U.S. performer Richard Pryor, who helped revolutionize comedy with his profanity-laced and highly confessional social commentaries, has died at age 65 after a long illness.
"He will be missed, but will forever live in thousands and thousands of hearts and continue to impact and inspire people with his truth and his pain," said his wife Jennifer Lee Pryor.
Pryor's wife and business associates said he died in a California hospital on Saturday after having a heart attack. Since 1986, he had been battling multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease that forced him to quit performing in 1997 and had robbed him of his ability to speak by 2004.
Comedian Richard Pryor is shown at the Kennedy Center in Washington in this October 1998 photo (AP)
Pryor earned an Emmy nomination in 1995 for playing an embittered multiple sclerosis patient in an episode of the medical drama Chicago Hope.
The comedian broke many barriers for black performers during his heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood.
"There are many different kinds of comedians – the observational humorist, the impressionist, the character creator, the physical comedian, the self-deprecator, and the dirty-joke teller," noted Damon Wayans.
Richard Pryor and his frequent movie co-star, Gene Wilder, are shown in this December 1980 photo. (AP Photo)
"What made Richard Pryor so brilliant is he was able to incorporate all these styles at once."
He appeared in a number of mainstream films but likely wielded the most influence as a standup comedian, transforming the genre with social commentaries that were often shockingly personal and deeply raunchy.
"Richard Pryor took comedy to its highest form."—Steve Martin
"By expressing his heart, anger and joy, Richard Pryor took comedy to its highest form," said fellow comedian Steve Martin.
Pryor is credited with breaking trail for a whole generation of comedians, including Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, David Letterman, Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock.
Williams said Pryor had a profound impact on him, helping him understand that no subject need be taboo.
"He just made me realize that in order to do it, you just got to keep taking chances with it," Williams said. "He said anything is available and that's what he was always about. I'm talking about really painful things, I mean, deeply so - even Freud would say, 'You shouldn't go there.'"
Menial jobs helped him hone his routines
Director Spike Lee, who often examines racial and social tensions in his films, said Pryor inspired other comedians, actors and artists - including Lee himself - to tackle social issues.
"He was a trailblazer, and the way he showed social commentary in his humour opened up a universe for other comics to follow in his footsteps," Lee told CNN. "It's a great loss."
Born in Peoria, Ill., in December 1940, Pryor had a grandmother who owned a string of brothels and his mother was a prostitute. He drew part of the inspiration for his act from the pimps and other characters he met at the brothel, he said. As a teenager, Pryor found work as a janitor at a local strip club, then as a meat packer, truck driver and billiard hall attendant.
"You can say anything that comes to mind, just so long as it's funny."—Richard Pryor
These menial jobs helped Pryor further gain the perspective of the black underclass in 1950s America that he later translated into routines that resonated with his audience.
After dropping out of high school, Pryor joined the army and performed in amateur shows while enlisted. Soon, Pryor began working as a professional comic in clubs throughout the Midwest.
Inspired by Bill Cosby, Pryor went to New York in 1963 and gained recognition for his club work as a standup.
Swear words, racist epithets boosted his popularity
Pryor often focused on race relations in his standup routines, which he peppered with profanities. He said in his autobiography Pryor Convictions that he tried to co-opt "nigger" by using it.
"I decided to make it my own," he wrote. "Nigger. I decided to take the sting out of it. Nigger. As if saying it over and over again would numb me and everybody else to its wretchedness."
Pryor, who battled drug and alcohol addiction for years, often took the tragic events in his life and made them a part of his concert movies and recordings. This included a 1980 fire that nearly killed him, when he doused himself with cognac and then ignited himself while free-basing cocaine. He later said it was a suicide attempt.
He famously incorporated it into his routine, joking that setting oneself on fire "sobers you up pretty fast. You can do anything you want and you can say anything that comes to mind, just so long as it's funny."
Pryor won a number of Grammy Awards for his comedy recordings, which included 1971's Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin', Richard Pryor: Wanted: Live In Concert (1979) and Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982). He appeared in about 40 films, including Lady Sings the Blues, The Mack, Uptown Saturday Night, Silver Streak, Which Way Is Up?, Car Wash, The Toy, Superman III and Stir Crazy.
He also co-wrote the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles but was passed over for the lead role because of the controversy generated by his comedy routines.
In 1998, Pryor won the inaugural Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
"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!" Pryor said in a statement.
Among other kudos, in 2004, the television network Comedy Central voted him the top standup comedian of all time.
Pryor married seven times, although he only had five wives in total because he married two women two times.
He is survived by his wife, Jennifer Lee, and five children.
