Name: Richard Pryor Was A Terrible Thief | Letterman
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Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Richard Pryor Was A Terrible Thief | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Richard Pryor Was A Terrible Thief | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-03. Transcript available.

Welcome back to our little program we do for you here Monday through Thursday,
and we're awfully glad you're here with us tonight.
You ready, Paul?
Yeah.
It's a pleasure to finally welcome our first guest to this show.
He is often called the funniest comedian of our time,
and he can currently be seen in a brand new motion picture entitled Critical
Condition.
Please say hello to and welcome Richard Pryor.
Richard, how you doing?
Have a, have a seat, kid.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for being here.
This is very exciting.
I was backstage with Richard Dominick.
He's, oh, man.
He just, he blew me away.
I'll just.
We'll get to him in a second.
Okay.
I've known you for a long, long time.
I don't know if you've known me for a long, long time, but I've known you.
I met you years and years ago, and I don't know if you remember that or not.
At the comedy store.
The comedy store.
I remember that.
And my first encounter with you, I have a really vivid recollection of that.
One night, I was emceeing, and you were going to go on, and I went up to you.
You didn't know who I was, and I introduced myself, and I said, how would you
like to be
introduced when I get up on stage?
And you told me.
And we shook hands, and for the rest of the night, I had this wonderful,
wonderful scent
of what I assumed was really, really expensive cologne on my hand.
And I thought, this man is very, very successful.
I've not had anything like that since, and I was mightily impressed by that.
Well, it healed up.
It's all better now, so you won't get it no more.
When you come back to New York, does this bring back a lot of exciting memories
for you?
When you come back to New York, you haven't been here for a while, you realize
how big it is.
It's very big, and people are moving all the time.
They don't stop for nothing.
They just go, go, go, go, go.
I can't wait to get back in the hotel and go, ah, ah, ah.
Because I'm guessing when you go out on the streets, people just want to be all
over you,
don't they?
No.
No, they don't.
They don't bother me.
I'm with my son, so I'm bothering with him, so they don't bother with me very
much.
Sometimes they should.
Should they bother me?
Well, I would think that you're the kind of guy that people are drawn to, and
when you're
out in public, that they would want to get up there and shake your hand and pat
you
on the back and stuff.
Oh.
Damn.
Jeez, Dave.
No.
Well, don't let it, but it doesn't happen to me, so don't worry about it.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
But you worked here in clubs when you were a kid starting out?
I worked here at the Café Wah.
Yeah?
That was the first club, it's still in the village, maybe.
I don't know if there's still a village, is there?
Is the Café Wah still down there, Paul?
Yeah, I was just hanging out there the other night, so, in the village.
I don't think it is.
Yeah.
And you started doing television from New York?
I started doing, I did, the first show I did was called Entertainment Tonight.
It was a summer replacement show.
What network was that?
That was CBS.
Like an hour variety kind of deal?
Yeah, it was in the summer.
And Rudy Valli was the host.
And I got on that show, and then Merv Griffin saw a tape of that, and he let me
come on
this show every night for about six years.
Is that right?
Yeah.
And you also did the Ed Sullivan show here?
Yeah, I did Ed Sullivan, too.
Yeah.
Now, do you have Ed Sullivan?
No, I just remembered, you know.
Yeah.
It's all right.
It comes back every now and then.
It goes in.
Do you have any special stories about Ed Sullivan?
It seems like everybody who did this show has a...
I know.
I remember Ed Sullivan came up to my dressing room.
I did nine minutes, and people just freak, said,
You can't do that.
And I went up to his room, and he said,
Well, I like it.
And I want you to do all nine minutes.
I do the worst Ed Sullivan, as you can see.
But he was a nice man to me.
So he lets you go ahead and do the nine minutes on the show.
Yeah.
And how many times were you on that program?
I think about maybe 11, 12, something like that.
Yeah.
At this stage of your life, do you miss doing stand-up on a regular basis?
I know you do it.
