EU He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won an Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards , , , , and He was listed at number one on Comedy Central 's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians.
He was sexually abused at age seven, [7] and expelled from school at the age of Pryor served in the U. Army from to , but spent virtually the entire stint in an army prison. According to a profile about Pryor in The New Yorker , Pryor was incarcerated for an incident that occurred while he was stationed in West Germany.
Angered that a white soldier was overly amused at the racially charged scenes of Douglas Sirk 's film Imitation of Life , Pryor and several other black soldiers beat and stabbed him, although not fatally. Simone recalls Pryor's bout of performance anxiety:.
Inspired by Bill Cosby , Pryor began as a middlebrow comic, with material far less controversial than what was to come. His popularity led to success as a comic in Las Vegas. The Early Years — , recorded in and , capture Pryor in this period.
In September , Pryor had what he described in his autobiography Pryor Convictions as an " epiphany ". He walked onto the stage at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas with Dean Martin in the audience , looked at the sold-out crowd, exclaimed over the microphone, "What the fuck am I doing here!?
