- As a kid growing up in Spanish Harlem,
I used to watch Muhammad Ali on TV all the time,
which was hard to do while two guys
were carrying it out the window.
(audience laughing)
- [Narrator] Freddy Prinze's brand
of trailblazing comedy made him one of the hottest comics
of the 1970s.
- They had the Puerto Rican Day parade.
It's 500 cars going down, separate streets,
stalling out simultaneously.
(audience laughing)
- He was able to be that first Latino comedian
and allowed us as comedians to say, oh my gawd,
we can not only make fun of ourselves,
but make fun of others.
- Will you get off the stage, please.
- Yes, I will.
(laughing)
- And for that, everybody's gotta give him credit.
Somebody had to be first.
(laughing)
- [Narrator] And his transition to television
and movies made him a household staple.
- We got a customer.
(audience laughing)
- Lucille Ball saw Freddy, got down on her knees,
saying, "I bow to you, I bow to you."
- [Narrator] By 22, he had fortune, family
and limitless fame.
(imitating metal sliding) - Okay, man.
- [Narrator] But it was all teetering on a knife's edge.
- He would, at gunpoint, make me strip down
to my underwear to see if I had coke on me.
- With the drugs, everything was to the extreme.
- He would just challenge people and he did it all the time.
Click, click, click.
- Freddy had these moves and you add cocaine
to that, might as well put gasoline in a fire extinguisher.
- As of this morning, Mr. Prinze gave no indication
of any central nervous system function.
- Freddy's sudden death would have everyone asking
the same question for decades to come.
- He had everything and could have had much more
and he put a bullet in his head.
- Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to be entertained.
(audience laughing)
- [Woman] Getting the laugh is the greatest addiction.
- [Man] They want more of it, they want more of it.
- [Man] She was getting death threats.
- [Woman] It (beep censor) with your head.
(laughing echoing)
- He's out of his skull. - That's what took her down.
- It's a crazy story.
(metallic clinking)
(soft upbeat jazz music)
- [Narrator] Born on June 22nd to a Puerto Rican mother,
Maria, and Hungarian immigrant father, Carl,
Frederick Carl Pruetzel was raised in Washington Heights,
a working class borough in New York.
- Freddy took me to his apartment
where he grew up, Washington Heights,
and it was like 147th and Broadway.
And I went, I don't know, I've never been to,
I've never been past 95th street, you know.
Jeeze, you know, and it was very different
from what I thought, you know.
Blue collar, but, but you know.
- I'm Carol Novack.
Yeah I his gofer as well as secretary slash assistant.
(chuckling)
He was a shy, chubby kid that used to pretend
that he was a disc jockey in his bedroom.
He set up, like, a makeshift microphone and all of that,
and he would, you know, do his whole shtick
and he would practice.
And he found that he had a knack for, for standup.
(audience applauding)
- [Narrator] Freddy and his unusual hobbies made him
a target for the neighborhood kids.
- I dug ballet as a way to, to lose weight.
So I went to ballet class and the guys
in the neighborhood'd break my face.
(audience laughing)
- [Narrator] But soon he realized
that his comedic talents pacified the bullies.
- The teachers would always know where to find me.
I would be in the washroom telling corny jokes.
So it was actually, the toilets
were the first nightclub I ever played.
- Now, I don't know how he
got the guts to go to the comedy clubs in New York,
but he did.
(audience cheering)
- [Narrator] During his senior year of high school,
Freddy spent most of his nights at comedy bars,
honing his routine.
- I remember the owner of The Improv,
Bud Friedman would tell me stories about Freddy coming
into the club when he was really underage, you know,
and he was so funny that they
would overlook that, you know, risking his liquor license.
I happened to be Paul Rodriguez,
a Mexican American and professional fool.
- [Narrator] Yet Freddy was able to hold his own amongst
the more experienced comics
(audience cheering)
and that got him noticed by the right people.
- When I saw Freddy, I thought, oh my gawd,
this guy is a kid.
I was pretty impressed.
My name is Ron De Blasio and I managed Freddy Prinze.
I was managing Richard Pryor at the time
and I also had managed George Carlin.
- My name is Alan Bursky.
I'm a comedian or I was a comedian.
I would go into clubs that he had just played,
or he would go into clubs that I had just played,
'cause we were the only two guys around our age.
We were 18, you know.
The next young comic after us was David Brenner,
30 years old.
- [Announcer] It gives us a great deal
of pleasure to welcome
the very marvelous talents of Mr. Freddy Prinze,
ladies and gentlemen. Freddy! (applauding)
- [Jimmie Walker] Freddy Prinze, we met for the first time
at The Improv in New York.
