Richard Pryor's Early Years on Television

Richard Pryor worked extensively in television prior to his career in feature films.  He started out making appearances on talk shows and variety shows.
 

Later, he  took on acting roles in a number of series, including The Wild Wild West ("The Night of the Eccentrics," 1966), The Young Lawyers ("The Pilot," 1969), The Partridge Family ("Soul Club," 1971) and Mod Squad ("The Connection," 1972).

Pryor plays a villainous ventriloquist on The Wild Wild West.

He was featured with Louis Gossett, Jr. on The Partridge Family.

Dave Madden, a regular on the series, said:

I had known Dick Pryor a little bit too because I had done stand-up comedy and I had met him before too. I had fun on that show. . . The only thing that was a little disturbing to me is that Pryor was in the habit of not sticking to the script. He loved to just ad-lib the scene and say what he felt like saying. Which is alright except if you have to take cues, if you have a line that comes off of one his lines, you have to know when he' s going to finish. Maybe you don' t have to know exactly what he' s going to say but you have to know when he' s going to finish, or you' re going to be standing there waiting for him to say something. They didn't seem to mind him doing that.

"Richard Pryor in Hollywood" can be purchased at Amazon.