Dick Gregory, Legendary Stand-Up Comic, Dies At 84
It wasn't that there weren't black comedians performing on "The Tonight Show" in 1961. It was just that they were never invited to sit down with host Jack Paar after they did their set.
Dick Gregory changed that.
Gregory, a legendary stand-up comic and civil rights activist who died Saturday at 84-years-old in Washington D.C., was just making a name for himself, performing at The Playboy Club in Chicago. Time Magazine wrote a story about him, which attracted the attention of "The Tonight Show," then hosted by Paar.
Gregory got a call from a producer inviting him to be on the show.
The comic hung up on him.
"White comics could sit on the couch; a black comic couldn't," he told "CBS Sunday Morning" earlier this year. "Then the phone rang again. It's Jack Paar. 'Dick Gregory, this is Mr. Paar. How come you don't wanna work my show?'
"I said, ' 'Cause the Negroes never sit down.' 'Well, come on in, I'll let you sit down.' And that's how it happened."
Gregory went on the show, sat on the couch, and went from making $250 per week to $5,000 each night.
His death was announced Saturday night by his son, Christian, on Gregory's Instagram account.
In a career that stretched across more than six decades, Gregory was a stand-up comic who found humor in the tragedy of racism.
"Last time I was down South, I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don’t serve colored people here.' I said: 'That's all right, I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.'"
His gig at the Playboy Club and his appearances on television led to a contract to write an autobiography, which he provocatively titled "Nigger."
"Dear Momma, wherever you are, if ever you hear the word 'nigger' again, remember they are advertising my book," he wrote in the forward.
As the 1960s became more politicized, Gregory was often at the forefront.
He was shot in the leg while trying to help defuse the riots in Watts in 1965. He unsuccessfully challenged Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in 1967 and ran as a write-in candidate for president in 1968. He received more than 50,000 votes for the Peace and Freedom Party.
Political activism defined his life perhaps even more than his stand-up comedy - an area in which he received much acclaim; a couple of years ago Comedy Central included him in its list of top 100 stand-up comics of all time.
"This isn't a revolution of black against white," he told audiences in the late 1960s. "This is a revolution of right against wrong.
"And right has never lost."
During his life, Gregory was friends with Martin Luther King Jr., worked on behalf of Medgar Evers and was frequently arrested at protest marches where he would bring his family.
His children have spoken of being arrested multiple times at protests while they were still kids.
In 1980, he famously traveled to Iran - he would spend nearly four months there - where he met with the government officials and students in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to win the release of the 52 American hostages who had been captured.
While Gregory never left the scene - he continued to perform hundreds of times every year - he made a big splash back into the public consciousness last year when actor Joe Morton played Gregory in an off-Broadway show produced by musician John Legend.
Dick Gregory was was born Oct. 12, 1932 in St. Louis.
He spent his early years in poverty, eventually getting a job at the post office, which he continued to do during his early years of stand-up. In 1959, he married Lillian, with whom he would have 11 children. She and several of them were at his side when he died.
Gregory got his first big break in 1961 when he was asked to fill in one night at the Playboy Club for Professor Irwin Corey. At his audition, he was supposed to perform for 40 minutes.
He stayed on stage for nearly two hours.
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