Richard Pryor (1940-2005)

Richard Pryor died yesterday at the age of 65. He "couldn't escape the darkness," as he once put it, but he provided an extraordinary amount of light to American comedy: "[His] brilliant comic imagination and creative use of the blunt cadences of street language were revelations to most Americans. He did not simply tell stories, he brought them to vivid life, revealing the entire range of black America's humor, from its folksy rural origins to its raunchier urban expressions."

Screenwriter Roger L. Simon, who worked with Pryor on a number of projects, remembers him here.

Other blogs with good memorial posts include The Moderate Voice, Hullabaloo, Pam's House Blend, Middle Earth Journal, Daily Kos, Captain's Quarters, Pandagon, Shakespeare's Sister, Ezra Klein, The Anchoress, The Talking Dog, and Ruminate This.

Riehl World View (tip: Althouse) has some great video.