Rain Pryor

Last updated

Rain Pryor
Rain Pryor at AJFF (24796504631).jpg
Born (1969-07-16) July 16, 1969 (age 54)
Occupations
  • Actress
  • comedian
Years active1988–present
Spouses
Kevin Kindlin
(m. 2002;div. 2006)
Yale Partlow
(m. 2007;div. 2012)
David Vane
(m. 2018)
Children1
Parents
Relatives Ludacris (third cousin)

Rain Pryor is an American actress. Her television credits include sitcoms Head of the Class and Rude Awakening . She is the daughter of comedian Richard Pryor.

Contents

Early life

Pryor was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Shelley R. (née Bonus) [1] and comedian Richard Pryor. Rain Pryor's mother was a Jewish go-go dancer and Rain was largely raised with her Jewish maternal grandparents, who taught her about Jewish culture. [2] Her award-winning solo show Fried Chicken and Latkes explores racism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. [3] In regard to her background, Pryor has joked that while growing up she felt "proud, but guilty about it." [4]

Pryor graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1987.[ citation needed ]

Career

She went on to star in the ABC series Head of the Class in the role of Theola June 'T.J.' Jones. Pryor's role was created from a series of characters she performed at her audition for the producers. Pryor starred for several years as Jackie, the lipstick-lesbian drug addict on the Showtime series Rude Awakening , and has guest-starred on network television series such as The Division and Chicago Hope . She has appeared numerous times on both The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno , as well as The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson , and The Tavis Smiley Show .

Pryor's stage credits include playing the title role of Billie Holiday in the UK tour of the Billie Holiday Story and the title role of Ella Fitzgerald in the UK premiere of Ella, Meet Marilyn. She performed in the Los Angeles productions of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues with Nora Dunn (of Saturday Night Live fame) and Charlene Tilton; Joan by Linda Chambers, in which she portrayed Joan of Arc; Cookin' With Gas, with the Groundlings improvisation troupe; The Exonerated with critically acclaimed actor Aidan Quinn; and The Who's Tommy at the La Jolla Playhouse. [5]

Pryor has also performed as a jazz/blues vocalist since 1993, having played to sold-out crowds in Los Angeles, DC, Hong Kong, Scotland and London, where she released a performance CD, Rain Pryor Live in London.

Pryor created and toured in the award-winning show based on her life, Fried Chicken and Latkes, in 2004 and 2005. She appeared in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006.

In 2012, Pryor was named the artistic director of Baltimore's Strand Theater.[ citation needed ]

In 2015, Pryor received the inaugural British Urban Film Festival honorary award from Ellen Thomas on behalf of her father for his outstanding contribution to film and television. The festival also screened the UK premiere of That Daughter's Crazy, a documentary about her life living in the spotlight of her famous father.

Author

HarperCollins published her book Jokes My Father Never Taught Me in 2006.

Personal life

In 2002, Pryor married family therapist Kevin Kindlin; they divorced in 2006.

In 2007, she began dating Yale Partlow, a Baltimore nursing student/meditation teacher [6] who later became a police officer. [7] After many miscarriages, [8] she gave birth to their daughter Lotus Marie on April 1, 2008. [9] [10] Partlow and Pryor divorced in 2014. Pryor currently resides in Baltimore with daughter Lotus and husband, Dave Vane. [6]

Awards and nominations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goldie Hawn</span> American actress (born 1945)

Goldie Jeanne Hawn is an American actress. She rose to fame on the NBC sketch comedy program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1968–1970), before going on to receive the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Cactus Flower (1969).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debbie Reynolds</span> American actress, singer and dancer (1932–2016)

Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds was an American actress, singer, and businesswoman. Her career spanned almost 70 years. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer with her portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words. Her breakout role was her first leading role, as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Her other successes include The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953), Susan Slept Here (1954), Bundle of Joy, The Catered Affair, and Tammy and the Bachelor (1957), in which her performance of the song "Tammy" topped the Billboard music charts. In 1959, she starred in The Mating Game and released her first pop music album, titled Debbie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessica Tandy</span> English actress (1909–1994)

Jessie Alice Tandy was an English actress. Tandy appeared in over 100 stage productions and had more than 60 roles in film and TV, receiving an Academy Award, four Tony Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948, also winning for The Gin Game and Foxfire. Her films included Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Cocoon, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Nobody's Fool. At 80, she became the oldest actress to receive the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Driving Miss Daisy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Pryor</span> American comedian and actor (1940–2005)

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most important stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Rivers</span> Comedian, actress and television host (1933–2014)

Joan Alexandra Molinsky, known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, actress, producer, writer, and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona that was heavily self-deprecating and acerbic, especially towards celebrities and politicians, delivered in her signature New York accent. She is considered a pioneer of women in comedy. She received an Emmy Award and a Grammy Award, as well as nomination for a Tony Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Quivers</span> American radio presenter, author, and actress

Robin Quivers is an American radio personality, author, and actress, best known for being the long-running co-host of The Howard Stern Show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosanna Arquette</span> American actress

