Richard Pryor On Eddie Murphy And His Comedy Heroes | The Dick Cavett Show

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'm nervous about this for some reason now Pryor and I go way back together I want him to have a good time here but I'm afraid I'll do something to screw up the show that I'm particularly concerned about but I have a secret when I do that I walk around like Bob Hope and I have his confidence and I was showing the audience when I see hopes Walk hey how about it'd be almost impossible to overpraise Richard Pryor's career and I don't need to tell you how funny he is if you just landed on a boat from outer mongolia he may be new to you but he's a thoughtful and just a dazzling comic and I'm very jealous of him so I can't even introduce him I'm grateful that he's here I'm gonna let Bob Hope do it hey how about that Pryor isn't he something Richard Pryor right here [Applause] [Music] yeah thank you very much oh great you know I got thank you very much that was a very nice thing you said about me in the beginning yeah I appreciate it yeah thank you very much was it nice I liked it yeah the last time I saw you we were freezing our hands off yeah in was named Colleen Tex Killeen Texas yes yes just before the Revolution yeah we were on a show called Operation entertainment and I don't know what we had done to deserve being sent to that part of the world in that temperature I don't know it was great dogs like all these army people and tanks guns soldiers everywhere and we couldn't get into it with the guns and stuff man yeah they didn't like us I remember that we got oh you won't care no good yeah well we were both kind of new in the business they had several acts I guess we can tell this now Jimmy Dean was like one see the host was I wish the hose oh you were the host I didn't know that dick honest I didn't know you were holes but you were like a little kid backstage calling me Jimmy and saying sing big bad John and I didn't know but it was the great do I need to say the great Louis Armstrong ban was there yes freezing in the middle of Texas it was not a day to be a brass monkey older people yes okay okay yeah I remember that's where I met Louis Armstrong and I walked in his dressing room I said how you doing boy he said why folks still in the lead I heard some alarming news that you're a a much mellower Richard Pryor now and I thought Lord welcome out here not off on us Wow welcome this is nice yeah stick I understand what you mean to me I have no idea why a magnifying glass is here nor a bust of who is that Napoleon's sister I swear it was Jane Pauley I don't know and here we have a bear fighting a ball for those who want to know what the knick knacks are on this nice theater isn't this a wonderful have you never been in here before I'm never coming back II can't resist getting laughs now and then departing introduction I was talking about Murphy talking about how inspired he gets just by watching your I think it's the one called Richard Pryor in concert yes that you first yes yeah and and Bob Hope whom I mentioned went to see Pryor at midnight what's the exact title of that one though on the Sunset Strip Bob did yeah he did that's he said I heard all about this guy I had to go catch him you know or that thing yeah I met him once on Merv Griffin Show well your backgrounds are so similar that's very where they booked you know that's interesting to me can you identify in any way with hope you are in fact there are things that connect you know he made me laugh a lot of years yeah and you came up the hard way in comedy yeah I used to be a boxer you know packy East was his name yeah it's funny man works hard he was the only boxer had to be carried into the ring one two three four I want to tell you there are people though saying hey have you talked to Pryor lately or Richard to say just call you if they don't know you [Music] then he has mellowed out a good deal lately and he's a little more serious now I had a suspicion why that might be but maybe you what is your suspicion what is your suspicion you have to go first please well I think it's that you're doing much more serious thing now in one sense and that you're got the responsibility of being a producer writer all-around man so to speak and then God knows what you've survived in the last few years I would think anybody would have mellowed and maybe you're at a point in your life where you're thinking you know I really don't need it as much as I did you're wrong [Music] well I think I can put it up I could put it more succinctly I just think it's like I got tired of being that's not what I wanted to say but I didn't know if you could say it succinctly I'm going to shut up more during this show because I so really get together with you and it's gonna go by too fast now mr. Murphy Eddie your buddy you can finally met after some time thanks to I think People magazine had you met before that when they brought you together for a cover story I met him on the plane one time and he'd come up to me said Murphy you know he sat down next to me and we rode back from California Morano yeah it was first time look he had you to look at and watch and so on and yeah there's a specific person who paved the way for you you know what I mean when you were coming along starting red skelton and a bacastow journalist pneumoniae yeah all that binning Bob Hope did you sit in the dark and movie house as a kid and think I'm gonna be up on that screen some day ever i sat in a movie house one time I wanted to meet a little beaver and I went to the movie and I