- You see people who take Spanish in school
and try and talk it.
Coma estess osted.
Moy beans, grassy azz, thank you.
- Even if he was bombing, he did it with such confidence.
The audience went, "well, maybe we're wrong.
"Maybe we're missing it,"
and he just had ultimate confidence. Ultimate.
(distant club music playing)
- [Narrator] His confidence finally gets him a regular spot
at one of the hottest comedy clubs in town.
- I opened Catch A Rising Star December 18th, 1972.
My idea was to open a showcase where singers
and comedians could perform in front of a live audience
and there was nothing around like that at that point.
Freddy showed up early on and was so strong,
minute he got on stage, he was really compelling
in so many ways.
- Catch A Rising Star, a lot of people came out of there.
- There was Billy Crystal, David Brenner,
Andy Kaufman, Gilbert Gottfried, Robin Williams,
Richard Belzer.
- Rick Newman was a ground breaker
by putting somebody like Freddy even on stage
because Pat Benatar is white and Richard Belzer is white,
and David Brenner is white.
You know, even a Jimmy Walker who was black,
but they could handle a black guy.
But now there's something different.
- [Narrator] In the early 1970s,
Latino comedians are few and far between.
- Hey, I got light skin, straight hair,
that's from my father.
From my Puerto Rican mother, I got my nose and my mustache.
(audience laughing)
- Freddy was the beginning of that moment
because of the jokes that he did
and he was opening up his Latino life.
It wasn't, hey, we're all like this.
It's like, some of you aren't gonna get this,
but let me tell you about my life.
- Any Puerto Ricans here tonight?
(shouting)
All right! In the front.
- If you talk about your difficulties,
your uniqueness, being a Puerto Rican in New York
is like being in the capital of Puerto Rico, right?
So there was a lot to, to mine there for,
for comedy purposes.
- Nixon has the wrong impression of Puerto Ricans.
I blame him that there's no Puerto Rican astronaut, right?
What are they afraid of?
All the way to the moon, we'll blow the horn,
play the radio.
(audience laughing)
- When I first thought of doing standup,
I actually got his album and listened to it.
I could identify with a lot of the things that he said,
living in the projects, accented people, roaches.
- Cockroach in my building, they're Puerto Rican with us.
They threatened me before I go out.
They say, "listen, if you don't come back with some candy
"or some chocolate, we change all the locks on the door."
(audience laughing)
- Freddy Prinze was a guideline, so to speak,
for who we were as Latino comedians in the beginnings
of where to take it.
- [Narrator] And Freddy would take his comedy
to one of the biggest stages in America.
- Heeeereeee's Johnny!
(audience applauding)
(upbeat jazz music)
- [Narrator] After barely a year of doing stand
up in New York as a teenager,
19 year old, Freddy Prinze gets the invitation
of a lifetime.
- As he appeared on The Tonight Show,
everybody was talking about it in those days.
25 million people watch The Tonight Show.
Today, it's like 3 million people or something.
- If you did that, and you played a club,
the Zig Zag Room in Saginaw, Michigan, next week,
there would be 700 people waiting
to get into a hundred seat club,
because in those days you only had like five channels.
So everybody saw you. You did one shot, that was it.
(brass music building)
- [Narrator] And it all starts
with one man.
- Craig Tennis was sort of the guy that you
had to go through.
The gatekeeper that went to the clubs
and saw all the acts.
- I would go to the clubs in New York
and then in LA three or four times a week
and I would be there until two o'clock
in the morning, watching.
- The beauty of The Tonight Show is that that was a time
where you wanted Johnny to see you.
You wanted this, but you really wanted this.
And if you got the call over, you're gonna be a star.
That was it.
(somber rhythmic music)
- [Narrator] On December 6th, 1973, 19 year old
Freddy Prinze is booked in the last slot
on a star studded episode of The Tonight Show.
- That show in particular,
I remember Diane Keaton was on and then Sammy Davis, Jr.
- Freddy showed up wearing a rather incredible,
probably expensive, dark green velvet suit.
He looked great.
- [Narrator] But not everyone shares this sentiment.
- Before the show, the producer, Freddy de Cordova,
had gone back to Freddy's dressing room
and introduced himself and then came roaring onto stage.
So everyone in the audience, the band,
everyone else could hear him screaming at me,
"Johnny is gonna hate that gawd damned Puerto Rican.
"I'm not putting him on.
"He's embarrassing. Your job is in jeopardy."
(chuckling)
- [Narrator] But Freddy has thrown a hail Mary pass
when the wise cracking banter between Sammy
and Johnny quickly runs out of steam.
- The show is going live, as always.
