Richard Pryor was Mel Brooks's original choice to play Sheriff Bart, and he ultimately became one of the film's credited screenwriters rather than its star. For years, Brooks repeated the story that Warner Bros. rejected Pryor because his drug arrests supposedly made him uninsurable. That explanation became part of the film's mythology: the comedian whose life and reputation were considered too volatile for the lead was still allowed to help write one of Hollywood's most aggressively subversive comedies. Later accounts, however, complicated—and effectively undercut—the insurance explanation. By 2013, it was acknowledged that Brooks had abandoned the idea of Pryor starring by early 1972, well before the film went into production. Director Michael Schultz, who knew Pryor and saw the finished film in theaters, said Brooks feared Pryor would overshadow him. Cleavon Little was cast as Bart, while Pryor's distinctive comic voice remained embedded in the screenplay and its racial satire. The result is a persistent Hollywood anecdote in which a convenient studio excuse appears to have concealed a more personal casting decision.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
The Richard Pryor 'Uninsurable' Story That Mel Brooks Later Helped Turn Into Hollywood Lore
Richard Pryor and Blazing Saddles / 1970s
Richard Pryor was Mel Brooks's original choice to play Sheriff Bart, and he ultimately became one of the film's credited screenwriters rather than its star. For years, Brooks repeated the story that Warner Bros. rejected Pryor because his drug arrests supposedly made him uninsurable. That explanation became part of the film's mythology: the comedian whose life and reputation were considered too volatile for the lead was still allowed to help write one of Hollywood's most aggressively subversive comedies. Later accounts, however, complicated—and effectively undercut—the insurance explanation. By 2013, it was acknowledged that Brooks had abandoned the idea of Pryor starring by early 1972, well before the film went into production. Director Michael Schultz, who knew Pryor and saw the finished film in theaters, said Brooks feared Pryor would overshadow him. Cleavon Little was cast as Bart, while Pryor's distinctive comic voice remained embedded in the screenplay and its racial satire. The result is a persistent Hollywood anecdote in which a convenient studio excuse appears to have concealed a more personal casting decision.
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