saw him and I timed it when he was off the screen I knew he'd be backstage and I could go talk to him are you serious yeah and so I got I watched again you know and I went they said okay no I went backstage and I went backstage and he wasn't there and I was standing looking and I could see this image up on the screen mercy and the guy said what are you doing back here says I want you to see the little beaver see you crazy get out of here ain't no little beaver that was like discouraging I didn't understand that I was a little beavers not ears I saw him up on the screws okay I used to think the people were behind the screen because otherwise how could we hear their voices that's what I used to think when I went to the movies my wife used to look in the radio to see if the little people were in there you were married of age this was this was last summer but I think that was a universal thing with kids they never told you where were those people up there I used to leave the theater and wonder in my mind said I wonder if Tony Curtis goes to the bathroom yeah you know I just couldn't imagine movie stars going to bathroom I know well I thought they had people to do it for them I really didn't know it's right you couldn't and also at a very very early age I thought I never heard of a movie star dying of course that seems to be as we said here now all you do hear about but I've never liked Gene Autry when I was a kid you met him yeah and champion well we're in a practice here at the Armory they did a show he used to do shows Wow and I made last in the room sure yeah at the carnival my uncle worked the carnival yes I went to the carnival with him on every weekend and lash Laroux was there and I got to go up and meet him and there he was drunk I thought I was supposed to cue Jones no no of course as we know he was pretending to be yes yes of course there's no actors up and do that as a joke kind of like what my first big disillusionment was like that there was one I can't remember what it was now but it was very similar to that what I well I heard it my selling or something and I thought you'd always been a great year old yeah friend of mine much older than either of us went backstage one time to see Houdini slap a man in the face for folding his shirt wrong or something he was doing the head trick it wasn't really a sloppy disappearing chance if you got a light a cigarette and be a bad influence on older people don't intend to add another any vices you have or finally did you see that odd thing that happened at the beginning I didn't mean to leap into this right away but I said when Pryor is hot and the audience being several steps ahead of me or two decided me must have honestly thought I was trying for a joke referring to when you set yourself on fire is that what you thought folks I thought they thought I thought they thought that when you said he was hot he meant sexually [Applause] always that funny I never associate sex with California you see I never that funny how we took that entirely different way yes you know I've got to confess something to you now I meant at least 10 times to write you a letter at that time you did and I never did no I can't I got it - you're through the ether in the earth oh I got your thoughts thank you so much I really I still will I really I felt bad about them and I thought how do I know he remembers me nice I'd like to read those kind of letters on them glad you hope you get out of the hospital soon rich that's the way of the start yeah yeah and sorry that you burned up and I know you're in great pain but I care about you very much yeah thank you rich you got you got thousands oh oh that time I got a bunch a lot of nice people out there I think that was my excuse I figured he'd never get mine but it's not a very good excuse if you had to take something artifact from your career a tape of film something for the time capsule and they could say this is for the time capsule and we can only take one thing what would it be one of your stand-up concerts or one of your movies yeah that would do the tick down live in concert yeah is that is that because somehow even though your films have been successful that they've never really shown what you can do best in film maybe I had a lot of fun doing that you know and I didn't know that it would be successful at all I thought these guys are crazy you know painting me money's pretend to film it you know and they filmed it but I felt like I'd said yeah and I said why the guy want to do that is yeah so he did it and it was successful then I think that's why I like it you know I like because of the people accepted me mm-hmm and doing my act and that made me happy about that I know how you'd feel though you figure but you got to be there to enjoy a concert and to watch it on a screen isn't the same thing but apparently they did it skillfully so that you didn't have that I felt I was there and they liked it was wrong and that's why I liked about it wasn't slick it off no they didn't know what they were doing so it's got a rough look - yeah you like that too [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

Views: 532,433

Rating: 4.8517976 out of 5

Keywords: The Dick Cavett Show, Talk Show, Musician, Celebrities, Dick Cavett, United States, Chat Show, Interview

Id: qZ3D1OlkBHM

Length: 14min 31sec (871 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 23 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ezgomer]

Haha. We all know MJ didn’t invent the backslide - but he did it better and with greater impact than anyone else. ❤️