I stand-up in clubs.
I miss a lot.
I miss a lot.
I haven't been on the road in a while.
If I want to go after my next film, I'd like to get back and do a concert.
So you can get in front of people, and they can ask you, you know,
Where'd you get them shoes?
And what do you tell them when they ask you about the shoes?
I throw it at them.
You say, here.
Smell it.
What do you think?
Can I have it back now?
Thank you.
It's tough work, isn't it?
I think that...
I love it.
You do love it?
I love it.
And you do six months of that.
It's great, because I did films at concerts.
I mean, I'm not putting it down or nothing.
I'm glad the concert films were successful, but they weren't complete.
You know how you finish it?
Then you say, but there was more to do if I had just worked on it more.
But they offer you so much money, you can't go, no, I don't want it.
Yeah.
Take that check and stop it.
Yeah.
Give me that.
Thank you very much.
What about, and I don't know that this would happen to you, but what about hecklers?
If you're working in a club or even in a concert?
I have two guys.
They take care of the hecklers.
No, I don't get no real bad hecklers.
Not no serious hecklers.
Most of the hecklers I get, people add to the act.
You know, I don't get nobody just takes it out.
Yeah.
So it doesn't bother you if somebody does that then?
There's a line, I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A very thin line.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, would you ever see yourself doing like a massive concert tour or just
picking one night?
I'd like to do about 20 cities or something like that.
I'd love to do that.
I really would, man.
I'd really enjoy it a lot.
Yeah, it'd be a hot ticket.
It'd be a good deal.
Oh, yeah.
Good deal.
Yeah, all right.
We'll do a commercial here, and we're going to talk some more with Richard
before we bring
up Mr. Dominic, but he'll be here.
Don't worry about it.
The ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Pryor is here tonight.
When you were first starting to do nightclub work, I guess back in Illinois, in
that area?
Yes.
Yeah.
What were the acts of the day, aside from yourself?
I guess you worked as a comedian and maybe an emcee sometimes?
Yes.
What kind of stuff would you appear with?
I'd appear with strip dancers.
There would be one strip dancer and then a singer and then an emcee.
I'd do the emcee or the jokes, as it were, and then they'd alternate.
Every week would be a different show.
But I got to stay three or four weeks because this guy at this club liked me.
Was there anything you'd go to one city or one act would come in that would be
a little more
bizarre than others?
Or was it pretty much...
There was a flame dancer I worked with one time.
She was great.
And we used to do a thing in the black theater.
It was called burying the show.
At the end of the engagement, the last night, everybody would do everybody else's
act.
And they'd bury the show.
And this guy one time, we was doing the flame dancer.
The emcee would be the woman.
She'd put on a mustache and she'd come out and do the jokes.
And then the other girl would sing.
And it was great.
As a matter of fact, there's a scene like that in Jojo Dancer.
Right.
Yes.
Yeah, when you're working in the club.
Kind of.
Yeah.
It's good to see you, man.
It was nice to see you.
I appreciate you coming here.
You know, I saw the other night, they were running an old variety series that
you did on NBC.
It was on the air.
How many weeks did that last?
Seven weeks or something like that.
Seven weeks.
And it was, at the time, it was a really big deal.
And it was with a lot of guys that you and I both knew.
Yes.
A lot of mutual friends.
And it was pretty interesting stuff that you guys were doing then.
And I guess this is a photograph from the first show.
Yeah.
Explain what we're looking at there.
That's a thing I wanted to do, but the NBC censors cut it out.
Yeah.
And I was standing there.
I say, as you can see, and you only see me from the waist, just this part.
Right.
As you can see, I've given up absolutely nothing to be on television.
And they pull back and you can see I have no genitals.
And there you are.
Yeah.
Now, was that show, was that a constant battle with those, what year was this?
This was, uh...
Oh, it was back in 1977.
Was it a constant struggle to keep that thing...
It was a constant struggle in the sense of, like, we'd do stuff and the censor
would come into the dress rehearsal and go,
Oh, you can't do that.
