Pryor's Influence Extended Beyond Fellow Comics

CLEVELAND - Richard Pryor was once very flatteringly called "The Picasso of [comedy]." Bob Newhart once labeled him "the seminal comedian of the last 50 years." Very effusive praise for a man as tortured and flawed as Pryor, but millions the world over agreed with those sentiments.

Including me.

Today is the 69th anniversary of Pryor's birth. Since he sadly died nine days after his birthday in 2005, I'm simply calling it an anniversary as opposed to an actual birthday. In any event, Pryor's physical absence on Earth pales in comparison to his very pervasive presence and enormous influence over the world of comedy, even nowadays. Scores of comedians were influenced by Pryor and became comics themselves. His frank observations on race, social issues and sex were fascinating. His unadulterated style of delivering those observations was riveting and wholly groundbreaking. Where his critics saw filth, his fans saw uncompromised honesty. He wasn't so much vulgar and obscene as much as he was perfectly plugged into the hidden psyches of the common man.

It served him quite well.

As a child, I was enamored with Eddie Murphy's comedic style. Later, I discovered that Murphy himself was essentially a disciple of Pryor and shamelessly (and secretly) emulated him as an adolescent living on Long Island in the mid-1970's. So as it turns out, the man I grew up idolizing was actually infusing me with Pryor-inspired doctrines and attitudes with a little of his own interpretations thrown in. It's no wonder that, when my step father would send me out of the room so that he could listen to one of Pryor's groundbreaking comedy albums, that I would chuckle hysterically in the next room after overhearing it through the walls.

It is a well known fact that Pryor has long been canonized in the world of comedy. Luminaries such as Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby, Steve Harvey, Dick Gregory, Chris Rock and Jamie Foxx have all issued very glittering praise for the man and extolled his massive legacy. What I'm more interested in is how he impacted me and my sensibilities as an entertainer and comic. Because of Pryor, I am always unafraid to push the envelope or make a blunt observation of an inconvenient truth. Though I hated Pryor's often masochistic and self-loathing tendencies, I realize that those exact qualities birthed his incredible gifts and talent.

Long live Richard Pryor.