In this exclusive excerpt from the new book ‘You Talkin’ to Me?’ about the most famous movie quotes in history, author Brian Abrams goes deep on the king of absurdist comedy.
Though it’s true that Mel Brooks became comedy royalty after an impeccable run of game-changing hits with Gene Wilder—especially—the Brooklyn-born rascal always took his funny business seriously. He constantly combed the desert for gags, thought up absurd cameos and sidekicks, and never ever accepted notes or direction from suits on the studio lot.
That also tracks throughout his stellar career’s uninterrupted torrent of jokes and one-liners, and oh so generous, Brooks was not just doing this for money. He was doing it for a shitload of money.Punctuality was not an attribute that secured Richard Pryor’s seat in the Warner Bros. writers’ room for. The thirty-two-year-old comic had been an erratic, often-inebriated force in showbiz, wandering in uncertain pursuit of creative rediscovery.
His tardiness was not cause for concern on his first day entering the sixth-floor conference room at 666 Fifth Avenue. Neither was his unyielding cocaine habit. Writer-director Brooks, in the company of his extant writing staff , reiterated the broad strokes of the project for the benefit of the newly sworn-in member. Pryor, while nodding intently to Brooks’s direction, pulled out a locket and began snorting his mid-morning ration.
Pryor’s presence brought more than an inspired rawness. It granted implied permission to “run all the red lights,” as Bergman put it, and think up the most buck-wild ways to caricature American racism and make habitual use of an unspeakable racial epithet.
After a month or so, Pryor was tapped out and headed back to California. “He was like a pitcher,” Steinberg said. “You got five innings out of him.” Brooks, Bergman, and Steinberg continued to polish subsequent drafts, all three knowing that their rabble-rousing partner wouldn’t return. Unless, of course, those conference-room performances as Sheriff Bart meant that he’d end up in front of the camera when filming began in 1973, but Warner Bros. was averse to the idea of casting Pryor.
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