Groundbreaking African-American comedian Richard Pryor died of a heart attack early Saturday at the age of 65, his wife said.
The pioneering stand-up comic and actor who broke barriers with his unflinching racial satire had been in declining health for years after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986.
Pryor died at Encino hospital near Los Angeles, Jennifer Pryor told CNN.
In the 1970s, Pryor was a top comedian in the United States, earning both top ratings and censorship from the networks for his profanity-laced, taboo-shattering antics during an era when television was still tame.
Born in Peoria, Illinois, in December 1940, Pryor had a tumultuous childhood — his grandparents ran a brothel, according to one official biography. He dropped out of school, served in the army from 1958 and 1960, and then began touring the US and Canada doing stand-up comedy in clubs.
But after years of clean-cut shows in the vein of Bill Cosby, Pryor famously walked offstage in the middle of a performance in Las Vegas, after staring into the audience and asking: ”What the fuck am I doing here?”
Two years later, he was back with an explosive new act, full of colourful language, vulgarities, and racial epithets, and tough street characters whose monologues reflected despair and disillusionment with life in the US.
”His performances, enhanced by his use of body language, captured the personalities of the numerous black characters he created to ridicule and comment upon the circumstances under which African-Americans lived. It was revolutionary humor,” a Museum of Broadcast Communications profile said.
With subject matter ranging from sex and drugs to street life and race relations, Pryor made some in his audience squirm, but his popularity soared, and his career blossomed to encompass television and movies.
Pryor co-wrote and or acted in close to 40 films, including Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Car Wash (1976). Even more popular were his television appearances on comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Lily Tomlin Show.
Pryor was married at least five times and struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. In 1980, he was rushed to hospital after setting himself on fire, reportedly while free-basing cocaine.
The incident became fodder for his comedy, as did much of his life.
”Let me tell you what really happened … Every night before I go to bed, I have milk and cookies. One night I mixed some low-fat milk and some pasteurised, then I dipped my cookie in and the shit blew up,” Pryor said in a routine recorded on the album and movie Live from Sunset Strip.
In 1998, Pryor was awarded the first Mark Twain Humour Prize by the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington. The award is named after the famous American humorist and author.
”I feel great about accepting this prize. It is nice to be regarded on par with a great white man — now that’s funny!” Pryor said of the award.
”Seriously, though, two things people throughout history have had in common are hatred and humour. I am proud that, like Mark Twain, I have been able to use humour to lessen people’s hatred!”
Comedian Robin Williams said in a televised tribute to Pryor in 1991: ”He broke the envelope, he pushed it beyond anything anyone could dream of,” a comment echoed by others leading artists on news of his death.
”For me, Richard was a giant. He was an innovator, he was a trail-blazer, and the way he used social commentary in his humour opened up a universe for other comics to follow,” filmmaker Spike Lee said. — Sapa-AFP