Please.
And I'd go, well, we'll do something else.
And you keep trying.
The more you...
Once you step with them, they keep stepping until you end up with nothing.
Yeah.
Like that.
Uh-huh.
I wonder now if things are any different.
No, they don't care now.
Anything goes now?
Yeah.
I just, I want...
I'm guessing certain things would be the same.
Other things might be a little different.
But I think, you know, the pendulum goes one way and then it swings back way
and you maybe don't really gain...
I imagine television is different.
I guess I have...
I don't do it, so I don't know.
I really don't.
Well, go ahead and test them tonight, Richard.
Test them.
No, no, no.
Oh, hey.
No.
Thank you.
What other kind of things did you do before you were in show business?
Or when you were maybe not doing show business full-time?
Other kind of jobs.
I'd be depressed a lot and...
Yeah.
Good money in that.
Yeah.
I was depressed a lot.
I tried to be a thief for a while.
I wasn't good at that.
What kind of things were you thieving?
I was a second story man.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I'd climb over transits because I was the skinniest one in the gang.
They let me do the climbing over the transit.
And you're in there looking for appliances or jewelry or cash or what?
I didn't know.
I'd just get over there and say, I'd go, I'm in!
What'd I do now?
How long were you a thief like that?
Until my father found out.
Uh-huh.
He ended my thievery career real quick.
In the movie here, Critical Condition, you're a guy playing a doctor.
You're not really a doctor.
No.
No.
He's a guy that's a businessman.
He gets in a bad situation.
And they think he's a cop.
And to keep from going to penitentiary, he tries to fake insanity so he can go
to a mental
institution.
And while there, there's a blackout.
And they think he's the doctor in charge.
Yeah.
And he takes over like that.
He don't know what he's doing.
Yeah.
Sort of like me.
You're running the show, though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do we have some of that here?
Okay.
Let's take a look here.
Do we have time for this?
Yeah.
It's a minute or so from Richard Pryor's latest film entitled, Critical Condition.
Here he is now.
Dr. Slattery, here's what we have to start.
We have a roof worker that fell down in the storm.
He hasn't been x-ray.
He's in the trauma room.
We have a guy that's been struck by lightning.
We have a possible lay but not sure.
No husband, six kids, all here now.
We have a broken leg in the cast room.
And when you're done with that, we need to get a doctor to deal with the detox
ward because
the medicine men are screaming for their medicine.
What a cute coat.
Why, thank you very much.
What seems to be the trouble?
Oh, well, it hurts all over.
Doctor, make it all better.
That's the...
That's the...
That's the...
That's the...
Do you ever have any interest in being a doctor?
None whatsoever.
Never did have an interest in it.
But I like them.
I think it's amazing.
They go to school eight years, you know, at least.
And then people don't want to pay their bills.
That tickles me.
I mean, you know, you do something on them, the guy goes, I ain't going to pay
that much.
Then you break the other arm or something.
Let me, uh, uh, you're married again, Richard.
Yeah, Dave, I am.
Congratulations.
Thank you very much.
Where, where did you, uh, where did you meet your wife?
I met my wife in Washington, D.C. about four million years ago.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, she, she was there.
I was doing a concert.
I met her and I liked her right away.
Yeah.
And we talked and became friends.
That's good.
And, uh, so we got married.
How old a woman do we have here?
She's about, well, the school bus was late taking her home the other day.
Now, Richard.
No, she's 23.
She's 23.
Yeah.
And I got my son with me.
Now, wait a minute.
What?
Now, how old a man are you?
I'm 46.
46.
So, she's half your age.
She's half my age, so?
No, nothing.
No, I mean, she's smart as me.
She's smarter, actually.
I think.
Yeah.
She knows a lot of stuff.
She's a good person.
She has a lot of, a lot of good ideas and she's lovely and I'm happy when I'm
with her.
Well, there you go.
See?
Sometimes.