Rosanna Lisa Arquette is an American actress. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance in the TV film The Executioner's Song (1982) and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). Her other film roles include After Hours, The Big Blue (1988), Pulp Fiction (1994), and Crash (1996). She also directed the documentary Searching for Debra Winger (2002) and starred in the ABC sitcom What About Brian? from 2006 to 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Mosley</span> American novelist (born 1952)

Walter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California; they are perhaps his most popular works. In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pam Grier</span> American actress (born 1949)

Pamela Suzette Grier is an American actress and singer. Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema's first female action star, she achieved fame for her starring roles in a string of 1970s action, blaxploitation and women in prison films for American International Pictures and New World Pictures. Her accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Ann Walter</span> American actress

Lisa Ann Walter is an American actress, comedian and television producer, best known for her roles as Chessy in the romantic comedy film The Parent Trap and Melissa Schemmenti on the Peabody Award winning ABC mockumentary sitcom Abbott Elementary, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LaWanda Page</span> American actress and comedian (1920–2002)

LaWanda Page was an American actress, comedian, and dancer whose career spanned six decades. Crowned "The Queen of Comedy" or "The Black Queen of Comedy", Page melded blue humor, signifyin', and observational comedy to jokes about sexuality, race relations, African-American culture, and religion. She released five solo albums, including the 1977 gold-selling Watch It, Sucker!. She also collaborated on two albums with comedy group Skillet, Leroy & Co. As an actress, Page is best known for portraying the Bible-toting and sharp-tongued "Aunt" Esther Anderson in the popular television sitcom Sanford and Son, which originally aired from 1972 until 1977. Page later reprised this role in the short-lived television shows Sanford Arms (1976–1977) and Sanford (1980–1981). She also co-starred in the 1979 short-lived series Detective School. Throughout her career, Page advocated for fair pay and equal opportunities for Black performers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Mooney (comedian)</span> American writer and entertainer (1941–2021)

Paul Gladney, better known by the stage name Paul Mooney, was an American comedian, writer, and actor. He performed stand-up comedy. He collaborated with Redd Foxx, Eddie Murphy and Dave Chappelle, wrote for comedian Richard Pryor and the television series Sanford and Son, In Living Color and Chappelle's Show, as well as acting in The Buddy Holly Story (1978), the Spike Lee-directed satirical film Bamboozled (2000), and Chappelle's Show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jayne Kennedy</span> American actress, model and television personality

Jayne Kennedy Overton is an American television personality, actress, model, corporate spokeswoman, producer, writer, public speaker, philanthropist, and sports broadcaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew J. Lederer</span> American actor

Andrew J. Lederer is a New York-based comedian who has also starred in low-budget movies and worked in writing and production.

<i>Down in the Delta</i> 1998 American drama film by Maya Angelou

Down in the Delta is a 1998 American-Canadian drama film, directed by Maya Angelou and starring Alfre Woodard, Al Freeman, Jr., Esther Rolle, Loretta Devine, and Wesley Snipes.

<i>Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic</i> 2013 American film

Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic is a 2013 American biographical documentary film directed by Marina Zenovich, who also writing with P.G. Morgan and Chris A. Peterson. The film is about the life of comedian and actor Richard Pryor.

Jamie Masada is a Persian American businessman and comedian. He is the founder of the Laugh Factory, a chain of comedy clubs in several states.

Marina Zenovich is an American filmmaker known for her biographical documentaries. Her films include LANCE, Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which won two Emmy awards.

Janelle James is an American comedian, actress, and writer. She is best known for her role as Ava Coleman in the ABC television series Abbott Elementary, for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an NAACP Image Award, in addition to nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.

References

  1. Wiltz, Teresa (December 6, 2006). "Time to Laugh, Time to Cry". The Washington Post .
  2. Pryor, Rain (October 2, 2012). "Rain Pryor on How Her Jewish Mother and 'Genius' Father Richard Inspired Her Solo Show Fried Chicken and Latkes". Broadway.com.
  3. "Rain Pryor: Pouring The Tea". The BV Entertainment Newswire Blog. November 1, 2006. Archived from the original on January 15, 2007. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  4. "Multiracial Celebrities". Blackflix.com. November 6, 1972. Retrieved March 10, 2011.[ dead link ]
  5. "Rain Pryor & Mixed Rain Productions Inc - Home". Rainpryor.com. Retrieved March 10, 2011.
  6. 1 2 Vozzella, Laura (June 1, 2008). "Big girls find a home here" . The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved October 19, 2021.
  7. Pressley, Nelson (September 20, 2012). "Rain Pryor: Drought buster for Baltimore's Strand Theater?". The Washington Post.
  8. http://www.biography.com/people/rain-pryor-21093215?page=1 After multiple miscarriages, the couple had a daughter, Lotus Marie, on April 1, 2008.[ dead link ]
  9. "Rain Pryor Pregnant with First Bagy". Black Celebrity Kids. February 5, 2008.
  10. "Rain Pryor Welcomes Baby Lotus Marie". Black Celebrity Kids. August 7, 2008. Archived from the original on January 7, 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2022.