RICHARD PRYOR
Dec. 1, 1940 - Dec. 10, 2005

He was R-rated and rage-filled - and astonishingly, scathingly funny. Richard Pryor became one of the most powerful, influential comedians of the last century, inspiring two generations of comics with his profound and profane punch lines driven by race, class, sex and other dangerous realities of American life. From a childhood in a Peoria, Ill., brothel, Pryor began his stand-up career in the late '60s, but soon lost patience with the non-threatening, Cosby image he was pressed to adopt. He transformed himself into an uncensored stand-up comic whose audacious albums and cable specials won awards through the '70s and '80s. On the screen, his broad physical comedy brought him success in movies including "Car Wash," "Silver Streak" and "Stir Crazy." But his professional success contrasted with a volatile and troubled private life that he later described as "drug-addicted, paranoid, sad and frustrated"; he almost died in 1980 after catching fire while free-basing cocaine. He retreated into seclusion in the 1990s after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.