star Wars. He's obsessed with it. He tells me because the characters are from a galaxy "far, far away," then they can't be prejudiced.

Richard does a samurai skit that shows off his obsession with all things Asian. He and Robin Williams slip a cocaine-snorting reference into an Egyptian tomb-of-the-pharaohs sketch. Racial politics keep creeping into the content of the show. There's a lot of Afrocentric material, because Richard is getting more and more interested in Africa. African dances, glorification of the black female, a voodoo skit where Richard attempts to heal Robin's crippled arm.

In another bit, more than three decades before Obama, Richard acts as the "Fortieth President of the United States" at a press conference. He starts the sketch solemn enough, but becomes increasingly raucous, calling only on black reporters while telling the white journalist from Mississippi to sit down. He appoints our old Oakland friend Huey P. Newton as the head of the FBI.