So there's not a lot of adjusting that can be done.
Now, Mr. de Cordova has to go and put on Freddy.
- We have a new young comedian with us tonight.
This is his first appearance on The Tonight Show.
So make him feel welcome.
You sound like you're in a good mood.
Would you welcome Freddy Prinze?
- Yeah. - Freddy.
(audience applauding)
- And I'm standing behind the cameras going,
this better work because if it doesn't,
my ass is going to be yelled at for six months.
- I come from two backgrounds, Hungarian and Puerto Rican.
(audience member shouting)
Mine ya', I'm a Hunga-rican.
(audience laughing)
It's like a very heavy title, 'cause I could never figure
out how my parents met, a gypsy and a Puerto Rican.
I asked my mother, she said they were on the subway,
trying to pick each other's pocket.
(audience laughing)
- It was the perfect storm. He was good looking.
He was ethnic. He was charming.
He was funny.
- It's not my job, man.
- Then Freddy gets finished doing his set, which killed.
And that was the very first time that a comedian
that was making their debut was invited to sit down
and chat with Carson. First time ever.
(audience applauding)
- It became my immediate goal.
I said, if I never do anything, if I could just do that,
if I can go do stand up.
And Johnny Carson invites me to sit next to him.
Man, that, that's the Academy Awards. That's the Emmy.
That's everything to me.
- You know, there's no greater thrill for me personally,
to have somebody come out here who's unknown
and stand up in front of an audience and absolutely wipe 'em
out the first appearance coast to coast. That's great.
- Thank you. (audience applauding)
- In a case like Freddie Prinze,
it was the most important six minutes of his life.
- Will you come back, do our show again?
- Hey, I'd love to, love to.
Will you get the same audience?
- Same audience.
(audience applauding)
- When anybody on The Tonight Show scored,
everybody in the business knew.
And when everybody in a business knew,
then word gets out.
- Television producer, James Komack calls Freddy,
asking him to star in a new show for NBC called,
'Chico And The Man'.
- I told you I don't want a job.
- Good. - I wanna be part
of something, I wanna belong.
I want my place in the sun.
- Go to the beach.
(audience laughing)
- Listen, old man.
How about it, I'm serious. You and me.
- Drop dead.
(audience laughing)
- I remember one day out on the road with Richard Pryor
and I opened up Time Magazine and the title
of the review, 'The Prinze of Prime Time'.
Freddy became huge.
- [Narrator] 'Chico And The Man' debuts in September, 1974,
and it's an instant hit, rating third
behind 'All In The Family' and 'Rhoda'.
(guitar strumming)
- Don't be discouraged.
The beginning of the show on 'Chico And The Man',
it's my neighborhood.
The whole vibe of the show, man,
it makes me feel good.
I get the goosebumps. I get the chills.
- [Narrator] Nine months after appearing
on The Tonight Show, Freddy Prinze, all of 19,
is a bonafide superstar.
- There's a news stand up when Kawanga up here,
which is like a block long. And it had in those days,
all sorts of magazines and on the cover
of all these magazines would be Freddy Prinze looking good.
You know, Hunga-rican.
Freddy would stand in front of it and people would walk
by and go, hey, aren't you Freddy Prinze?
By the end of it, there'd be, like, 20 people,
oh my gawd, Freddy Prinze is here, he's signing autographs.
It's unbelievable. - Are you ready>
for this kind of stardom thing?
- I've been ready since birth.
(laughing)
- [Narrator] But in four short years,
Freddy Prinze's burgeoning career
will come to an abrupt end.
(upbeat jazz music)
Riding high off the success of 'Chico And The Man',
Freddie Prinze is not only becoming a huge star,
but also filling a void that many feel has been left empty
for far too long.
- In the early seventies,
there was no Latino representation
as far as Mexican American or Puerto Rican American,
Cuban American.
You would have to go all the way back to Desi Arnaz
or 'I love Lucy'.
- There are so many of us here and yet we're really
so few on television.
If you look at American television,
you wouldn't know that 55% of Los Angeles
is Mexican American.
We're the brown elephant in the room.
If you don't see yourself on television,
what happens is you have a low self-esteem.
It is very, very important for us to have more represented.
I'm not even saying equal.
I'm saying a representation that makes sense.
- Yeah, yeah, don't...
- [Narrator] But in the decade following
the Civil Rights Movement, 'All In The Family',
'Sanford And Son', and 'Chico And The Man'
are attempts to address the issues of race
and representation of minorities on television.
- Amigo. (audience laughing)
- Don't call me amigo.
- It means friend.
- I don't care what it means. Talk English.
- Very well, friend, I would like to be the first Chicano
to be associated with this...
