Editing Richard Pryor (section)

==Early life==
Pryor was born on December 1, 1940, in [[Peoria, Illinois]]. He grew up in a brothel run by his grandmother, Marie Carter, where his alcoholic mother, Gertrude L. (née Thomas), was a prostitute.<ref>{{cite news|first=Larry|last=Getlen|url=http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/richard_the_great_FmHiNQqrDQ08jcRI576TUI |title=Richard the Great |newspaper=[[New York Post]] |date=May 28, 2013|access-date=June 8, 2013}}</ref> His father, LeRoy "Buck Carter" Pryor (June 7, 1915&nbsp;– September 27, 1968), was a former boxer, [[Hustling|hustler]] and [[pimp]].<ref name="official">{{cite web|url=http://richardpryor.com/biography.php|website=RichardPryor.com|title= Richard Pryor's official biography}}</ref> After Gertrude abandoned him when he was 10, Pryor was raised primarily by Marie,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.richardpryor.com/0/4113/0/1240D1271/ |title=Richard Pryor website |website=Richardpryor.com |access-date=June 17, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100523025200/http://www.richardpryor.com/0/4113/0/1240D1271 |archive-date=May 23, 2010 }}</ref> a tall, violent woman who would beat him for any of his eccentricities. Pryor was one of four children raised in his grandmother's brothel. He was [[child sexual abuse|sexually abused]] at age seven,<ref name=":0">{{cite news|first=Steve|last=Jones|url= https://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-12-10-richard-pryor-obit_x.htm |title=Comedian Richard Pryor dies at 65|work=[[USA Today]]|date= December 10, 2005}}</ref> and expelled from school at the age of 14.<ref name="New Yorker">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/09/13/a-pryor-love|title=A Pryor Love|first=Hilton|last=Als|date=September 13, 1999|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|author-link=Hilton Als}}</ref>

Pryor served in the [[U.S. Army]] from 1958 to 1960, but spent virtually the entire stint in an army prison. According to a 1999 profile article 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 (1959 film)|Imitation of Life]]'', Pryor and several other black soldiers beat and stabbed him, although the soldier survived.<ref name="New Yorker"/>

He was a member of Henry Brown Lodge No. 22 in Peoria, where he became a [[Prince Hall Freemason]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Richard Pryor |url=http://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/pryor_r/pryor_r.html |access-date=October 23, 2014 |website=freemasonry.bcy.ca}}</ref>