Richard Pryor

Richard Pryor occupies a small but revealing place in Andy Warhol’s diary: a film star glimpsed at work, watched on screen, and pursued as a prospective Interview subject. The entries trace Warhol’s shifting attention from Pryor’s appearance to his performances and, finally, to the difficulty of securing an interview, without confirming that the conversation ever took place.

A chance meeting on a film set

On August 8, 1984, Warhol found eighteen trucks parked on his street and a film-company worker sitting on his stoop. The worker said the production was Brewster’s Millions and introduced himself as the half-brother of Carol LaBrie, a star of L’Amour. He then took Warhol into a nearby truck, where Richard Pryor was with a blonde woman. Warhol found Pryor much better-looking than he remembered from their last meeting, and described him as handsome. The encounter was brief and contingent on a movie crew’s presence in the neighborhood: the diary does not establish whether Pryor was working on the film or explain the woman’s role.

The truck was hot and muggy, and its air conditioner was not working well. Warhol considered inviting the visitors into his house, but the air-conditioning there was scarcely better; the noise also made conversation difficult. Pryor said he had seen Bad a couple of months earlier. Warhol wondered whether the little gold cross Pryor wore belonged to him or was for the movie, leaving the detail unresolved. In the scene, a film title, a strained conversation, and a small item of clothing are all that the diary can securely hold onto.

From watching to seeking an interview

Later that month, Warhol woke up to The Toy, starring Pryor, and found it funny. He asked PH to write Pryor a letter proposing a divided interview: PH would conduct the first part while in Los Angeles, and Warhol would do the second when Pryor came to New York. The plan made the magazine’s interest concrete, but it was still only a proposal. Warhol signed the letter and sent along a copy of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, then waited for a reply.

That pursuit belonged to the broader role Interview played in Warhol’s working life. The magazine had become a steady source of celebrity encounters and fresh faces, and its promise of a place in print had taken the place once held by the prospect of appearing in his films. Pryor’s proposed interview fits that pattern: Warhol sought not merely to watch a performer but to bring him into the magazine’s orbit. The diary does not say whether the book or letter reached Pryor, or whether he accepted.

An interview deferred

By September 11, PH had returned from Los Angeles, but Pryor’s representatives had not made him available. They told her that he was in seclusion in Hawaii and that his mail would be held until he returned in October. The information arrived secondhand, and Warhol records no direct response from Pryor. The planned two-part interview therefore remains suspended at the point of contact: an offer sent through an intermediary, followed by a report that its intended subject could not yet be reached.

Across these entries, Pryor is seen from different distances. Warhol first records his physical presence in the overheated truck, then his comic effect on screen, and finally his absence from the interview arrangement. These glimpses do not develop into a sustained personal relationship or a completed magazine feature in the available account. Their significance lies instead in how they show Warhol’s celebrity-making machinery at work: attention moves from encounter, to viewing, to an attempt to secure Pryor’s participation, while the outcome remains open.