(laughing drowns out speaking)
- To have as the premise of a TV show,
a Latino character and Jack Albertson playing
this sort of skeptical, perhaps racist, shop owner
who is won over by the charm of Chico.
You know, it was sort of groundbreaking for its time
and very much in the zeitgeist of the 1970s.
(audience laughing)
- Mr. Bojangles.
(snapping)
- 'Chico And The Man', how important
was it to the Latino community?
They had never seen their very own type
of person on the air.
- Clean up the floor!
Fix that engine!
Make me my lunch!
Get me some champagne. Ha ha ha ha.
- I couldn't imagine the amount of pressure
that that Latin person is being put up against,
because he is not just carrying a show.
He's carrying the weight of the whole world,
because if he fails, that's it, no more Latino shows.
And we only get one chance.
- [Narrator] But in the weeks following Chico
And The Man's debut, there's backlash
from the Mexican American community who feel
the humor in the show relies on racist stereotypes.
- Oh, everybody knows you people are lazy.
Even if I did give you a job, you wouldn't show up.
You'd be too busy taking a siesta.
- Not me, man. I'm all go, go.
- The problem is the balance.
There doesn't seem to be enough
of the positive reinforcement for the negatives to be okay.
And that's a problem.
(audience laughing)
- Now get this pumpkin can outta here.
- It's not my job, man.
(audience laughing)
- Don't give me your family motto. Just do as I say.
- Working for white audiences, in hindsight,
you would cringe, but you didn't know any better.
- When you first start out,
you don't have the power to do anything you want.
You just have the power to say yes and be as funny
as you humanly can.
- I take care of my uncle's '64 Chevy, beautiful condition.
Pom poms on all the antennas.
(audience laughing)
Set of fine seat covers, right?
Little dog in the back window with the head
keep going up like that.
(audience laughing)
- You were up there to get the laugh
and you felt like a whore for selling out like that.
But I'll tell this to any comic starting out.
Your whole purpose in this business is to get laughs
and you have to be able to live with the consequences
of those words.
- [Narrator] And the negative reaction
to 'Chico And The Man' by many Mexican Americans
soon shifts towards Freddy himself.
(suspenseful music)
- Yeah, there was backlash because he was Puerto Rican
and he wasn't Mexican.
- He was portraying the part of a Mexican American
being a half Puerto Rican, so he felt like a fraud.
I'm sure he did.
- It did bother him. He said, "I'm still Hispanic.
"I'm still Hispanic."
You know, what differences it make?
It's Mexican or Puerto Rican.
We are one.
- My people, the Mexican Americans here,
we were so few on television,
there was nobody else to pick on but him.
He became a target.
It's easy to be attacked when you're at the top.
- Freddy felt that he
was being unjustly criticized
and not being taken for his talent.
- He did seem like a different person.
He didn't have that casual confidence.
He seemed like he was a bit shaky.
- [Narrator] Even as the fervor dies
down and 'Chico And The Man' is renewed
for a second season, after what he sees as rejection
from his very own people,
Freddy starts to question his meteoric rise to fame.
- Was in Sahara, Tahoe.
After he got off stage, he said to me,
"I couldn't hear them laugh.
"Were they laughing? Am I losing it?"
And I said, "are you crazy?
"They were roaring."
And they were, they were.
- A lot of Freddy's insecurity came from the fact
that he hung out with a lot of comics who hadn't made it.
Success was coming to them very, very slowly or not at all.
And being around a group of people like that,
he was constantly reminded that quote,
"he did not pay his dues."
He did not serve the time and grade.
He got lucky and many of them never let him forget that.
- At the same studio where 'Chico And The Man'
is being filmed, the show's producer, James Komack.
Is also working on 'Welcome Back, Kotter',
with rising star, John Travolta.
- It created a little bit of tension with both artists
as they felt that one was getting more attention
and better writing staffs than the other.
- Travolta had a movie of the week,
'The Boy In The Plastic Bubble', it was a big hit,
critically acclaimed.
Freddy had a movie the week.
- If you don't get to Lil before she hits
the Madison street station at 11:15,
she'll tip off every cop in Chicago.
- It was a disaster.
So Freddy was really upset about that.
- I think the thing that got Freddy down
was the white performers that were being set up
for bigger and better things like a David Cassidy,
like a Barry Williams, like a leaf Garrett.
They had teeny boppers crying and screaming.
They would be running into a limo and girls
would be, "ahhh, it's David Cassidy!",
"Lief Garrett, wow!"
Freddy didn't have that because we were nightclub guys.
We were hardcore at The Improv, banging around,
that kind of stuff like that.
