Richard Pryor's Real Name: Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III

Quick answer: Richard Pryor's documented full name is Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III. Encyclopaedia Britannica records that form and gives his birth date as December 1, 1940, in Peoria, Illinois. The Kennedy Center also gives December 1, 1940, in Peoria (Encyclopaedia Britannica; Kennedy Center).

Real name and early life

Britannica lists the long form of the name and places his birth in Peoria. The Kennedy Center says he grew up in straitened circumstances and that his grandparents ran a brothel and a pool hall. A local recreation supervisor, Juliette Whittaker, cast him in a production of Rumpelstiltskin and continued to arrange showcases. He dropped out of high school, joined the Army, and performed in amateur shows while enlisted, then worked as a professional comic in clubs, the Kennedy Center records.

Career highlights

Pryor began working in clubs in the early 1960s, Britannica says, developing controversial, race-based humor that influenced many later comics, including Eddie Murphy, as an Associated Press obituary carried by NPR notes. Film roles included Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Silver Streak (1976), and The Wiz (1978). Concert films such as Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982) were major successes, and the autobiographical Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling appeared in 1986. His comedy albums won five Grammy Awards. As a writer he received an Emmy for the Lily Tomlin special Lily (1973) and a Writers Guild Award as a cowriter of Blazing Saddles (1974). In 1998 he became the first recipient of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Health and death

Britannica says he struggled with drug problems and that in 1980 he was seriously burned in what was reported as a cocaine-related incident. The AP obituary published by NPR says he suffered severe burns over 50 percent of his body and spent weeks recovering. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986, Britannica records, and made few appearances after the early 1990s. He died on December 10, 2005, in Los Angeles, Britannica says; the AP account, citing his business manager, reports that he died of a heart attack after being taken to a hospital from his home in the San Fernando Valley, at age 65.

Name notes for searchers

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III is the documented full name; he was known professionally as Richard Pryor. Searchers looking for the comedian behind Live on the Sunset Strip, the first Mark Twain Prize winner, or the cowriter of Blazing Saddles are usually aiming at the same person.