At the later talent shows, perhaps because he had more time to extend himself and perhaps because he drew on his recent work with the Youth Theater Guild, Richard started taking on characters more fully. He did "impressions" of well-known figures from the community, and the audience howled in recognition of how Richard captured their quirks and body language. His favorite character, though, was an invention of his own: a black superhero too poor to buy his own suit, who went to rummage sales and put one together out of used pantyhose, a cape (which he stole), and a pair of shoes that were clownishly large: "The Rummage Sale Ranger." Like Juliette Whittaker, who built her stage out of tossed-out orange crates, the Rummage Sale Ranger made an art out of making do. He was the comic book hero of Richard's imagination and a mirror for everything he adored about the improvisational spirit of Juliette.
Scott Saul "Becoming Richard Pryor" (2014)
