Dick Gregory finds right mix of social activism and comedy
At 84, Dick Gregory sounds disinclined to take it easy. As a stand-up comedian, he still does 150 dates a year.
That figure is light compared to Gregory’s work as a social activist, which by his count has netted him more than 50 arrests in Washington, D.C., alone. His comedy routines fuse the two, taking the outrage of his activism and framing it with humor, which doesn’t work for everyone. Gregory’s website has a quote from former Alabama Gov. George Wallace: “I don’t think Dick Gregory is funny … not any more.”
The St. Louis native
got his start doing stand-up while in the Army in the 1950s, settling in Chicago afterward, where he started working in a segregated comedy scene. He caught the attention of robe-enthusiast Hugh Hefner, who hired Gregory to perform at Hefner’s Playboy club in Chicago, at which point Gregory’s career got some traction. In the five-plus decades since, he’s done more than 15 comedy albums, written more than 15 books, appeared on TV and in films and has probably lost track of the rallies and other events.
Gregory will headline two nights at the Improv this week. He talked about his long career.
Q: Fifty-plus years is a long time to make a living with comedy. Has your approach changed a lot over the years?
A: It is a long time. Comedy, there’s no school for comedy. You can go to school to be a writer or a business person. But there’s nothing like that for comedy. And that’s why so many comics are different. When you sit and listen you notice the different. Now, also, there’s comedy and there’s humor. And the difference between the two is timing, timing, timing. When you tell a joke at a party or your grandfather comes at Christmas and tells jokes, they’re not using timing. They’re using humor. Same joke gets told at Christmas every year for 25 years, and it’s because people like to hear it. But nobody comes to a comedy club for that. They get dressed up and they come to hear you, even if they’ve never heard you before. And nobody comes out to see you die out there. They’re not showing up thinking, “I know this cat is no good.” That’s the difference. And it’s the most important thing in comedy.
Q: You’ve witnessed incredible changes in the way information travels in that time. How do you think that has affected comedy?
A: (Laughs.) It’s true. My thing is, I read thousands of dollars of newspaper work a day. On stage, I want it so there’s nothing happening in the world that I can’t talk about. Information now, it’s so fast, a plane crashes in Budapest and 20 minutes later you have the bodies in your living room. That’s how fast it’s moving. It’s more than a race car driver type of speed. And also, you can’t hold it for as long. So you do go back to the beginnings. The first biggest laugh you ever got from somebody wasn’t as a professional comedian. It was friends or relatives. But the rhythms of comedy start there. You may know you’re going to be funny. It’s still not a comedian. But like I said, there’s no school for it, like a singer or a dancer or a chemical engineer. Nuclear physicist. And that’s where those differences come out. If Liz Taylor in her heyday wanted to be a comedian, it wouldn’t work if she started talking about unglamorous women. Queen Elizabeth — one of the richest white people on the planet — couldn’t talk about poor folks. You learn you can do more the more limits you have.
Q: Was there a point at which you felt it was starting to work out for you?
A: What changed my life was when I was in Chicago making $5 a night, three nights a week. There was a handyman there, and I asked him to meet me there one night. I was going to give him $15, a week’s pay, just to show up at the club. This was a Saturday. The place was cleaned up from Friday night. So he set everything up, and I did my act for two hours to empty chairs. That was my way of learning a real respect for people. Because a chair can’t laugh at your act. You have to think about anybody who might come in. Even a heckler, it’s your job to make them laugh. From that day on, my whole life was different. From that day on, I was never scared of any audience. I’m frightened of empty chairs. That’s the way I’ve been working.
Q: I would imagine opportunities were scarce as a black comic in the ’50s.
A: That’s true. Though it’s bad for lots of people. Look how long it took for women comics to make it. All the old sitcoms, they’re the butt of the joke. That’s beginning to fade, but it’s a long time trying to correct it. But Hugh Hefner was the first person to permit a black comic in a white club. And I tell you, this was no U.S. law, it was no law of the land. But a Negro comic couldn’t work in a white nightclub. You could sing and dance and roll your eyes. But you couldn’t stand flat-footed and talk to white folks. I think it’s because they’d know how brilliant you were. But Hugh Hefner hired me, and I went from making $5 a night, three nights a week, with a wife and family, to Main Street where the people who used to see me couldn’t afford to see me.
I’ve tried to be there in other ways. I’ve always been listed in the phone book, I’ve never had a body guard. I never had any arrogance. But my children were able to realize something I wasn’t able to realize when I was their age. If they needed something, they didn’t have to wait until payday. If they had a sore throat, we took the car to the doctor that day. When I had a sore throat as a child, we had to wait till we had the money to go to the doctor.
Q: You’ve put at least as much energy, if not more, into activism as opposed to just being a comedian. I heard you’ve been arrested more than 50 times in Washington, D.C., alone.
A: I have no respect for entertainers and athletes who aren’t anything but entertainers and athletes. … Muhammad Ali was a rare person. He changed the world. It may be hard for children today to remember what a fantastic athlete he was. It was such a pleasure, not just to know him personally, but to be on the planet at the same time.
But so much of it isn’t about color, it’s about money. If you got a Rolls and I got a Chevy, you don’t understand mine and I don’t understand yours. White’s not a color, it’s an attitude. …
I remember we were in Mississippi once with a truck full of food to deliver. The teamsters were bringing a load in. And this white boy went and threw a brick and hit the truck. That union guy jumped out, and I said, “Hold it just a minute.” And I went and talked to the boy. I told him, “That kind of thing will get you killed, so walk on to the corner now, and run your (expletive) off.”
I saw him later that night, and I asked him, “What made you throw that brick at the truck?” And he told me he saw that it had an Illinois license plate. It said, “Land of Lincoln.” I learned something there. He hated that so bad that it made him throw a brick. But I don’t know any folks in Mississippi that would get rid of a $5 bill with his name and picture on it. Right then I understood the power of money. And I realized you can take it and try to use it to change things.