"The relationship was so intense, so volatile, so fantastic, so dark and
so light and so everything." Jennifer Lee Pryor is describing her
romance, the first time around, with the American comedian Richard Pryor. "There
were a couple of episodes where, if I'd said, 'Oh, Richard, go to hell' or
'F*** you,' I'd be dead. I know it. I was almost killed when he was high.
"On our wedding night he threw a glass at me," she smiles. "It
was a crazy relationship. That's what it was." They were together for
five years before they married in 1981, then she left him six months later
after being hit once too often. They were on honeymoon, on a boat in the
Caribbean, when she looked in the mirror, saw her mother, and knew she was
repeating a pattern of violence familiar from childhood. She left. She was
done. Only she wasn't.
"I used to say that Richard got married to end his relationships, and I
think he did the same thing with me, except that he found out something that
I already knew. He couldn't get rid of me in his head and his heart."
Jennifer Lee Pryor holds nothing back. She has no edit button, nor does she
want one. She is galvanised by audacity; both her own and what used to be
her husband's. Perhaps because Richard, who is now 64, is too frail to speak
out, she has picked up the slack.
Whether it's because she has nothing to lose or, as she puts it, nothing to
hide, in Hollywood, honesty is always a risk. Then again, she can afford to
let rip. Who's going to silence her? She is only a target for those who
still have something at stake or feel protective of Pryor but are not in
control of his care, and that's mainly Pryor's ex-wives, children and
lawyers. But she is a determined woman. And she is not going to sanitise his
life, or her own. "Richard was always very clear: walk it like you talk
it. And you can't whitewash this kind of thing. You can whitewash Ray
Charles's life — which is what the movie did — but you can't do it to
Richard's life."
Richard Pryor was born in December 1940 in Peoria, Illinois, and was raised in
a brothel by his grandmother. He survived his violent childhood, a heart
attack at 37, being addicted to cocaine, setting himself on fire and
spending six weeks in hospital with third-degree burns over 50% of his body
in 1980. In 1986 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), an incurable
degenerative disease that affects motor skills and balance, and five years
later he underwent quadruple bypass surgery. His journey and Jennifer's have
been dangerous and damaged on an epic scale. It's amazing he's still here.
Even more amazing is that Jennifer, now 49, is still here with him.
What made her return? We are on the sofa in the cheerful sitting room of
Pryor's home in Encino, an up-market neighbourhood known as "the Valley"
in Los Angeles. The modest ranch-style house was purchased in 1995, a year
after Jennifer agreed to move back to California from New York to take care
of him and throw a cordon around the comic genius whose catch phrase over
the years had become: "I ain't dead yet, motherf***er!"
Suddenly her eyes widen. She hears a sound in the driveway, the faint hum of a
motorised wheelchair as it climbs the ramp to the front door. "You're
gonna meet him," she says, her shoulders raised up in giddy, girlish
anticipation. Today is Thursday, movie day, and her husband has just
returned from the cinema. Normally, she would accompany him with his nurse,
but today, because of the interview, she stayed behind. "He's my life,"
she whispers gently as she gets up to greet him.
Pryor is in a red tracksuit; Jennifer leans over, speaking to him brightly,
without a trace of self-consciousness. "We've been talking all day
about you, Richard — don't you love that? Aren't you happy? I'm telling her
all the stories — the good, the bad and the ugly." His appearance
may be frail but it is still Richard Pryor. He's still in there. It's hard
to tell how much he is taking in, but Jennifer and his carers react as if he
has expressed recognition. His communication is limited.
A blink of an eye, a nod or a flash of a smile, easily overlooked by an
outsider, is something they spot to determine emotion. As he is taken back
to his room, Jennifer beams. "He was happy to meet you. Did you see the
smile? I saw it. He loves the attention. It's essential for him."
Attention is something Pryor has craved all his life and received from his
searing, uninhibited and heart-wrenching ability to tell harsh stories and
make us laugh. Does he know where he fits into the pantheon of comedy?
Jennifer wonders if he ever did. "Well, even when he was well he never
really knew how great he was. His arrogant self knew he was the best, but he
always felt there was something smarmy and bullshit about Hollywood."
