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Raised in his family''s brothels, in Peoria, Illinois, by a grandmother who often threatened to kick him upstairs with her size-twelve shoes, he always considered himself a bottom dog. He took to the stage originally to escape the tough realities of his childhood but later discovered he could alchemize his stand-up by delving fully, even painfully, into the off-color life he''d known. He brought that vitality to a movie career whose best moments-Blazing Saddles,Blue Collar, the buddy comedies with Gene Wilder-flowed directly out of his spirit of creative improvisation. The major studios considered him dangerous. Audiences felt plugged directly into the socket of life.Built on groundbreaking research,Becoming Richard Pryorbrings into sharp focus the man and his genius as never before. From his heartbreaking childhood, his trials in the army, and his improv days in Greenwich Village to his soul-searching interlude in Berkeley and his rise in the New Hollywood of the 1970s,Becoming Richard Pryorsheds light on an entertainer who, by uniting the spirits of the Black Power movement and the counterculture, forever altered the cultural DNA of America.
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