Richard was the son of a prostitute and the grandson of a churchgoing madam. He watched his mother turn tricks and was molested from an early age by a pedophile.
He dropped out of school at age 14 and began shining shoes and working in pool halls and strip joints.
In 1958, he joined the army but was jailed after he stabbed a white recruit who was fighting with a black soldier.
In 1963, Pryor, working as a comic, made it his goal to appeal to white audiences and become more popular than Bill Cosby. His early material was straitlaced and wholesome enough for the whole family.
He received great acclaim for the role of a drugged-out piano man in Lady Sings the Blues, one of his earliest film roles.
Through the years, he sired multiple children by multiple women and was married multiple times. He achieved commercial success with movies and comedy albums despite his womanizing, drug use and drinking.
During the birth of his daughter Elizabeth Anne, Richard was in jail for marijuana possession.
One of his daughters, Rain, starred as T.J. Jones on Head of the Class.
Pryor was sentenced to a year in jail and fined $10,000 for failing to pay his taxes from 1967 to 1970. The fine was reduced to $2,500, and he served only 10 days in jail.
The Richard Pryor Show, a 1977 variety program, lasted just four episodes. Pryor fought network censors and his own doubts throughout the short run.
He cowrote (but didn't star in) the classic Mel Brooks western comedy Blazing Saddles. He also wrote for Sanford and Son and The Flip Wilson Show.
Pryor suffered his first heart attack while high and in the middle of a threesome.
Pryor was once arrested for assault with a deadly weapon after shooting wife Deborah McGuire's Mercedes with a .357 Magnum to prevent her from leaving. She later dropped the charges.
While freebasing cocaine, Pryor doused himself with cognac and lit himself on fire in what he later called a suicide attempt. While on fire, he ran from his home through the streets. He spent more than six weeks in the hospital recovering from third-degree burns that covered over 50 percent of his body.
He hosted the half hour children's show Pryor's Place that ran in the mid 1980s. The series featured guests like Sammy Davis Jr., Willie Nelson, Robin Williams and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Pryor adopts stray dogs and opposes the use of animals in laboratory testing. He has sent out Christmas cards asking friends not to donate to groups that harm animals.
In the summer of 1986, Pryor was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system that causes vision and motor-skills problems.
In May 1991, Pryor suffered a massive heart attack, his third. He survived quadruple-bypass surgery and vowed to make the most of his latest chance at life.
His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, awarded to him for his work in motion pictures, is at 6438 Hollywood Boulevard.
His film Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling is an autobiographical look at Pryor's career and was filmed on location in Los Angeles and Peoria, Illinois. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in the film.