- Sometimes he would get sad thinking that,
can he maintain this? Can he keep it up?
And will the show just all of a sudden go away
and then he'd be a nobody all over again.
How many actors do we know that had hit shows
and they were super famous and then all of a sudden
the show is off the air
and we don't hear about them anymore.
Well, he had that fear as well.
- And a young impressionable Freddy,
insecure with his newfound fame,
finds himself in the inner circle
of Hollywood's more established celebrities and their vices.
- I did see signs. He was taking coke.
Here's this young kid, all of a sudden star,
afraid that he's gonna lose it and insecure,
and suddenly they're telling him
that this will make you high
and you'll feel strong and secure.
- Anytime you went to a party in LA,
there was coke available.
It was either in a bathroom or was on a coffee table.
- Cocaine was accepted. In some cases,
cocaine was included in the film budget.
- They would write it in the contract, you know,
under transportation, you know.
There was a budget for that.
I know people don't understand that today, but there was.
- The studios enabled Freddy.
They brought in the drugs for Freddy,
just to try to make Freddy happy.
- I think he's probably one of the funniest new guys
around today. Would you welcome my good friend
and roommate, Alan Bursky!
(applauding)
(upbeat jazz music)
(chuckling)
- He's making me laugh.
- When Freddy is in town to co-host 'The Mike Douglas Show',
the cocaine fueled antics continued.
- Me, Freddie and Jimmy Komack,
we were all in Philadelphia and one night after the show,
we're doing coke and drinking and smoking dope.
And you know, we were young.
We had money and pretty much running wild,
and in those days, and still pretty much today,
nobody says no in this town to a celebrity.
- He went overboard.
- Think about it. This guy is 18, 19, 20.
He's still a kid.
You can't have them fending for themselves,
but it seems like he sort of was.
(somber rhythmic music)
- [Narrator] With 'Chico And The Man' renewed
for a second season,
Freddy uses the break from filming
to play shows across the country.
- Freddy calls me, he says, " I was walking
"through the casino and this woman comes up to me
"and she says, you're Freddy Prinze. I go, yeah.
"She says, 'I think you're great. I think you're handsome.
"I think you're beautiful. I think you're just
"the greatest guy in the world."
He say, "I'm gonna marry that girl."
- When he met Kathy, I mean, he fell in love, boom.
It was like one of those thunder bolts, you know?
(chuckling)
And they went home together in the hotel room
and then that was it, they never partied after that.
- [Narrator] In October of 1975,
Freddy marries Kathy Cochran.
- That made him very happy.
He wanted to do everything he could for her.
Then when she was expecting, oh, he was delirious.
And then also the show was successful.
He had everything he wanted.
- [Narrator] Yet, Freddy is blind to everything
by his growing addiction.
- He was doing two to three grams a day.
You know, he was just like,
(snorting)
you know, Freddy used to do lines like, you know,
boom, boom!
I would go over to the studio and he
would at gunpoint make me strip down to my underwear
to see if I had coke on me, and I'd go, "Freddy,
"I don't have coke, I don't have coke."
Yeah, I'd get undressed and he'd go through my pockets.
I was sitting there in my underwear,
my socks off in his dressing room. "I don't have coke.
"What's matter with you?"
- When you're an addict and you become successful,
what happens to you depends on who's around you.
If people around you are enabling you,
the addiction just continues to exacerbate
and you eventually spiral out of control.
- You know, we'd open the mail and there'd be joints
and cocaine. People were bringing it to him,
especially women, you know, who wanted to meet him
or guys who wanted to hang out with him
and that's where I guess trouble started.
- [Narrator] Along with the $2,000 a month coke habit,
Freddy starts to experiment with a drug popularly known
as the Disco Biscuit.
- He started taking Quaaludes,
which was the big thing in those days.
- It's a pill and it's a downer.
The doctors prescribed it in those days as a sleeping pill,
but then it started circulating as a drug.
So he would do that and then they would do coke.
And so they would have the two contrasts.
The minute we left the studio, he would start.
But then I guess he wanted to make up for a lost time
or something.
- Carol and Freddy's wife, Kathy, and I talked
about it and we knew that this was a problem
and we needed help.
- There were no rehabs in those days.
There was no Betty Ford.
There was no, or none of this stuff.
Freddy was seeing Dr. Kroger, he was Kathy's obstetrician.
- The guy was actually a hypnotist therapist.
She was going to him during her pregnancy
and that's how she thought maybe he could help.
- Well, I'm sure that she's gonna have the baby.
- Oh. - I'm sure it's mine, too.
- Well, you're married.
- For me, it's great.
You know, Puerto Ricans usually have 40 kids
in three months, you know.
