Richard Pryor Revealed the 8 Worst Racist Actors In Old Hollywood Golden Age History

Richard Pryor was born on December 1, 1940, in Peoria, Illinois, and grew up in his grandmother's brothel before rising to the top of American comedy. He got his start at Peoria's Carver Community Center, walked off the stage of the Aladdin in Las Vegas in 1967, played Piano Man in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), and co-wrote Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974). He won Grammy Awards for his comedy albums and an Emmy for his writing, starred with Gene Wilder in Silver Streak and Stir Crazy, and in 1998 became the first recipient of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Pryor told his own story in his 1995 memoir Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences, written with Todd Gold. He died on December 10, 2005, in Los Angeles at age 65. This video examines eight Golden Age stars through the lens of Richard Pryor's life. Pryor never published a list of names, so every entry rests on the documented record. Will Rogers used a racial slur on national radio in 1934. Jerry Lewis kept a yellowface routine alive into 1981. Lillian Gish starred in The Birth of a Nation, and D.W. Griffith made it. Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll voiced Black characters as a minstrel act on Amos 'n' Andy for more than three decades. Kate Smith recorded That's Why Darkies Were Born. Chill Wills introduced George Wallace at California campaign stops in 1968, and Walter Brennan co-chaired Wallace's California campaign. What's covered in this video: Will Rogers: In January 1934, Rogers repeatedly used a racial slur on his Gulf-sponsored national radio broadcast, then called Black Americans darkies in a follow-up broadcast. The New York Amsterdam News put the second slur on its front page on January 31, 1934, and members of the Black community called for a boycott of Gulf gas stations. Jerry Lewis: Lewis performed a buck-toothed yellowface caricature of Asian people for decades and revived it as late as his 1981 comeback film Hardly Working. Lillian Gish: Gish played the female lead, Elsie Stoneman, in The Birth of a Nation (1915). On May 3, 2019, Bowling Green State University trustees voted 7 to 0 to remove the Gish name from the campus film theater. D.W. Griffith: Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) cast white actors in blackface and portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroes. The NAACP protested the film, the Klan was refounded at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in November 1915, and the Directors Guild of America retired its D.W. Griffith Award in 1999. Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll: The two white men created and voiced Amos 'n' Andy starting March 19, 1928, on WMAQ in Chicago, appeared in blackface in Check and Double Check (1930), and drew a 1951 NAACP bulletin demanding the TV show be taken off the air. CBS pulled the reruns in 1966. Correll was born in Peoria, Pryor's hometown. Kate Smith: Smith recorded That's Why Darkies Were Born in 1931 and sang Pickaninny Heaven in Hello, Everybody! (1933). In April 2019 the New York Yankees suspended her God Bless America and the Philadelphia Flyers removed her statue. Chill Wills: The voice of Francis the Talking Mule and Oscar nominee for The Alamo (1960) served as master of ceremonies for George Wallace's California campaign stops in 1968. Walter Brennan: The three-time Oscar winner (1936, 1938, 1940) co-chaired George Wallace's California campaign in 1968 and backed John Schmitz in 1972. Crew members on The Guns of Will Sonnett recalled him dancing a jig at the news of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 1968. Mentioned in this video: Richard Pryor, Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences, Todd Gold, Peoria, Carver Community Center, Aladdin Las Vegas, Lady Sings the Blues, Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks, Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Silver Streak, Stir Crazy, Live on the Sunset Strip, Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Will Rogers, Ziegfeld Follies, State Fair, Judge Priest, Gulf Refining Company, NBC, New York Amsterdam News, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, The Bellboy, The Nutty Professor, Hardly Working, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Bowling Green State University, D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation, The Clansman, Thomas Dixon, Biograph, United Artists, NAACP, Woodrow Wilson, Ku Klux Klan, Stone Mountain, The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America, Directors Guild of America, Freeman Gosden, Charles Correll, Amos 'n' Andy, WMAQ, Check and Double Check, RKO, Duke Ellington, Abbott's Monthly, CBS, Pittsburgh Courier, Kate Smith, God Bless America, Irving Berlin, That's Why Darkies Were Born, Hello Everybody, Paul Robeson, Philadelphia Flyers, New York Yankees, Chill Wills, Avalon Boys, Giant, Francis the Talking Mule, The Alamo, John Wayne, Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, Walter Brennan, The Westerner, Red River, Rio Bravo, The Real McCoys, John Schmitz, The Guns of Will Sonnett, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy #RichardPryor, #GoldenAgeHollywood, #HollywoodSecrets