I'm sorry, sometimes?
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
Uh, what, what's the woman's name?
It's Flynn.
Flynn.
And she, is she in town with you?
No, she's in California.
Wow, I'm sorry, I didn't get a chance to meet her.
Well, she told me to bring our son.
She said, oh, you're going to New York by yourself?
Take our son!
You know, so my son's two.
I brought him and he's watching me taking notes.
You know.
Does he have anything to say about New York or probably just another?
He don't care.
Yeah, doesn't care.
You know, he just wants a, says a cookie.
Yeah.
I, you know, I mentioned this earlier, too, in the dressing room, but I really
do appreciate
you coming to visit us because, uh, it's a big thrill for us and, uh, we've
wanted to
have you for the longest time and just come back anytime.
I'm happy that you had me here and God bless you and good luck.
Good luck with the film.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll be right back.
It's a space moment of a great deal.

Richard Pryor Was A Terrible Thief | Letterman

Welcome back to our little program we do for you here Monday through Thursday,
and we're awfully glad you're here with us tonight.
You ready, Paul?
Yeah.
It's a pleasure to finally welcome our first guest to this show.
He is often called the funniest comedian of our time,
and he can currently be seen in a brand new motion picture entitled Critical
Condition.
Please say hello to and welcome Richard Pryor.
Richard, how you doing?
Have a, have a seat, kid.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for being here.
This is very exciting.
I was backstage with Richard Dominick.
He's, oh, man.
He just, he blew me away.
I'll just.
We'll get to him in a second.
Okay.
I've known you for a long, long time.
I don't know if you've known me for a long, long time, but I've known you.
I met you years and years ago, and I don't know if you remember that or not.
At the comedy store.
The comedy store.
I remember that.
And my first encounter with you, I have a really vivid recollection of that.
One night, I was emceeing, and you were going to go on, and I went up to you.
You didn't know who I was, and I introduced myself, and I said, how would you
like to be
introduced when I get up on stage?
And you told me.
And we shook hands, and for the rest of the night, I had this wonderful,
wonderful scent
of what I assumed was really, really expensive cologne on my hand.
And I thought, this man is very, very successful.
I've not had anything like that since, and I was mightily impressed by that.
Well, it healed up.
It's all better now, so you won't get it no more.
When you come back to New York, does this bring back a lot of exciting memories
for you?
When you come back to New York, you haven't been here for a while, you realize
how big it is.
It's very big, and people are moving all the time.
They don't stop for nothing.
They just go, go, go, go, go.
I can't wait to get back in the hotel and go, ah, ah, ah.
Because I'm guessing when you go out on the streets, people just want to be all
over you,
don't they?
No.
No, they don't.
They don't bother me.
I'm with my son, so I'm bothering with him, so they don't bother with me very
much.
Sometimes they should.
Should they bother me?
Well, I would think that you're the kind of guy that people are drawn to, and
when you're
out in public, that they would want to get up there and shake your hand and pat
you
on the back and stuff.
Oh.
Damn.
Jeez, Dave.
No.
Well, don't let it, but it doesn't happen to me, so don't worry about it.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
But you worked here in clubs when you were a kid starting out?
I worked here at the Café Wah.
Yeah?
That was the first club, it's still in the village, maybe.
I don't know if there's still a village, is there?
Is the Café Wah still down there, Paul?
Yeah, I was just hanging out there the other night, so, in the village.
I don't think it is.
Yeah.
And you started doing television from New York?
I started doing, I did, the first show I did was called Entertainment Tonight.
It was a summer replacement show.
What network was that?
That was CBS.
Like an hour variety kind of deal?
Yeah, it was in the summer.
And Rudy Valli was the host.
And I got on that show, and then Merv Griffin saw a tape of that, and he let me
come on
this show every night for about six years.
Is that right?
Yeah.
And you also did the Ed Sullivan show here?
Yeah, I did Ed Sullivan, too.
Yeah.
Now, do you have Ed Sullivan?
