Dolemite, R.I.P.

1970s comic Rudy Ray Moore dies

AKRON, Ohio — Rudy Ray Moore, a 1970s comedian who played the title role of a flashy pimp in the movie “Dolemite” and influenced a generation of rappers, has died. He was 81.

Moore died Sunday at an Akron nursing home from complications of diabetes, said his brother, Gerald Moore.

Moore’s stage personality featured blunt sex routines but, unlike contemporaries Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor, he never crossed over to mainstream white audiences.

Moore played the fast-talking pimp and title character in the 1975 film “Dolemite.” In later years, Moore collaborated with 2 Live Crew, Big Daddy Kane and Snoop Dogg.
His other acting credits included “The Human Tornado” in 1976 and “Disco Godfather” in 1979.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081021/NEWS07/81021062

http://www.seanbaby.com/cleveland/part2.html (scroll down a bit)

"How can Dolemite be playing some tiny club in a nightmare neighborhood in Cleveland, and still not sell it out, when just a few countries away, David Hasselhoff is filling stadiums? And not filling them with people watching him rescue and resuscitate girls in bikinis, but people listening to him sing. For less money than it takes to buy David Hasselhoff the Ancient Chinese face cream he demands before he'll come out on stage, Rudy Ray Moore could make you nineteen kung fu movies about karate hookers laying siege to a disco. Rudy should run this country. Rudy should have the money to get David Hasselhoff himself melted down and made into a cream and the power to get away with it. What kind of fucked up Bizarro world do we live in when Steven Seagal is the one who's Above the Law, and Rudy Ray Moore is the one sitting on a folding chair and pretending to be nice to Erik just so he'll buy a fifteen dollar t-shirt? What kind of God would allow it? Checkmate, Pope."

My cousin is friends with him, oddly enough.

:cry: