April 28, 2008

Encino, Calif. –- Richard Pryor sunk his teeth into making people laugh, and now one of those teeth is being auctioned off on eBay to raise money for another passion of the late comedian and actor: animal rescue.

“Richard was giving voice to animals way back in the day,” Pryor’s widow, Jennifer, told Pet Pulse. “That’s what people kind of either don’t know or forget. He had a real affinity to and for animals, and spoke to them, or for them.”

Richard was active in supporting People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Jennifer says.

A year before Richard’s death in 2005, he and Jennifer started Pryor’s Planet (PryorsPlanet.com). The organization is “dedicated to helping grassroots efforts in saving lives, providing sanctuary and making the world better place for all creatures,” according to its website.

“We think globally but act locally,” Jennifer said. “We work very intensely with the city of LA, we pull from shelters, we pick up on the street. We receive phone calls from people who are dumping their dogs. We take dogs who need surgery.

“We need funding, however. We are not funded. We are not a foundation. Hence, the raising of money. This is very expensive, everything we do.

“We board, we vet our animals, we do adoptions every Sunday at Laurel Canyon and Ventura Boulevard. It’s an overwhelming task, and this is just one thing I do. I’m a producer, and a writer, and I’m securing Richard’s legacy in this universe.”

Being auctioned off on eBay by Pryor’s Planet is a dental plate housing a false tooth Pryor wore. He used it for performing and public appearances, to replace a tooth he lost in the late 1980’s. Bidding ends Tuesday at midnight eastern time, so time is running out.

The winning bidder will receive a letter of authenticity from Jennifer. She says the idea for auctioning off Pryor’s tooth came when actor William Shatner recently auctioned off his kidney stone on eBay.

“We have not auctioned off anything this bizarre,” previously, she said.

Richard’s love of animals was among the traits that first attracted Jennifer to him, she says.

“One of my first recollections of really falling madly in love with Richard was in Hawaii when he gave a voice to a cow, and actually had a conversation with a cow in the field we were walking through,” she said.

The couple’s shared love of animals not only helped bring them together the first time, but played a key role when they got back together in 1994, after being divorced for many years.

“Anybody who has that kind of profound and deep connection, tells me that that’s a really, really, really sensitive person,” Pryor said. “And a person who is operating on a level where I want to be with that person.

“And certainly as I’ve grown older in this life, and wiser I hope, I’ve found out that the people I want to be around are those that love animals.

“And those who don’t, I see as a character flaw, I really do. I see as lacking compassion. Some screw is loose. Something is wrong.”

It’s no wonder Richard Pryor talked to the animals, considering some of his most classic stand-up routines revolved around conversations he imagined his pets were having with him or each other.

In one such bit, Pryor recalls one of his pet monkeys dying, and says to his shock he was consoled by a big, mean dog that lived next door and used to angrily chase him all the time.

“What’s the matter, Rich?” the dog ask Pryor, suddenly turning gentle. When Pryor says his monkey died, the dog expresses sympathy, saying, “Ain’t that a (shame).” After pausing, the dog adds, “And I was going to eat him too.”

Then the dog leaves to return home, first reminding Pryor, “Now you know that tomorrow I’m going to be chasing (you) again.”

“When I met him he had a Great Dane, he had a miniature pony, and loved all animals,” Jennifer said.

“I have a picture of him with a gecko, a little salamander creature, on his hand and he was talking to that,” she added. “Sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to the gecko.”

Also known for his personal life haunted by demons, like drugs, Pryor’s love for animals epitomized his more hidden side, which the public rarely saw, Jennifer says.

“The other side of Richard was so profoundly the other side, so angelic, so deeply human and so profoundly compassionate,” she said. “So intensely connected, and caring, and vulnerable and loving.

“And that connection to animals, that ability to have that empathy with and for animals, compassion, is what was one of the things that was the foundation of Richard.

“I really think it was the soul of Richard. It’s Richard’s soul. It’s who he really was.”

The Pryor’s were reunited as a couple after Richard became sick.

“There was this wonderful opportunity to resurrect the love, and turn lemons into lemonade, and one of the ways we did it was with the animals,” she said. “That was a marvelous common ground that we always shared.

“That’s a time when you really look at what’s important. And animals became one of the most important things in our lives.”

Whoever wins Pryor’s tooth not only contributes to rescuing animals, but also gets a piece, literally, of the man comedienne Whoopi Goldberg described thusly: “There will never be another Richard Pryor. He is, and always has been, the funniest man alive.”

To bid on the tooth, log onto ebay.com and enter item number 200218193629, or go to PryorsPlanet.com for a direct link to eBay’s page for the tooth auction.

Whatever your favorite Richard Pryor moment, remember, that tooth likely was there for it.

“His smile and his laughter, that tooth was a witness to it,” Jennifer said, laughing.

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