(laughing)
- [Narrator] With a baby on the way,
Freddy helps himself for his family,
but troubling news comes from his former manager.
- Dave Jonas was suing Freddy for full commission
because he believed that he was fired illegally
and that he was entitled to all the commissions
that Freddy received for 'Chico And The Man'.
He was stressed by it.
- And it wasn't the money so much as his pride, you know?
And he got so angry and he just went and just punched
the wall and broke his hand.
- This is a kid, didn't have a lot of experience in life.
Didn't have a lot of experience in business.
He took it as somebody cheating him,
which was quite not the case,
but he didn't understand how business was running.
- [Narrator] The one thing Freddy is sure of is that fame
can get him anything.
- We were in Chicago,
he was doing a movie and this was in the evening.
He ran out of his Quaaludes.
He called the bellman and said to him,
"take me to the hospital."
So they went and he just told them, "hey,
I need some Quaaludes," and because of who he was,
they handed them to him.
Anytime he wanted something, it was given to him.
- There were doctors in this industry
that were prescribing Quaaludes to many star patients
because they wanted to hold onto the artist as a patient.
- [Narrator] Popular in the 1970s to treat insomnia
and anxiety, one Quaalude could last
between five to eight hours.
But between his family doctor and his therapist,
Freddy was prescribed 200 Quaaludes
over the first six months alone, without question.
- It was the doctors. Jeeze, Freddy would go to Las Vegas,
come back with a, with a jar, prescribed jar this big,
filled with Quaaludes.
- Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Fred Prinze.
(audience applauding)
- [Narrator] But the company Freddy keeps also helps fuel
his further descent into drugs.
- There were small countries being supported
by Richard Pryor because he was doing tons of drugs.
- He would go over to his house
and they would get all stoned, you know, together.
- He made, the consumption of cocaine, he made that cool.
We all wanted to be him
and if that's the magic substance
that could make us like Richard Pryor,
we're gonna do that, you know.
- He loved Richard Pryor,
but Richard Pryor couldn't take care of himself.
- He's already addicted to cocaine, which takes you up.
Then he is taking Quaaludes, which bring you back down.
It's like an elastic band on your nervous system.
One part's up, one part's down.
You're just kind of all over the place.
- [Narrator] And this concoction of uppers
and downers culminates in a wake up call.
- Kathy was over at my house and he called me
and Kathy answered my phone, which he did not expect.
He was like, uh oh, and Kathy says,
"I'm not coming to get you. Carol will, but I won't."
(chuckling)
She was so mad at him.
(whooshing)
So he tried to drive back from Richard Pryor's
and he got stopped and he was arrested.
(whooshing)
(somber music)
(audience cheering)
- [Ring Announcer] This place is going crazy.
There he is, Chico Rodriguez.
- [Narrator] Four years into his career,
and Freddy's popularity shows no signs of slowing down.
(audience shouting) (ring announcer shouting)
- We had a contract with NBC studios for movies of the week.
He had Sahara Tahoe in Vegas.
He had contracts with them for several years.
- Why don't you let somebody else make a buck?
You're doing everything. You're on the road.
You're doing concerts. You got a movie.
You got a television show.
- Yeah, working hard.
Working hard is, I feel strong.
I got a, like, it's like a resurgence.
- A successful career, a wife,
a son, that was plenty for him to be happy about.
- [Narrator] Yet with a trial for his DUI charge looming
and his persistent drug habit,
things at home quickly start to unravel.
- He had complete control of the networks and studios.
Everybody was backing down to him.
The only person that really didn't back down was Kathy.
- She threatened him, actually told him,
"we need to separate.
"I don't want you doing this around our son."
He was miserable over that. He loved his wife.
He wanted to be with his wife.
So he was very unhappy during that period.
And so, and instead of wising up and stopping,
he got a little worse.
- You know, he was separated from Kathy
and getting divorced.
I'd go over. We'd get high all night.
I thought we were gonna watch movies
and all we were doing was watching
that damn Zapruder film he had on tape.
And he go look, look, and he would slow it down.
"I think there was brains, those are his brains."
Yo, Freddy, don't you have something like 'The Godfather'
or something?
- He was looking for a reach out.
He was scared.
He just wanted to share his intensity.
The therapy for him did open him up a little bit,
things that bothered him, he started to convey
a little bit more.
He became somewhat looser.
- Whoo... Puerto Rican fighter just come out,
(imitating metal sliding)
Okay, man. (audience laughing)
- I was in Las Vegas with Freddy.
He was doing the Dean Martin Roast.
We're in the suite at Caesars Palace.
Freddy would call, you know, he had a,
had a list of people he would call all night long.
