Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling

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Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling
The movie cover for Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.
Directed by	Richard Pryor
Produced by	Richard Pryor
Written by	Rocco Urbisci Paul Mooney Richard Pryor
Starring	Richard Pryor Debbie Allen
Music by	Herbie Hancock
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	May 2, 1986
Running time	97 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling is a 1986 film starring Richard Pryor.

Though Pryor insisted the film was not autobiographical ^[1], Pryor plays Jo Jo Dancer, a popular stand-up comedian who has severely burned himself in a drug incident. The film came out after Pryor had severely burned himself while freebasing cocaine in 1980.

As Dancer lies hospitalized in a coma, his spiritual alter ego revisits his life, from growing up in a brothel as a child and struggling to beat the long odds to become a top rated comedian. However, his success leads to extensive drug use and womanizing that takes its toll on his life. Jo Jo's spirit watches and attempts to convince his past self to end the cycle of self destruction. The earlier parts of the film, during Jo Jo's childhood were filmed in Pryor's hometown of Peoria, Illinois.