Richard Pryor 3 Major Accomplishments

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Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1940. He had a troubled life in the beginning from being abandoned by his mother, and getting beaten by his grandmother who ran a brothel. Richard was also raped by a teenaged neighbor at age 6, and was molested by a Catholic priest during catechism. His mother was a prostitute and eventually left him at age 10 then he was raised by his abusive grandmother. He was kicked out of school at 14 for a petty offense, then he began to work at a strip club as a janitor, meat packer and shoe shiner. Richard combined all his life experiences into his comedy routines, also his former school teacher encouraged him to pursue the life of a comedian. Later on in his career as a comedian he won several awards such as Grammies, Hall of Fame, and was the first person to receive the Mark Twain Prize. Richard’s success was motivated by his harsh beginning and wanted a better living for his family. Richard’s comedy and acting career took off in 1963 when he moved to New York City. He made a variety of appearances in several big time shows, such as Broadway Tonight, The Merv, and the Ed Sullivan show. By this time he starts to take acting and his stand up serious. Richard made more appearances in the 1960s movies. Richard also …show more content…

He started having major roles in movies, and even wrote for different shows. He started to extract different kinds of races to his comedian stand up shows. Some downs Pryor had in the late 60s was he walked off stage in Las Vegas asked himself what he was doing and called himself a joke, Pryor then began to fade away from the Hollywood lights and find himself. Once he came back to comedy he took off, his way off comedy was different start telling us about his personal life. Another set back in the 70s Pryor had was, he was put on probation after shooting his wife’s car, and he also had his one of many heart attacks in

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