A01=Scott Saul
african american
african american authors
african american books
african american fiction
african american history
african american romance
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
american
army
art
art books
artwork
Author_Scott Saul
autobiographies
autobiography
automatic-update
beginner
biographies
biography
biography books
black authors
black childrens books
black comedy
black history
black history books
black history books for kids
black history month
black history month books for kids
book
books
books for black boys
books for black girls
boy
broadway
broadway gifts
broadway musical gifts
broadway musicals
broadway posters
buff
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=ASZB
Category=ATXD
Category=BGF
Category=DNBF
coffee
coffee table book
college
comedians
comedy
COP=United States
creative
creativity
dad
day
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
drawing
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
feminism
feminist
film
funny
gene wilder
gift
gift books
gifts
gifts for history buffs
gifts for music lovers
girl
grad
historical books
history
history books
history buff gifts
history gifts
history teacher gifts
humor
Language_English
large
makeup
memoir
mom
movies
music
musical
musical gifts
musical theater gifts
musicals
nonfiction
PA=Available
people
photography
play
politics
pop
poster
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
softlaunch
son
stage makeup
star
storage
table
teacher
television
theater
theater gifts
theatre gifts
tv
video
war
woman
women in history
women's
world
world history
writing
Product details
- ISBN 9780062123329
- Weight: 572g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 14 Jan 2016
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock
10-20 Working Days: On Backorder
Will Deliver When Available: On Pre-Order or Reprinting
We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!
A major biography-intimate, gripping, revelatory-of an artist who revolutionized American comedy. Richard Pryor may have been the most unlikely star in Hollywood history. Raised in his family's brothels, he grew up an outsider to privilege. He took to the stage, originally, to escape the hard-bitten realities of his childhood, but later came to a reverberating discovery: that by plunging into the depths of his experience, he could make stand-up comedy as exhilarating and harrowing as the life he'd known. He brought that trembling vitality to Hollywood, where his movie career-Blazing Saddles, the buddy comedies with Gene Wilder, Blue Collar-flowed directly out of his spirit of creative improvisation. The major studios considered him dangerous. Audiences felt plugged directly into the socket of life. Becoming Richard Pryor brings the man and his comic genius into focus as never before.
Drawing upon a mountain of original research-interviews with family and friends, court transcripts, unpublished journals, screenplay drafts-Scott Saul traces Pryor's rough journey to the heights of fame: from his heartbreaking childhood, his trials in the Army, and his apprentice days in Greenwich Village to his soul-searching interlude in Berkeley and his ascent in the "New Hollywood" of the 1970s. Becoming Richard Pryor illuminates an entertainer who, by bringing together the spirits of the black freedom movement and the counterculture, forever altered the DNA of American comedy. It reveals that, while Pryor made himself a legend with his own account of his life onstage, the full truth of that life is more bracing still.
Scott Saul is a professor of English at the University of California-Berkeley. His writing has appeared in Harper's, the New York Times, and The Nation, among other publications. He is the author of Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Qty: