United States: Richard Pryor, whose blunt, blue and brilliant comedic confrontations confidently tackled what many stand-up comics before him deemed too shocking - and thus off-limits - to broach, died on Saturday. He was 65.
Pryor suffered a heart attack at his home in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.
The comedian's tremendous body of work, a political movement in itself, was steeped in race, class, social commentary, and encompassed the stage, screen, records and television. He won five Grammys, an Emmy and was an Academy Award nominee for his role in Lady Sings the Blues in 1972.
At one point the highest-paid black performer in the entertainment industry, the highly lauded but misfortune-dogged comedian inadvertently became a de facto role model to whom many an up-and-coming comic, including Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Robin Williams, have paid due homage. Pryor alone kicked stand-up humour into a brand new realm.
"Richard Pryor is the groundbreaker," comedian Keenan Ivory Wayans once said. "For most of us he was the inspiration to get into comedy and also showed us that you can be black and have a black voice and be successful."
Pryor had a history both bizarre and grim: self-immolation (1980), heart attack (1990) and marathon drug and alcohol use (that he finally kicked in the 1990s). Yet Pryor somehow - oftentimes miraculously, it seemed - continued steady on the prowl, even after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986.
Verbally potent and physically eloquent, Pryor worked as an actor and writer as well as a stand-up comic throughout the 70s and into the 80s.
He won Grammys for his socially irreverent concert albums Bicentennial Nigger and That Nigger's Crazy. And in 1973 he walked away with a writing Emmy for a Lily Tomlin television special.
He starred in major feature films - from Lady Sings the Blues and the semi-autobiographical directing turn in Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, to the less memorable The Toy and Superman III. He also co-starred with comedian Gene Wilder in the highly popular buddy films Silver Streak and Stir Crazy. But it was his concert films - particularly Richard Pryor - Live in Concert (1979) - that many consider his best work.
In later years, scarred by drugs, violence, quadruple bypass surgery, broken marriages and estranged children, Pryor, submerged in personal chaos, tried to take his own life.
But he was best known for his searing analysis about the state of race relations. - (LA Times-Washington Post)