How to Talk to Anyone (Junior Talker #5) by DeYtH Banger (old books to read .TXT) 📕

Hollywood biopic of Pryor's life, with Michael B Jordan - who played Wallace in The Wire and recently starred in Fruitvale Station - playing the comedian.

Asked why Murphy, Cosby and Wilder declined to be in the film, she says: "People are more interested in their own story and they don't necessarily want to talk about public figures unless it suits them.

"They don't have to do it and they don't know how it's going to be done."

Pryor was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986 and his health deteriorated severely during the 1990s.

One of the most touching moments of the film is when his former lawyer Skip Brittenham wells up with tears as he recalls Pryor's last years.

Zenovich says: "It was never my goal to get him to cry. Jennifer didn't think he would talk but he said yes. He loved Richard so much. When he started tearing up he said, 'I didn't know I had this in me.'"

For her documentary Zenovich dug out some footage of Pryor being asked how he wanted to be remembered after he died.

In a rare moment of straight-faced candour, he said: "I'd like the people to see my picture and laugh and have stories to tell, tell some lies on me... just to bring joy."

 

 

Comedians both extrovert and introvert, shows study

 

 

 

Comedians have personality types linked with psychosis, a study by Oxford University researchers suggests.

They score highly on characteristics that in extreme cases are associated with mental illness.

Professor Gordon Claridge, who conducted the research, told the Today programme's Mishal Husain that comedians have a "peculiar combination" of impulsive extroversion and introversion.

He explained that the findings give credence to the idea that there is a link between madness and creativity.

Comedian Susan Murray described comics as "naturally shy people that have a creative outlet"

 

 

 

Robin Williams and the link between comedy and depression

By Ian Youngs

 

 

Robin Williams was one of many comedians who made people laugh while simultaneously struggling with a personal darkness. Are comics more prone to depression - and if so, why?

"It doesn't take a genius to work out that comedians are a little bit nuts." Those were the words of comedian Susan Murray earlier this year, responding to an academic study that suggested comedians had unusual psychological traits linked with psychosis.

It takes a certain type of person to stand up and make a fool of themselves in public. But there is a difference between being a bit zany and suffering mental health problems.

However, the image of comedians as tortured souls who tell jokes in an attempt to dispel their inner demons has become common over the years.

Kenneth Williams once said: "I certainly wouldn't call myself a happy human being. All the comedians I've known have been deeply depressive people, manic depressive... They kept it at bay with this facade."

 

 

 

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Spike Milligan published a book titled Depression And How To Survive It

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Stephen Fry presented a TV documentary titled The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive

Tony Hancock took his own life. Spike Milligan suffered profound depression and published a book titled Depression And How To Survive It.

Peter Cook, John Cleese, Ruby Wax, Jack Dee, Caroline Aherne and David Walliams are among the others who have spoken about their inner turmoil.

Stephen Fry, who has bipolar disorder, presented a TV documentary titled The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive in 2006. Last year, he revealed he had tried to kill himself in 2012.

Fry said: "There are times when I'm doing QI and I'm going, 'ha ha, yeah, yeah' and inside I'm going, 'I want to die.'"

Robin Williams was also reported to have had bipolar disorder, which seriously affects the mood, with people swinging between phases of extreme happiness and creativity to severe, crushing depression.

"Among the creative professions, it's very, very common," says comedy producer and performer John Lloyd, who made the TV series QI and Blackadder.

 

 

"There's a very, very high incidence of bipolar disorder. It's because stable people think the world's fine as it is. They don't see any particular need to change it.

"Creative people don't feel like that. People who want to change the world tend to suffer a lot for it."

Comedians, Lloyd adds, are more likely to have extremes of personality because they are "more extreme people".

"Robin Williams was a complete genius and did an enormous body of work. You can't do that if you're just depressed. You're more likely to do that if you're bipolar and you have terrific bursts of creative activity.

"And there's a price for everything. Often, and I know this as a television producer, if you've finished a series and you've been on a high with pumping adrenalin every day, when you come down from it you're really low. It's punishing."

 

John Lloyd (second right) produced shows including Not the Nine O'Clock News'Unusual' personalities

In January, academics from the University of Oxford published the results of research into comedians' psychological traits (this is the report Susan Murray was responding to above).

Professor Gordon Claridge, of the University of Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology, studied personality questionnaires filled in by 523 comedians (404 men and 119 women) from the UK, US and Australia.

"We found that comedians had a rather unusual personality profile, which was rather contradictory," Prof Claridge says.

