Groundbreaking comedian Dick Gregory bringing his standup act to The Comedy Zone

Dick Gregory began making headlines more than 50 years ago, as a groundbreaking black comedian who fearlessly faced white audiences and told jokes about bigotry.

He's 83 now, and still at it.

When he brings his standup act to The Comedy Zone on Wednesday for one show, you can expect him to share his particular brand of relevant and thought-provoking humor.

Here's an example: "I look at white folks now. … If these cops were killing white folks' dogs, they'd have burned the police stations down in all the cities."

Gregory tossed out the line during a phone interview from Dallas, where he was scheduled for two stand-up shows before heading to Louisville, Ky., for the funeral of longtime friend Muhammad Ali.

Though standup brought Gregory fame, it isn't the only thing that's kept him going over the years.

An early participant in the civil rights movement who embraced nonviolence as articulated by Martin Luther King Jr., he has continued to find causes to get behind: feminism, health care and nutrition, animal rights and more. Gregory has frequently staged hunger strikes to call attention to issues.

He's written numerous books - from memoirs to diet advice. He's a frequent guest on talk radio shows (his views as a conspiracy theorist are widely quoted), and makes about 200 public appearances a year, though he's more likely to make a speech these days than perform at a comedy club, he said.

Gregory is also the subject of the critically praised play "Turn Me Loose" at the Westside Theatre in New York. Joe Morton from the ABC series "Scandal" plays the comedian and activist.

Essentially a one-man show, it focuses on Gregory during his transformative years as "the first African-American comedian to expose white audiences to racially charged humor."

Here's more of the interview with the comedian and activist about the present and past:

Your story is being told in a Broadway play. How do you feel about that?

It's fantastic. The weird thing about Broadway, there ain't too many people [portrayed] on Broadway that are still alive. [He laughs.]

Have you seen the show?

Yeah, I saw it on opening night.

What did you think of it?

I've never seen anything in my life as wonderful as that. What's so different about it, I'm a comic, not an actor. He's an actor, and he played me well.

So Joe Morton makes a pretty good Dick Gregory?

Oh, he goes past that. There's a difference between being on stage on Broadway and doing comedy. On Broadway, you're supposed to be an actor doing it, not a comic. On Broadway, if you're playing a singer, an actor can do it better than a singer can, because they're used to acting, and a singer's used to singing.

Did the two of you meet before the show went into rehearsal?

I told him I didn't want to. I want them to have artistic freedom. I don't want to see the script. I'll have one or two of my children read it. The only restriction I got is, you can't take a race of people and tell a lie about them. If you're talking about Hitler, you can do whatever you want to do. And then they gave [the script] to my children, and my children said they read it, and I think you'll like it, and that's all. I didn't see it until opening night.

You were working at a black-owned club in Chicago when Hugh Hefner gave you your first big break. What was it like for black comics in 1961?

When I started, a black comic couldn't work a white nightclub. You could sing, you could dance, but you couldn't stand flat-footed and talk - then the system would know how brilliant black folks was. So Hugh Hefner, he came up to this black club, when Sammy Davis and all of them were there, and he saw me. And then one day Professor Irwin Corey decided that he wasn't going to work seven days, and they brought me in [as a replacement at the Playboy Club] because Hefner saw me. No other reason. And that started a whole new industry.

Your appearance on Jack Paar's show was the next turning point for you.

My appearance on the Jack Paar show is a universal gift from the god that made the planet. I had watched Jack Paar for five years. Never missed a night. And I knew, if I ever got on the Paar show, I would be big. I'm sitting in a bar one day, talking to [jazz musician] Billy Eckstine, and [the subject of ] Paar came up. And he said, "All a black person can do is go on the show. He ain't never let a black person sit down on the couch." And I didn't know that. I cried all the way home that night, because I been looking at it - I call myself super black - and I didn't see that. So I go to the Playboy Club, and Time magazine gave me a write-up. Paar saw the write-up, and his office called. "This is Mr. So-and-so, I'm the producer of the Jack Paar show, and he read the article in Time magazine, and he almost lost his mind, and wants to know if you'll come in and do the show tonight." And I said, "No, I don't want to work the Paar show," and I hung up.

Now, I'm crying, and getting ready to explain to my wife, and the phone rings again. So Jack Paar is on the phone, and he said, "Well, come on in, you can sit down." And I went in, and as I sat on the couch, talking about my children, so many people called the switchboard at NBC in New York the circuits blew out. And thousands of letters came in, and folks were saying, "I didn't know black children and white children were the same." And my salary jumped that night from seven days a week at the Playboy Club for $250 a week, three shows a night, to $25,000 a night over a six-month period. And the next year and a half, I made $3.9 million. That is the power. Now, I vowed I would never tell anybody about this until after Paar died. Do you know why? If I had been watching the show for five years and didn't know black folks wasn't sitting down, maybe he didn't either, you know? [He laughs.]

You've written books on a variety of subjects. Which one is a good introduction for someone who may not know much about you?

They're so different. … The food book I had ["Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' With Mother Nature" 1973) changed the eating habits of America. And somebody asked me the other day, "You've been fasting for 40 years, what does your doctor think?" I said, "My doctor's been dead for 30 years."

What inspired you to become a vegetarian?

Probably the No. 1 nutritionist in the world, a woman named Dr. [Alvenia] Fulton [a pioneer in the health food industry]. She's the one who talked to me. I didn't know. I thought good nutrition was when anything you were eating didn't run out until you had enough. And I thought bad nutrition is anything that ran out before you had enough.

Would you share a story about your friend Muhammad Ali?

Ali would just keep you laughing. And I never heard him … he called everybody "Yes, sir" and "no, sir," "no ma'am," "yes ma'am." He was so kind and pleasant all the time. I just could not believe it. And one day he asked me, "You need anything, you need anything for the movement?" And maybe it was $200,000, and I'll split it up with the various groups. And there were never no questions asked. None whatsoever. I was marching from L.A. to New York to dramatize domestic hunger. And he said, "Anytime I'm not at a fight, or getting ready, I'll be out there, and I'll walk with you."

You've been involved with many causes over the years. What's No. 1 on your list now?

All of them.

So the world doesn't make it easy to slow down when you're an activist?

No, not at all. It's just like being a firefighter or a cop, and the temperature gets up to 150 degrees, you have to be out there. If the stoplights go out, when the tornado hits, you have to be there.

David Crumpler: (904) 359-4164