Five in the morning, he's calling Muhammad Ali,
you know, high, Quaaluded out.
"You know, you know, I can't take any more of this.
"This is bullshit. They're sucking me dry.
"They're using me.
"It's over," you know, "I'm gonna show them."
You know, people slept with their phones off the hook.
People had to sleep.
You know, calling Jimmy Komack at four in the morning.
- He wanted things to change.
But you know, all of a sudden with the drugs in him,
everything was exaggerated in his brain.
Everything was to the extreme.
- Freddy is increasingly pushing the boundaries of danger.
- We'd go over and he would be with the gun, complaining
and we'd get high.
And Freddy and I did these stupid... in' things.
You know, I'd go out in the middle of the night
and he would have a gun
and he would shoot out a street light,
you know, or, or, you know, crazy shit.
There was, a third personality emerged.
- It was when they were stoned out of their minds.
They weren't thinking straight. They weren't thinking right.
- When it came to guns, he would just challenge people.
He'd say, "yeah, you don't have any guts."
And he did it all the time.
He would always, "click, click, click."
- He would grab his gun and say,
"I'm gonna shoot myself," and put the gun up to his head
and click it and nothing would happen
because the chamber was blank.
- [Narrator] The acceleration of drugs
and reckless gun brandishing have friends
not only on edge,
but coming ever so close to danger themselves.
- One time he was very high.
He was doing his usual, you know,
coke, Quaalude, brandy.
Then he goes to the bathroom and I hear a shot.
(gunfire blasting)
Boom! He dropped and I screamed and I ran to him
and I'm screaming, "Freddy, Freddy!"
And it was a prank, he played a prank on me.
He says, "ah ha ha, I fooled you."
Well, I beat his chest and I said,
"don't ever do that to me again."
I said, "you scared the daylights out of me," you know,
and he knew, and he,
and then he apologized because he knew I was crying, too.
- Freddy had these moods, really up and really low.
And you add cocaine to that,
might as well put gasoline in a fire extinguisher.
You put celebrity-ness and fame and fortune into that,
you know, and you know, you got a ticking time bomb.
(somber music)
(somber rhythmic music)
- Okay, I'm ready!
- [Narrator] Despite Freddy's increasingly erratic behavior,
he's managing to get through filming of his third season
on 'Chico And The Man'. (audience laughing)
- I pulled up to NBC with Marty Klein
and as we pull up, Freddy's pulling out and he's ranting
about something, and you know,
obviously he was coked up
and I said, "well, I'm gonna see Steve
"and then we're going to dinner."
He goes, "okay, call me when you get home."
- [Narrator] With 'Chico And The Man' renewed
for a fourth season and having signed
a multimillion dollar contract with NBC,
Freddy Prinze is at the height of his career.
- Last time I spoke to Freddy was a telephone conversation.
It was the night before the taping
of the last episode of 'Chico And The Man'.
We had already planned to go right to work
on his new special, and everything seemed fine.
- That day, I came home with him from the studio
and he's drinking the brandy, he's doing Quaaludes,
he's doing coke and he's doing more than he normally did.
- [Narrator] With the steady stream of booze and drugs,
Freddy's behavior is growing increasingly unpredictable
and agitated.
- I got home at 11:35, called Freddy.
He was ranting back and forth, back and forth,
and I said, "you know, Freddy,
"what's missing from your life?
"You have everything that me, Jay Leno,
"Elaine Boozer are busting our ass to have.
"What, what's missing from your life?"
He goes, "I don't know. I love you like a brother.
"It's been short, but sweet."
And I said, "oh gawd, now look.
"If you're gonna do it, do it in the bathroom
"and do it neatly."
Those are my last word to him.
- I got a telephone call from Carol who said that, "Freddy
"was not happy. I'm concerned that something might happen
"and I think you should talk to him."
I said, "okay, put him on."
And he told me that he felt that everybody
was charging against him.
The court case, The New Yorker with Jonas
also had been served with a notice
of a restraining order from Kathy.
"I can't see my son."
Then he started to bring up all the conversations
of all of the other comics was saying things about him,
bad things about him and was snapping at him.
- Freddy had a therapist who he relied on.
So I called him and I said, "he's in bad shape.
"So you need to come over here." "All right," he says.
So he came over and they were talking and Freddy seemed
to be a little calmer. And so finally I said,
' cause I had daughters waiting for me at home, you know,
so I needed to get home to them. So I leave.
I no sooner get home and Freddy calls me, well, he says,
"I'm lonely." I said, "what do you mean you're lonely?
"The doctor's there."
"Oh no, the doc left right after you did."
I was furious.