No, I just remembered, you know.
Yeah.
It's all right.
It comes back every now and then.
It goes in.
Do you have any special stories about Ed Sullivan?
It seems like everybody who did this show has a...
I know.
I remember Ed Sullivan came up to my dressing room.
I did nine minutes, and people just freak, said,
You can't do that.
And I went up to his room, and he said,
Well, I like it.
And I want you to do all nine minutes.
I do the worst Ed Sullivan, as you can see.
But he was a nice man to me.
So he lets you go ahead and do the nine minutes on the show.
Yeah.
And how many times were you on that program?
I think about maybe 11, 12, something like that.
Yeah.
At this stage of your life, do you miss doing stand-up on a regular basis?
I know you do it.
I stand-up in clubs.
I miss a lot.
I miss a lot.
I haven't been on the road in a while.
If I want to go after my next film, I'd like to get back and do a concert.
So you can get in front of people, and they can ask you, you know,
Where'd you get them shoes?
And what do you tell them when they ask you about the shoes?
I throw it at them.
You say, here.
Smell it.
What do you think?
Can I have it back now?
Thank you.
It's tough work, isn't it?
I think that...
I love it.
You do love it?
I love it.
And you do six months of that.
It's great, because I did films at concerts.
I mean, I'm not putting it down or nothing.
I'm glad the concert films were successful, but they weren't complete.
You know how you finish it?
Then you say, but there was more to do if I had just worked on it more.
But they offer you so much money, you can't go, no, I don't want it.
Yeah.
Take that check and stop it.
Yeah.
Give me that.
Thank you very much.
What about, and I don't know that this would happen to you, but what about hecklers?
If you're working in a club or even in a concert?
I have two guys.
They take care of the hecklers.
No, I don't get no real bad hecklers.
Not no serious hecklers.
Most of the hecklers I get, people add to the act.
You know, I don't get nobody just takes it out.
Yeah.
So it doesn't bother you if somebody does that then?
There's a line, I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A very thin line.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, would you ever see yourself doing like a massive concert tour or just
picking one night?
I'd like to do about 20 cities or something like that.
I'd love to do that.
I really would, man.
I'd really enjoy it a lot.
Yeah, it'd be a hot ticket.
It'd be a good deal.
Oh, yeah.
Good deal.
Yeah, all right.
We'll do a commercial here, and we're going to talk some more with Richard
before we bring
up Mr. Dominic, but he'll be here.
Don't worry about it.
The ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Pryor is here tonight.
When you were first starting to do nightclub work, I guess back in Illinois, in
that area?
Yes.
Yeah.
What were the acts of the day, aside from yourself?
I guess you worked as a comedian and maybe an emcee sometimes?
Yes.
What kind of stuff would you appear with?
I'd appear with strip dancers.
There would be one strip dancer and then a singer and then an emcee.
I'd do the emcee or the jokes, as it were, and then they'd alternate.
Every week would be a different show.
But I got to stay three or four weeks because this guy at this club liked me.
Was there anything you'd go to one city or one act would come in that would be
a little more
bizarre than others?
Or was it pretty much...
There was a flame dancer I worked with one time.
She was great.
And we used to do a thing in the black theater.
It was called burying the show.
At the end of the engagement, the last night, everybody would do everybody else's
act.
And they'd bury the show.
And this guy one time, we was doing the flame dancer.
The emcee would be the woman.
She'd put on a mustache and she'd come out and do the jokes.
And then the other girl would sing.
And it was great.
As a matter of fact, there's a scene like that in Jojo Dancer.
Right.
Yes.
Yeah, when you're working in the club.
Kind of.
Yeah.
It's good to see you, man.
It was nice to see you.
I appreciate you coming here.
You know, I saw the other night, they were running an old variety series that
you did on NBC.
It was on the air.
How many weeks did that last?
Seven weeks or something like that.
Seven weeks.
And it was, at the time, it was a really big deal.