Perhaps it's because what spurred Pryor on was the anger, and as he became
more successful, the rage was diffused. In his later routines he touched on
how it freaked him out when white people came up to him and said how much
they loved him. When the enemy loves you, how funny can you be? So who knows
what he's come to terms with now. Either way, Jennifer's mission includes
diligently policing the intellectual property of his life.
"Richard doesn't like people stealing from him — what he enjoys is people
who run with the ball. Like Chris Rock. That's inspiring. But there are a
lot of people out there who rip Richard off, and when that happens, send me
in."
Her role in his life is all-consuming. On top of co-ordinating all of his
medical attention, she is in charge of licensing clips and photos,
developing new projects, a new anthology; she sues to get material back,
there is a Directors Guild Association tribute that she is organising, and a
biopic in the works.
It's hard not to see Pryor in every comic. As the comedian Chris Rock said
when he began to do stand-up, "He maxed it out." Obviously, Pryor
is no longer able to write material, but Jennifer believes he is still
thinking of it. "His mind is sharp," she says. "But his life
experience now is that of an observer. He's really not participating in that
world any more. I think he feels he was this meteor — and he did it — and he
watches now and enjoys."
She says Richard is the same person he always was, even though his therapist
thinks he's found more acceptance and peace. "Well, he's had to sit and
wrestle with his f***ing demons. No cocaine, no cigarettes, no pussy, no
alcohol — nothing."
Pryor suffers from what's called primary progressive MS, and is cared for by
round-the-clock nurses. He is not getting any better, but the illness,
Jennifer firmly states, is all about maintenance and good care. His schedule
is non-negotiable. There is physiotherapy once a week. On Thursdays he goes
out to the cinema. He wakes up at 8.30am and uses the medical equipment,
which is cutting-edge technology. He's got to be moved, every two hours,
when he's in bed. He exercises one hour a day, then has a massage, then
watches television and DVDs and has the newspaper read to him. At 4.30pm he
goes back to his room and listens to comedy CDs. There is a nap. And another
physiotherapy massage.
The one area she asks to be off the record is the intricacies of his medical
treatment. She says it is about preserving his dignity. "I don't want
to lie about his condition — I want to be honest. We have bad periods but we
keep bouncing back." She is not cloistering him. "If Richard wants
to go out, I don't give a f*** how the public reacts. If he wants to go to
the movies, let's go."
Pryor is not communicating verbally with consistency any more, although
Jennifer says he still speaks when he feels like it. "One day I said to
him, 'You know, Richard, I love you more and more every day. What do you
think of that?' And he said, 'I think you're crazy.' So we know his sense of
humour is intact. He's still a piece of work, let me tell you. He's still a
piece of work.
"People say yeah, but he beat you up and he did all these things, and
yeah, that's right, [but] you gotta find a place where you're healed with
all these things and move forward."
Like everything in the Richard Pryor orbit, Jennifer's presence — then and now
— is a story. And the question of why she has returned is not easily
answered.
A brief tour reveals Pryor's bedroom infused with the intense smell of
disinfectant. There is an official hospital bed and air mattress, and
Jennifer proudly points out that, with MS, one of the most common problems
is bedsores, but Richard hasn't had one in years. Other than medical
equipment, the main feature of the room is a giant television. Across from
Richard's room there is a room for the nurse, and through a third door, a
small office that Jennifer uses occasionally when she's not at her own house
a few minutes down the street.
In the office is a video screen that shows several different surveillance
angles. There are six cameras on, and she can log on at any time of night
from her home, to check to make sure everything is okay. "It gives me
peace of mind," she says, shutting the door. She says that being in
complete control of her husband's life is both a blessing and a curse. "I
thought long and hard about coming back. I thought, if we're going to do
this, we have to come up with a plan. I came out to California several times
and talked to him about it first."
She leads the way back to the sitting room.
"When I came back in 1994, maids were selling furniture out of the
garage. Accountants and business managers were running amok. He was in bed,
not eating, on an IV. And there was a gourmet cook. Everyone was eating
amazing food but Richard. Legal bills were unbelievable — you gotta be Eddie
Murphy to have these kind of legal bills. $60,000 a month. For what? Things
were out of control."
