If I Stop I'll Die: The Comedy and Tragedy of Richard Pryor

by John A. Williams, Dennis A. Williams

"Though it would be hard to imagine an America without a Richard Pryor, cursed and blessed though he is, it would be harder still to imagine, or endure, life if there had never been a Pryor, teaching us to laugh, and by laughing, to see." from IF I STOP I'LL DIE. In the 1960s, when many black performers were trying to open the colors barrier, comedian Richard Pryor was slamming into it with a vengeance. Employing the language and attitude of the black ghetto, he assaulted racism in comic routines that were both outrageous and screamingly funny. IF I STOP I'LL DIE is an incisive examination of the comedian's life and humor which not only reveals details of Pryor's troubled but brilliant career - his infamous "Las Vegas metamorphosis, " his friendships with the black intelligentsia of 1960s Berkeley, his little-known contributions to the scripts in which he appeared - but also places these events within the context that shaped Pryor's outlook, personality, and opportunities. And it captures the irony that pervaded his life and career: how he could present brilliantly universal material from such a militantly black perspective; how the powers of Hollywood could force him to portray on film the very racial caricatures that he lampooned on stage; how he could publicly flaunt his private exploits, with embellished comedic versions of his drug use, sexual adventures, and bursts of violence, while fiercely protecting the real facts behind such episodes. For fans of this enormously gifted comic, actor, and writer, and for everyone interested in comedy and contemporary culture, this is an essential retrospective of one of America's most enigmatic artists.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

250 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

John Alfred Williams was an African-American author, journalist, and academic. His novel The Man Who Cried I Am was a bestseller in 1967.

His novels are mainly about the black experience in white America. The Man Who Cried I Am, a fictionalized account of the life and death of Richard Wright, introduced the King Alfred Plan, a fictional CIA-led scheme supporting an international effort to eliminate people of African descent. This "plan" has since been cited as fact by some members of the Black community and conspiracy theorists.

In the early 1980s, Williams, and the composer and flautist Leslie Burrs, with the agreement of Mercer Ellington, began collaborating on the completion of Queenie Pie, an opera by Duke Ellington that had been left unfinished at Ellington's death. The project fell through, and the opera was eventually completed by other hands.

In 2003, Williams performed a spoken-word piece on Transform, an album by rock band Powerman 5000. At the time, his son Adam Williams was the band's guitarist.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John A.^^^Williams

Reviews

[Stephani · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books I've read in a while. Authors tried to make up for the lack of information direct from Pryor and his family with a lot of heavy dissertation-level background info that often had little or nothing to do with Pryor. Plus they did a lot of unwelcome opinion-spewing and ungrounded speculation on Pryor's motives, while dismissing his claims of growing up with whorehouses and any indication that his lifelong dysfunctions were a result of being a child who saw and experienced a lot of things he shouldn't have. I have Pryor's autobio (published a few years after this book). I plan on re-reading that and reading his daughter Rain's memoir.

[Ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are so many actors like Richard Pryor who have come from backgrounds where they are very poor and make something with their lives. Every life story I've ever read is like this and I personally get fed up with reading them.