{"id":5757,"date":"2005-12-18T00:00:22","date_gmt":"2005-12-18T00:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/?p=5757"},"modified":"2014-10-10T20:12:17","modified_gmt":"2014-10-10T20:12:17","slug":"a-childhood-friend-recalls-richards-street-origins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/2005\/12\/18\/a-childhood-friend-recalls-richards-street-origins\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Clark Recalls Richard&#8217;s Early Love for Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Clark, a childhood friend of Richard Pryor, recalled the comic&#8217;s beginnings in this 2005\u00a0<em>Peoria Journal Star<\/em>\u00a0piece, published after Pryor&#8217;s death. Clark knew a lonely Pryor, a boy who, as an only child growing up in a brothel, was surrounded by adult dealings and hankered to join the playtime of his large set of brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n<p>Richard&#8217;s bottled-up imagination made him, as Clark notes, a prime target for Julitette Whittaker&#8217;s mentorship. Clark remembers a boy who, armed with Whittaker&#8217;s confidence and an unshakable work ethic, performed for anyone who would listen \u2014 even it meant performing on the street before an audience that was sometimes indifferent or hostile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Clark, a childhood friend of Richard Pryor, recalled the comic&#8217;s beginnings in this 2005\u00a0Peoria Journal Star\u00a0piece, published after Pryor&#8217;s death. Clark knew a lonely Pryor, a boy who, as an only child [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[367,413,195,414,209,54,25],"tags":[421,383,72,424,242,97,331,425,252,48,384],"class_list":["post-5757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natural-born-star","category-3-finding-himself-at-carver","category-the-magic-realm-of-miss-whittaker","category-4-young-man-young-comic","category-remembering-juliette-whittaker","category-richard-pryor","category-making-of-a-comic","tag-carver-center","tag-childhood-friend","tag-comedy","tag-juliette-whittaker","tag-matt-clark","tag-peoria","tag-peoria-journal-star","tag-richard-pryor","tag-roosevelt-junior-high","tag-stage","tag-stand-up"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Matt Clark Recalls Richard&#039;s Early Love for Performance - Richard Pryor&#039;s Peoria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/2005\/12\/18\/a-childhood-friend-recalls-richards-street-origins\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matt Clark Recalls Richard&#039;s Early Love for Performance - Richard Pryor&#039;s Peoria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Matt Clark, a childhood friend of Richard Pryor, recalled the comic&#8217;s beginnings in this 2005\u00a0Peoria Journal Star\u00a0piece, published after Pryor&#8217;s death. 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