And it was with a lot of guys that you and I both knew.
Yes.
A lot of mutual friends.
And it was pretty interesting stuff that you guys were doing then.
And I guess this is a photograph from the first show.
Yeah.
Explain what we're looking at there.
That's a thing I wanted to do, but the NBC censors cut it out.
Yeah.
And I was standing there.
I say, as you can see, and you only see me from the waist, just this part.
Right.
As you can see, I've given up absolutely nothing to be on television.
And they pull back and you can see I have no genitals.
And there you are.
Yeah.
Now, was that show, was that a constant battle with those, what year was this?
This was, uh...
Oh, it was back in 1977.
Was it a constant struggle to keep that thing...
It was a constant struggle in the sense of, like, we'd do stuff and the censor
would come into the dress rehearsal and go,
Oh, you can't do that.
Please.
And I'd go, well, we'll do something else.
And you keep trying.
The more you...
Once you step with them, they keep stepping until you end up with nothing.
Yeah.
Like that.
Uh-huh.
I wonder now if things are any different.
No, they don't care now.
Anything goes now?
Yeah.
I just, I want...
I'm guessing certain things would be the same.
Other things might be a little different.
But I think, you know, the pendulum goes one way and then it swings back way
and you maybe don't really gain...
I imagine television is different.
I guess I have...
I don't do it, so I don't know.
I really don't.
Well, go ahead and test them tonight, Richard.
Test them.
No, no, no.
Oh, hey.
No.
Thank you.
What other kind of things did you do before you were in show business?
Or when you were maybe not doing show business full-time?
Other kind of jobs.
I'd be depressed a lot and...
Yeah.
Good money in that.
Yeah.
I was depressed a lot.
I tried to be a thief for a while.
I wasn't good at that.
What kind of things were you thieving?
I was a second story man.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I'd climb over transits because I was the skinniest one in the gang.
They let me do the climbing over the transit.
And you're in there looking for appliances or jewelry or cash or what?
I didn't know.
I'd just get over there and say, I'd go, I'm in!
What'd I do now?
How long were you a thief like that?
Until my father found out.
Uh-huh.
He ended my thievery career real quick.
In the movie here, Critical Condition, you're a guy playing a doctor.
You're not really a doctor.
No.
No.
He's a guy that's a businessman.
He gets in a bad situation.
And they think he's a cop.
And to keep from going to penitentiary, he tries to fake insanity so he can go
to a mental
institution.
And while there, there's a blackout.
And they think he's the doctor in charge.
Yeah.
And he takes over like that.
He don't know what he's doing.
Yeah.
Sort of like me.
You're running the show, though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do we have some of that here?
Okay.
Let's take a look here.
Do we have time for this?
Yeah.
It's a minute or so from Richard Pryor's latest film entitled, Critical Condition.
Here he is now.
Dr. Slattery, here's what we have to start.
We have a roof worker that fell down in the storm.
He hasn't been x-ray.
He's in the trauma room.
We have a guy that's been struck by lightning.
We have a possible lay but not sure.
No husband, six kids, all here now.
We have a broken leg in the cast room.
And when you're done with that, we need to get a doctor to deal with the detox
ward because
the medicine men are screaming for their medicine.
What a cute coat.
Why, thank you very much.
What seems to be the trouble?
Oh, well, it hurts all over.
Doctor, make it all better.
That's the...
That's the...
That's the...
That's the...
Do you ever have any interest in being a doctor?
None whatsoever.
Never did have an interest in it.
But I like them.
I think it's amazing.
They go to school eight years, you know, at least.
And then people don't want to pay their bills.
That tickles me.
I mean, you know, you do something on them, the guy goes, I ain't going to pay
that much.
Then you break the other arm or something.
Let me, uh, uh, you're married again, Richard.
Yeah, Dave, I am.
Congratulations.
Thank you very much.
Where, where did you, uh, where did you meet your wife?
I met my wife in Washington, D.C. about four million years ago.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, she, she was