She speaks with the conviction of someone who not only knows precisely how to
get things done, but is fearless when it comes to doing what's necessary.
"He was in a rental down the street from Michael Jackson, a marble
monstrosity with endless bedrooms that all the help were at times occupying;
girlfriends, hangers-on would also crash there. He was paying an absurd rent
for space he didn't need. When he asked me to come back into his life, it
was with the express request to help him rid himself of these wastes and of
certain people who were 'bleeding' him."
Her first order of business was to buy him this home. It is smaller and
accommodates his needs, his carers and his dogs, and when they purchased it,
the expenses were cut in half. She has never lived with him, and rents her
own house a few minutes away. Living with Richard, she says, was always out
of the question simply because "There's no room!" In addition, she
says: "My home is my office and it is grand central... five dogs...
phones, faxes... computers... Richard enjoys peace in his home and it is his
sanctuary."
This separation, seemingly odd for a married couple, was a practical decision
made 11 years ago, long before they remarried. Finding a new home for Pryor
was one thing, but relations with his ex-wives and children have proved more
contentious. "Richard's parenting used to be done through cheques. And
that doesn't happen any more. When the cheques stopped being written...
there was a lot of resentment."
The resentment goes both ways. It must be hard for Pryor's ex-wives and
children to accept that Jennifer is making all the decisions. It must be
difficult for her, too, as the person in control, to please everyone. There
are seven children in total. The two youngest, Kelsey and Franklin, now
teenagers, are visiting next month, and Rain and Elizabeth, in their
thirties, see their father as often as possible. Jennifer says that although
he sees them, he is not close to them.
There's anger and resentment there. Where does it go? "I take it to heart
— take it to therapy. I fight, I'm a fighter. The main thing is, I deal with
it. Whatever has to be done. If somebody has to be sued, we call the lawyer.
I take care of it."
Jennifer talks of having turned a corner with the latest "attack". "They
[the children] wanted to be able to come to the house whenever they wanted,
and they can't do that. There's a structure here. So then they started
saying that I'm isolating Richard from them. And started making accusations.
And these are kids that never did anything for the past 10 years. All of a
sudden, Richard's star is on the rise again... they're saying all these ugly
things."
There is the suggestion of opportunism, but that is secondary, because really
it's about access. Understandably, Richard's daughter Rain is fiercely
protective of her father, and she and Elizabeth are aligned when it comes to
being at odds with Jennifer. They firmly believe she is going against their
father's wishes and that he would like to see them more frequently.
"Even now, when he can barely communicate," Rain says, "he
indicates he wants to see his children more often. We are not allowed. We
have been cut out from his life. We have been told we can only visit maybe
one time per month, and this is against our father's desire."
They both indicate that they are worried about speaking on record about "Ms
Lee" because they are afraid of the repercussions and the power she has
to isolate their father from them.
Jennifer Lee met Richard Pryor in 1977. Jennifer, who was brought up in
Cropseyville, upstate New York, had been working in Texas singing in
country-and-western clubs, and was living in Los Angeles — a glamorous,
struggling actress, partying with movie stars and musicians. One day, her
friend Lucy suggested she help her with decorating Richard's house.
"I was the sub-commandant and she was the commandant. Lucy and Richard
were lovers at the time and they'd been up all night doing coke — I'd been
doing it too — and Richard asked her for a blow job and she said no and he
pulled a gun on her. So she came to the guest room where I was sleeping and
said, 'He pulled a gun on me, we have to go,' and I didn't go, and she never
forgave me." She says she knew by then that she was in love with him,
and was determined to help him and fix him.
In his memoir, Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences, he writes about
meeting Jennifer: "I felt elevated around Jenny. In this well-bred,
college-educated beauty, I thought I might have found somebody who could
love me so hard and passionately that I'd finally be able to love myself."
They were heading for disaster, but not right away. In spite of the long hours
spent sitting in his office having profound conversations, becoming closer
and more enamoured, Pryor married someone else while she was still working
for him. Even though, the night before the wedding, he kissed Jennifer in
the upstairs bathroom. They cut it short when the doorbell rang and it was
his bride-to-be.
When asked: "Did you feel...?" Jennifer jumps in. "Guilty?
