newsmakers

newsmakers

Richard Pryor statue to be unveiled

PEORIA, Ill.

A yearslong effort to honor the late comedian Richard Pryor with a statue in Peoria is coming to a conclusion and prompting some residents of his hometown to re-examine the comic and his legacy.

Sculptor Preston Jackson will unveil the 9-foot bronze statue today in the city’s Warehouse District at the corner of Washington and State streets.

For nearly nine years, Jackson has dedicated himself to seeing the statue stand in Peoria, the city where the comedian and actor was born and raised that’s 125 miles southwest of Chicago. Pryor died in 2005.

Along the way he’s faced challenges coming up with the money. He’s also had to overcome hesitancy from some in Peoria who objected to honoring an entertainer who abused drugs and was known for foul-mouthed humor.

Jackson wrestled with that concern but said he came to believe that Pryor’s art overshadowed his personal failings.

“If a human being doesn’t have any comfort and love, they will turn bad, and I began to understand his life,” Jackson told the (Peoria) Journal Star.

Pryor had a difficult upbringing and was one of four children raised in his grandmother’s brothel.

Polanski gets film award in Poland

WARSAW, Poland

Filmmaker Roman Polanski has received a film award and pressed his palms into plaster for the hall of independent cinema stars in Krakow — the same Polish city where a court is weighing a U.S. request for his extradition.

Polanski attended the opening late Friday of the eighth edition of the PKO Off Camera film festival and was awarded the “Against the Current” award for independence in art.

In February, the Oscar-winning director appeared in a Krakow court for a hearing related to a U.S. request for his extradition concerning charges of sex with a minor, a case that has haunted him since 1977.

Associated Press