Uncle Tom's Fairy Tales
| Uncle Tom's Fairy Tales | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Penelope Spheeris |
| Produced by | Richard Pryor |
| Starring | Richard Pryor |
Release dates | Never completed |
| Language | English |
Uncle Tom's Fairy Tales: The Movie for Homosexuals is a 1968 film directed by then-film student Penelope Spheeris (later the director of The Decline of Western Civilization and its two sequels), starring comedian Richard Pryor. The only known negative of the film was said to have been shredded by Pryor after a disagreement with his wife at the time.
However, in June 2005, scenes from the film appeared in a retrospective while Pryor was being honored by the Directors Guild of America. In August 2005, Pryor and his wife and attorney-in-fact, Jennifer Lee-Pryor, filed a lawsuit against Spheeris and Pryor's own daughter, Rain.[1] The suit claims that Spheeris and Pryor's daughter conspired to take the surviving film from his home sometime in the mid-1980s. According to the suit, he contacted Spheeris after the tribute. She allegedly revealed she had given the footage to the Academy Film Archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and intended to give the film to Rain.[2][3] Pryor died in December 2005 but the suit is still currently pending.