Never. Because I knew I loved this motherf***er and I didn't care. I also
knew that the marriage wasn't going to last — and it didn't.
"I was always a very, very lonely person. I dated Warren Beatty and Jack
Nicholson. I was a beautiful model and I had that life. And it was empty,
empty, empty. I slept around; I did whatever I wanted to do — you can't do
that these days — but basically, it was really sad. Then I met Richard and
it was like... somebody got me. For the first time in my f***ing life,
somebody got me. And then we tried to destroy it."
Wounded people have a way of finding each other. Their love in those years was
an addiction. But before the addiction got bad they had joyful, positive
times. Jennifer points out her favourite photograph, taken in 1978, of her
and Richard sitting by the pool. She sits on the edge of his lounger,
leaning her cheek against his leg. She would always be chasing the "first
high of love".
In the beginning she trusted him. "I bathed in the warmth of the love. I
saw how women threw themselves at him and how he adored it — not all the
time, but sometimes. Other times, he was so "with me" and
protective that when he wasn't, I couldn't understand it! I would get
insecure — quickly — which didn't help. But when he or I would go into those
places that fuelled the whole jealousy thing, it could be deadly... and the
first time he cheated, it broke my heart... but I learnt quickly how to move
the goalposts of love further and further back."
By 1980, Pryor was seriously addicted to cocaine. Jennifer had been with him
at the house just before the fire. "He told me he was going to do
something. I didn't know what it was, but he told me, 'You better get out,
bitch, or it's gonna happen to you too.' "I had moved out by then
because the crack pipe had moved in. Twenty minutes later, I got the call.
He had done it."
In a drug psychosis, Pryor poured cognac over his body and torched himself.
Jennifer shakes her head. "To have that commitment to self-destruct...
I just didn't get it. I was so in love with him and when we were apart —
which was a lot — I'd have a hard time breathing. But that's being addicted
to someone."
It wasn't just being addicted to Richard, it was being addicted to drama. "There
was never anything I couldn't give up," she says, "except Richard."
There are people who won't understand. But in spite of the fame and their
wealth, Jennifer acknowledges, it is a classic case of cyclical abuse.
"It's a cliché. I was just like the woman in a trailer park — well, I
happened to wear a Rolex watch and Armani — but I was the same woman. It
took me a long time to see. I was convinced that I loved him so much and
that he loved me..."
Why did she get caught in it? "Well, that's the $64,000 question. I don't
think there are any easy answers. I grew up in a violent household and saw
my father hitting my mother. Richard saw it in the whorehouse."
She refused to accept that things were seriously wrong. "I kept trying to
fix him, me, all of it, which was not an easy task. I was not able to walk
away. Until, of course, it all went south and trust was shredded in
smithereens."
This was when the crack pipe moved in. At first she tried it, but hated it and
stopped. "It was not my drug. It was like someone took a hammer and
clunked you."
There was a nihilistic side to Richard which she wasn't seeing. She got it
after the fire. "Yeah, I guess! I mean, if a f***ing fire isn't a
wake-up call, what the hell is?"
"But," she sighs, "there were a lot of wake-up calls. I
remember when I stopped doing everything and I went to Tucson to be with him
during Stir Crazy, and I saw what kind of shape he was in, and it scared the
hell out of me. He left me in a trailer with the Hell's Angels and there
were guns everywhere and I was like, what parallel universe am I in? This is
not okay. You know, I look back at it and I laugh at some of it and cry for
some of it."
She was hopelessly obsessed, but eventually got tired of being beaten up,
tired of the drama. "Being with Richard one week was like 15 years.
Everything was so fast and furious."
After the divorce she moved to New York. It was the early 1980s and she was in
her thirties. She travelled, spent her divorce money, dealt with the suicide
of her younger brother, wrote some articles for magazines and focused on
writing her memoir, Tarnished Angel. The book begins with her first memory
of seeing her mother looking in the mirror with a bloody nose.
"I went out with other men, but nobody stuck like Richard. It was healthy
to connect with other people — it just wasn't on the same level. Not really
love. I appreciated them, learnt from them, enjoyed good times, good sex,
good meals, but nothing ever felt like the real thing."
In 1986 she was in Paris when she got a call from Richard saying: "Can
you come? I'm missing you so much." "I was like, yes! I was still
so besotted. And I flew from Paris to LA."
"But, um, you know. He was with another, having babies with her. I was
sad. I thought we'd be together and walk off into the sunset." She says
she never wanted to have children with Richard and was relieved that she had
an ectopic pregnancy. "I'm really glad that nature chose that, because
I was madly in love at the time and I would have had that child, and I think
that the world doesn't need any more screwed-up children. And somehow that
child would have been screwed up. Because I didn't have my head screwed on
then." Now, she has seven dogs.
In 1992 her book was published. True to her nature, she spared nobody,
refusing to protect the anonymity of the men in her adulterous liaisons. Why
should she protect their identity, she asked herself. "They were in my
movie too! When Tarnished Angel came out, everyone said, 'How can you do
that to Richard?' But Richard loved the book! You know what he said? 'The
bitch told the truth.'"
In 1994, Jennifer returned to Richard for good. People may question her
motives, but even after they were divorced, they always stayed in each
other's lives. She sees, and always has seen, the genius in him, and this is
what has kept her going. There is only one Richard Pryor.
"I saw him in New York. The MS was getting bad. He was still walking, but
badly. And he said, 'You know, my life is falling apart and I really need
some help, and I want you to come back,' and I said, 'Whoa, what you're
asking me is huge. I have a life now.' But I flew out to LA a few times, and
we'd sit and talk about how it would work. How we have to attack this — stop
the haemorrhaging of money — rehab him physically — and turn lemons into
lemonade. It took a long time."
When she first came back, things between them were not romantic. For the first
couple of years, she was dating somebody else. In 1995 she moved Richard
into the Encino house.
"There was a lot of debris to pick up," she says. "I had to sue
people for rights that were stolen, outlawed material. It was just... I've
gone to business school for the last 11 years. I never thought I would learn
so much."
The romantic love arose from a different place this time. There was an
understanding of needing each other for support, not destruction. And
because she says: "We can't not be together. He's my family. You know.
I don't want him to feel responsible. That game's over — blaming and guilt,
that's over."
They remarried in 2001. She doesn't have boyfriends or lovers any more. The
limitations sexually are addressed with levity. "Well, I have sense
memory — and it is kind of a relief, I have to say. And it doesn't mean I'm
not sexual. I lived there so much of my life — it's kind of freeing. And you
get a lot of work done!"
But then, for a moment, a sadness creeps in. It is striking because it's the
first sign of it, and it's as if the warrior has just loosened the armour.
"We just don't go there, because there is such an inability. To even
attempt anything would be devastating. We decided a while back that this is
an area that's not good. Best left alone." She pinches the bridge of
her nose and shuts her eyes.
She reflects on his disease, the sadness of it and the damage they caused each
other when they were together. "We were very lucky to have the
opportunity to resurrect the good. And that doesn't happen all the time.
It's a gift. I think I'm very lucky. But it's painful. It is. I come in here
as the cheerleader every day. And I don't let him see it. I am so protective
about him going to a sad place. I think that Richard has to deal every day
with me bounding in here full of energy and life, and going out there and
fighting our battles, and I think that's a lot for him to deal with."
There are days when he has terrible sadness and those are the days when she
worries the most. She gets scared when she sees that. His depression is the
enemy. "I want him to fight. To stay here. And when people get
depressed, it's easy to let go. I try like hell not to let him get to that
place. To make him laugh."
She gets up, strides across the sitting room for a tissue. "I'm sorry. I
don't do this," she says, referring to her tears. "I do have
meltdowns but usually in the privacy of my home or in therapy. There's a lot
to do, so I have to be strong. I don't ever let him see me sad. I think
Richard has enough sadness. He always did.
"When I came back into Richard's life he kept apologising to me about the
violence — and cheating on me and other things. And finally one day I said
to him, 'Stop it. It's over. We're done with the apologies.' So, does
Richard sit here every day and think about his life? I'm sure, but I don't
take him there. We don't go there. Where we live is in a place of gratitude.
We are very grateful Richard's still alive and we don't sit and talk about
'what if'."
There are many gradations of love; there is no way to calibrate it, and it
changes. She needs him as much as he needs her. It's no wonder she's still
there, after all.
