Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic Page #7

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On the bed.

And he had the pipe and the torch,

and he wasn't going to put it down.

You could see that

he was absolutely manic.

When I saw him,

I didn't know him any more.

He looked like something had

been taken from him.

You know, some spirit had been

ripped out of him.

He was high. We were watching

the Vietnam special.

Where they were showing the monks

protest to the war.

And this particular monk

took gasoline

and poured it on himself

and he lit it.

I said to Richard,

"Look at this man's commitment."

And Richard looked at me and said,

"F*** his commitment,

he didn't even flinch."

He laughed.

And I went up to go to the kitchen.

On my way back to the room, a ball

of fire is running towards me.

And I just jumped out of the way.

I seen it run past me, and I got up

against the wall,

and it run down this long hallway

and then outside

and then I see it outside, running.

Ball of fire.

In Richard's room before I leave,

there was a fifth of 151 rum.

3/4ths of the bottle was gone.

I got a call saying that Richard

was in an ambulance on the way

to the Grossman Burn Centre.

I called Dr Grossman, who I knew.

And I said, "This guy is my friend.

"Make sure he lives."

This is my impression of a heart

talking to a brain.

HE IMPERSONATES A HEARTBEA Brain.

Brain.

What do you want?

You've been naughty.

Go to hell.

Don't make me angry, brain.

Drop dead.

LAUGHTER:

The police had just

brought in a burn victim

who had been running down the street.

And he was awake.

He had burns of his face, neck,

chest, abdomen, back and arms.

That was like 35-40%

of his body burnt.

Dr Grossman told me that based

on the severe extent of those burns,

there was almost no chance

he would live.

I flew back to Los Angeles

and went the Sherman Oaks Burn Centre

where everyone else was having

a vigil about Richard.

The word kept coming out.

Everybody kept saying

that Richard had died.

When he got burned, all of them

showed up at the hospital.

And I had to turn

to a security guard.

I said, "Them b*tches

was about to kill people

"if you couldn't let him

go to the burns centre."

I told the doctor's,

"He's on Courvoisier,

he's on vodka, he's on cocaine."

Cos I knew, you give him morphine,

you could overdose him.

On my desk at the studio, I had

a phone that Mr Wasserman,

the chairman of the company,

used to call me on, and nobody

else used that phone.

It ran at ten o'clock one morning.

And I said, "Hello,"

and I heard a voice say...

HE EXHALES:

And I said, "Who's this?"

HE EXHALES:

And I realised it's Richard.

And he said...

"Am I going to die?"

And I said, "No, Richard,

you're not going to die."

And then he hung up.

And I called the doctor, I said,

"There's a f***ing phone in

Richard's room next to his bed."

And he said, "What?!"

Comedian Richard Pryor,

critically burned Monday night,

was sitting up in

his hospital bed today

and eating Cream of Wheat

and talking to his doctors.

They said his chance of recovery

was still only about one in three,

but they were more optimistic

than they were yesterday.

All day long, I've been hearing

that he's improving.

Is there still a chance

he would die?

I want you to understand

that you have a man who still has

a 50% burn on third-degree nature...

who's very, very sick.

And until all of that burn tissue

is taken off of his body...

and covered with grafts - which will

require a number of operations -

he's going to be that sick.

A burn, you know, you got to let it

form a scab first before,

then you got to brush that off.

He was crying like

a baby, rightly so.

And when that guy hit that brush

and did all this here,

I could see not the pain at that

time but the pain in his life.

That come back.

Cos he starts talking.

"Mom, I didn't mean to do it.

"Mama, I didn't want to do it."

Everybody had said

it was an accident.

He said, "No, no,

I did it on purpose.

"I poured the rum on myself

and lit myself on fire."

Now keep in mind he was high,

so whether it was...

..an unconscious suicide attempt

or a conscious suicide

attempt, who knows?

But he definitely deliberately

set himself on fire.

I just think he was

in a pain at that moment.

And liked to smoke.

Committed,

but to what, he don't know.

Junkies are just dumb.

They do dumb sh*t.

They set themselves on fire.

But then I'm sure he went, "What's

that smell? Hey, I think that's me.

"Aargh!" And that's what

he basically says he did.

It's almost like jumping

off a building.

And then you lived.

You f***ed up.

But you lived.

I tried to commit suicide.

Intentionally?

That's all I want to say.

Next question.

It didn't work.

Yes, it did.

You killed the old Richard Pryor?

Yeah, that person's dead.

Was a horrible man.

An executive from one

of the studios called me

and asked me to go see him,

because he needed help.

So I flew over to Maui,

and he came out to greet me.

I could see the burns all over him.

And I was kind of taken aback.

And I remember he looked down, he

said, "Don't worry, my junk is OK.

"I still got my junk."

I thought, "OK!" And I shook

his hand, and we started talking.

And I learned that he was dead

broke, owned money to the IRS.

And he thought his career was over.

What we discovered was there

was a lot of inconsistencies,

financial inconsistencies.

Richard suspected that

David Franklin

and his lawyers were cheating him.

People came in and they uncovered

a lot of these business dealings

that were crooked.

Richard sued David Franklin.

And got a million dollars back,

but the most important thing

to Richard was getting David

to apologise to him.

That was more important to Richard

than the million dollars.

I had to figure out where

he was financially,

and he owed a lot of money

to a lot of people,

and I came up with an idea

for him to do a concert movie.

He was really needing to heal.

And the lawyer said to him, "You got

to get back on that horse now,

"it's your time. If you don't it now,

you're never going to do it.

"They're going to forget you."

The worst thing Richard

could have done was come back.

He wanted to go back to work.

You got to understand something,

you don't make Richard Pryor

do anything.

Richard Pryor has to WAN to do whatever he's doing.

I'm going to see Richard Pryor!

Yeah!

He better be funny!

Tell Richard he better be funny.

The who's who of Hollywood,

they filled the theatre

up at the Palladium.

Then Richard got on stage.

And it was the worst show

I've ever seen him do.

Where was I?

I was here - what's the date?

This camera's looking at me.

MAN:
You're doing fine! Thank you,

brother, I needed to hear that.

APPLAUSE:

He started doing his act backwards.

And he got confused.

It was rough, and you just

knew it wasn't going to be OK.

LAUGHTER:

That mother...

The Lord doesn't want

me to smoke it.

MAN:
Burn it up.

Burn it up.

Tough group.

Richard didn't feel

it was a perfect fit.

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