https://youtu.be/Qz0WdX4claY?t=5
Paul Mooney’s comedy was fearless and true just like Dick Gregory. Icons can not be replaced just missed for a lifetime. His comedy was a history lesson on America sending an alarm for people to wake up he was not scared. He was the truth.
“Thank you all from the bottom of all of our hearts …you’re all are the best,” the tweet reads. “Mooney World .. The Godfather of Comedy – ONE MOON MANY STARS! .. To all in love with this great man.. many thanks.”
Mooney, whose birth name is Paul Gladney, worked as both an actor and a writer in his career, which spanned seven decades. He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1941 and moved to Oakland, California, several years later.
He was the head writer on The Richard Pryor Show in 1977 and co-wrote several of Richard Pryor’s comedy albums and Saturday Night Live jokes. Mooney also served as a writer on the 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son, 1990s sketch comedy series In Living Color, and Chappelle’s Show, which premiered in 2003 before going off the air three years later, where he played a recurring character called Negrodamus.
As an actor, he’s known for playing Sam Cooke in the 1978 Academy Award-winning film, The Buddy Holly Story. Mooney also portrayed Junebug in Spike Lee’s 2000 satirical-comedy, Bamboozled, and was most recently cast in the 2016 film Meet the Blacks.
In 2009, Simon & Schuster published Mooney’s memoir, titled Black Is the New White. The book featured a foreword written by comedian Dave Chappelle.
Mooney is survived by his four children: Dwayne Mooney, Shane Mooney, Daryl Mooney, and Symeon Mooney.
Many celebrities took to social media to remember the famed comedian, including Oscar winner Viola Davis, Ava DuVernay, Maxwell and comedian W. Kamau Bell.