This just in

Richard Pryor has died of a heart attack at 65. Story here.

Pryor, whose audacious style influenced an array of stand-up artists, had been ill for years with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system.

Regarded early in his career as one of the most foul-mouthed comics in the business, Pryor gained a wide following for his expletive-filled but universal and frequently personal insights into modern life and race relations.

It's axiomatic that comedians are some of the unhappiest people alive. it seems to me to be kind of a chicken-or-egg question: Do they hurt from having to make light of the painful aspects of the human condition, or do they laugh to avoid crying out? Maybe it's both.

Either way, may God grant him the peace that eluded him on earth.