Richard Pryor was one of the writers on this Mel Brooks 1967 comedy, and Brooks had intended for Pryor to star as his Western spoof’s racism-confronting, African-American new sheriff in town, Black Bart. But the movie studio wouldn’t insure Pryor for the film (even that early, his bouts with substance abuse were well known), so Brooks cast Cleavon Little instead. Similarly, Brooks had hired Gig Young to play Black Bart’s eventual sidekick, the alcoholic Waco Kid, but on the fir