"On the one hand, they were rather introverted, depressive, rather schizoid, you might say. And on the other hand, they were rather extroverted and manic.

"That was a rather unusual profile. The actors we compared them with didn't show that, and this was highly significantly different from the norms on the test.

"Possibly the comedy - the extroverted side - is a way of dealing with the depressive side. Of course, this is not true of all comedians."

Laughing to cope

It is not. Not every comedian has difficulties, and depression is far from particular to creative personalities.

Depression is the single biggest killer of men aged 20-49 in the UK, according to the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm). It touches all corners of society.

Dr Nick Maguire, a senior lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Southampton, says there may be a connection between depression and comedy - but "it's certainly not a very strong one".

However, he says different people have different ways of coping.

"People often isolate themselves," he explains. "Another way of temporarily reducing the impact of those emotions is to make people laugh, to make people like you.

"Unfortunately, the release can sometimes be very temporary. It's fine as long as it's happening, but when you go home again, what do you do?"

 

Terry Gilliam (right) said Robin Williams' comedic talent had been 'a miracle' but there was 'a price to pay'

In public, Robin Williams always seemed to be performing, always the wise-cracking firecracker who wanted to make people laugh.

He made no secret of his problems with alcohol and marriage break-downs, but spoke more guardedly about his bouts of anxiety in interviews, usually attempting to look on the bright side.

"Every time you get depressed, comedy will be there to drag your ass out of it," he told The Guardian in 1996.

Terry Gilliam, who directed Williams in the Golden Globe-winning film The Fisher King, said the star's comedic talent had been "a miracle", but such a gift "doesn't come from nothing".

"When the gods gift you with the kind of talent Robin had, there's a price to pay," the Monty Python star told the BBC.

"It comes from deep problems inside. A concern, all sorts of fears. Yet he could always channel those things and turn them into gold.

"I think that comes with the territory."

Chapter 9.2 - Not Funny Enough (Part 3)

 Steve Martin conquered Hollywood despite his anxiety attacks

 

 

 

Often we can look at people who are in the public eye who appear to be very confident performers without knowing what is going on underneath what we see. I help so many people to end panic attacks and anxiety and so many of the clients who work with me do feel that perhaps they are the only person who experiences the intensity of what happens during a panic attack.

 

Whilst was reading the book “Born standing up” by Steve Martin, Hollywood star and writer, I came across a passage where he talked about his own anxiety attacks and his description may well ring a bell if you feel you have suffered and no one can explain how it feels...

“In the car on the way to the theatre, I felt my mind being torn from its present location and lifted into the ether. My discomfort intensified, and I experienced an eerie distancing from my own self that crystallized into morbid doom. I mutely waited for the feeling to pass. It didn’t, and I finally said, “I feel strange.” We got out of the car, and John, George, and Carole walked me along Sunset Boulevard in the night. I decided to go into the theatre, thinking it might be distracting. During the film, I sat in stoic silence as my heart began to race above two hundred beats per minute and the saliva drained from my mouth so completely that I could not move my tongue. I assumed this was the heart attack I had been waiting for, though I wasn’t feeling pain. I was, however, experiencing extreme fear; I thought I was dying, and I can’t explain to you why I just sat there. After the movie, I considered checking myself in to a hospital. But if I went to the hospital, I would miss work the next day, which might make me expendable at CBS, where my career was just launching. My friends walked me along Sunset again, and I remember humming, “Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect and whistle a happy tune” from The King and I. I spent the night on George and Carole’s couch in absolute terror. I kept wondering, “Am I dying?” but was more concerned with the question “Do I have to quit my job?”

 

I survived the night and struggled in to work the next morning. I was not relieved, but I was calmer; I confessed to Bob Einstein what had happened and found that as soon as I discussed the symptoms, they arose again with full intensity. However, I somehow maintained my implacable façade.

 

The cycle was unbreakable. Any relief was followed by the worry of recurrence, which itself provoked the symptoms. After a few weeks, a list of triggers developed. I couldn’t go back into a movie theatre, and I didn’t for at least ten years. I never smoked pot again, or got involved in the era’s preoccupation with illicit substances (I’m sure this event helped me avoid the scourge of cocaine). However, the worst trigger was a certain event that, cruelly, happened every day. It was night. Eventually, I could find my way through the daytime, but as I left work, winding my way up the canyon streets as the sun set, I imagined feeling the slight rise in elevation and the air getting thinner. Nuts, I know. As a teenager, I had mixed a sombre