Redd Foxx Biography Quotes 7 Report mistakes

Early Life
Redd Foxx was born John Elroy Sanford on December 9, 1922, in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up largely on the South Side of Chicago. As a teenager he gravitated toward performance and the street-corner wit that defined the neighborhoods where he came of age. Seeking a bigger stage, he headed to New York and settled in Harlem, where he worked odd jobs while honing a quick, cutting sense of humor. In Harlem he befriended a young Malcolm X; the two were briefly dishwashers together at Jimmy's Chicken Shack and were nicknamed Chicago Red (Foxx) and Detroit Red (Malcolm) for their reddish hair. Malcolm X later wrote about Foxx in his autobiography, memorializing the young comedian's hustle and timing years before the wider world knew his name.

Breakthrough in Stand-Up
Foxx built his reputation on the Black nightclub circuit, the so-called chitlin' circuit, throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He crafted a style that was unfiltered, improvisational, and deeply rooted in everyday observations, working with the crowd as much as telling jokes to it. In the 1950s he began recording so-called party records, sold under-the-counter in bars, barbershops, and record stores. Those albums, cut for small independent labels and traded hand to hand, made him a star among audiences who craved humor that mainstream venues would not yet tolerate. By the early 1960s he had recorded dozens of albums, developing a national following and influencing a generation of comics with his timing, double-entendre, and fearlessness. His club appearances in Los Angeles and Las Vegas brought him into contact with television bookers, and he began to appear on talk shows and variety programs that showcased his cleaner material to broader audiences.

Television Stardom: Sanford and Son
In 1972 Foxx made the leap to television stardom as Fred G. Sanford in Sanford and Son, adapted by Norman Lear and collaborators from the British series Steptoe and Son. Playing a widowed junk dealer in Watts opposite Demond Wilson as his long-suffering son Lamont, Foxx created a singular TV character: cantankerous, resourceful, and eternally scheming, with a gravelly voice and a repertoire of insults and catchphrases. His mock heart-attack cry, "I'm comin', Elizabeth!" became part of the national lexicon. The supporting ensemble, including LaWanda Page as Aunt Esther, Whitman Mayo as Grady, Don Bexley as Bubba, and Nathaniel Taylor as Rollo, amplified the chemistry and gave Foxx a troupe of foils to play against.

Sanford and Son was a breakthrough, placing a Black working-class family at the center of a top-rated network sitcom. Foxx's performance earned him awards and cemented his status as a household name. Offscreen he pushed for better compensation and creative control, and periodic disputes led to absences that reflected both his value to the show and the growing pains of integrating nightclub sensibilities into network television. The original series ended in 1977; Foxx later returned in a short-lived follow-up called Sanford that attempted to revive the character without Wilson.

Film and Later Television
Foxx continued to work in stand-up and on television after Sanford and Son. He headlined in Las Vegas and tried new series, including The Redd Foxx Show in the mid-1980s. His film profile rose again when Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor cast him in Harlem Nights (1989), a multigenerational comedy that highlighted Foxx's veteran instincts alongside younger stars. Murphy, a longtime admirer, also helped shepherd Foxx's return to weekly television with The Royal Family in 1991, co-starring Della Reese. The series showcased Foxx as a patriarch in a new setting, drawing on his knack for verbal sparring and familial banter.

Personal Life and Challenges
Behind the scenes, Foxx was known for generosity to friends and fellow performers, an inclination that included championing LaWanda Page for her role on Sanford and Son when others doubted she could adapt to television. He also experienced the volatility that comes with nightclubs, long tours, and fame. He married multiple times and maintained close ties to extended family, including a daughter he adopted during one of his marriages. Financial difficulties shadowed his later years, culminating in high-profile tax troubles. Those burdens were periodically eased by allies in the industry; Eddie Murphy in particular publicly supported him and created opportunities that kept him in front of audiences.

Death
On October 11, 1991, while rehearsing The Royal Family in Los Angeles, Foxx collapsed on set from a heart attack. The moment was tragically tinged with irony: colleagues initially thought he was doing a bit, echoing the staged heart attacks that had become a trademark of his Fred Sanford character. He was 68 years old. His passing shocked collaborators like Della Reese, who had been working alongside him in the studio that day, and it prompted tributes from comedians and actors who had grown up studying his rhythms.

Legacy and Influence
Redd Foxx helped define modern American stand-up by proving that the everyday language of working people could be the material of artful, structured comedy. His party records circulated in a parallel economy long before mainstream media welcomed his voice, and the craft he developed there influenced Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and many who followed. On television he broke barriers by anchoring a hit network sitcom around a Black father-son duo, bringing a mix of slapstick, insult comedy, and social observation into living rooms every week. The comic architecture of Sanford and Son can be traced in later shows that found humor in intergenerational conflict, economic hustle, and neighborhood life.

Foxx's story is inseparable from the people around him: the early friendship with Malcolm X that testified to the intertwined fates of two young men trying to make their way; the on-screen partnership with Demond Wilson that gave shape to a classic sitcom; the collaborations with Norman Lear and a troupe of supporting players who became icons in their own right; and the late-career support from Eddie Murphy and the warmth of Della Reese, who saw in him both a craftsman and a colleague. Even after his death, recordings and reruns introduced new audiences to the precision beneath his looseness, the way he could turn a pause or a glare into a punchline. Redd Foxx left behind a map of how to be both raw and exacting, subversive and beloved, a pioneer who made room for those who came next.

Our collection contains 7 quotes who is written by Redd, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Funny - Equality - Sarcastic - Success.

Other people realated to Redd: Norman Lear (Producer)