I was furious that the doctor left him alone.
And so I said, "okay, I'll, I'll be right over."
So then I get a phone call and it was Dusty,
his business manager, who said, "Carol,
"I just got a call from Freddy and he sounds really bad.
"Should I go over?"
And he was a little closer than I was.
I said, "please, yes, yes, Dusty, go over."
- [Narrator] As Dusty arrives,
Freddy calls his ex-wife Kathy telling her he loves her
and the baby.
- It was pretty late and the telephone rings
and it was Dusty and the opening words to me
were, "Ron, he did it.
"He did it. He did it. He went ahead and he did it."
(somber music)
- Actor Fred Prinze
was brought to the UCLA Medical Center at 4:06 AM.
Mr. Prinze remains in critical condition
in the intensive care unit.
- Freddy's head was all wrapped in white gauze
and that's all you could see, really, you know.
Kathy was even saying, "I don't care what happens.
"I'll take care of him, even if he's paralyzed.
"Whatever, I don't care. Just so he comes home."
- The doctor had said to me
that this is not going to be good.
"I'm not sure we can do much for him at this stage."
- [Narrator] 24 Hours later,
Freddy's family makes the most difficult decision
of their lives.
- Kathy and then his mother agreed, you know,
to take him off life support.
(somber music)
- I mean, just couldn't believe that would happen
and that did happen. It was like losing a younger brother.
- [Jack Albertson] In the years to come
and in the day and the years,
this moment will have passed and we'll see Freddy again.
- My heart was breaking and I just kept talking to him
and saying, you know, "you're gonna go rest.
"You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be fine.
"You're gonna be peaceful now."
- He left a note.
"I can't take it anymore. I just want peace."
- [Man Off Camera] Why were you getting emotional
there, Alan?
- Because it's, you know, I loved him and you know,
that was the first death I ever knew
and the way he died,
and, and he had everything and could have had much more
and he had a beautiful wife, you know, and a,
a gorgeous little baby and you know, fame and fortune.
And he put a bullet in his head.
- This one is one of my favorites,
Freddy Prinze's first album. 'Thanks for giving me my break.
'Please do not call again. Freddy Prinze'
Freddy Prinze went from total obscurity
to national fame in six minutes.
That's a very difficult thing
for the most emotionally stable human beings
and you find me someone who does stand up comedy,
who's emotionally stable, then they're not funny.
- This was not an open time.
People were not expressing themselves.
People were not doing psychological evaluations
and work on their psyche.
I don't think we
were aware just how chronic Freddy's case was.
- [Narrator] It isn't until Freddy's death,
that his family gets proof of the possibility
of his illness.
Freddy's therapist had kept secret a psychiatric evaluation
of Freddy that reported he was unstable
and may have had a major emotional disorder.
- It's not surprising that Freddy Prinze
may have had bipolar disorder
and the substance abuse doesn't stabilize it.
It suppresses it and can throw you into either a manic phase
or a depressed phase.
Freddy Prinze was 22 when he killed himself.
That's around the time that chronic mental health conditions
like bipolar disorder come out.
And so that might have been coming out and nobody
was recognizing it, 'cause this was the '70s.
- Freddy's family is appalled
by the gross negligence committed by his doctor.
- Freddy relied on him and he failed Freddy.
Kathy and Mary actually went to court
and of course they did find accident.
- In this country, the family of actor and television star,
Freddy Prinze, whose death in 1977 was ruled a suicide,
will receive a total of $950,000 from two doctors
to settle charges of malpractice.
- Neither doctor admitted to any wrongdoing
and disputed they were liable.
Many also point fingers towards NBC,
the studio behind 'Chico And The Man',
- Chico! - And questioned
if it also willfully turned a blind eye
to Freddy's struggles.
- I think the network responsibility for somebody
like a Freddy Prinze who's getting outta control
should be not to empower him.
If anything, they should sober him up.
- Does the director have to stop the show?
Does the network need to stop?
Put a pause on things, go on hiatus?
- Unfortunately, your star is doing drugs,
but it's hard to stop a show that's in production
that's a hit. Too much money involved.
- Maybe they were planning on just doing exactly
what happened, which is plugged through until he dies.
Who knows?
(audience laughing)
- No, I've been,
I've been busier than a set of jumper cables
at a Puerto Rican funeral.
(audience laughing)
- [Narrator] A nexus of internal and external forces
brought Freddie Prinze's bright future to an untimely end,
but his memory and talents still live on.
- The legacy of Fred Prinze should be celebrated
and should be recognized more than it has.
He was the first Latino comic who made an impact.
- Looking good. (audience laughing)
- He inspired an entire generation and I've always
given him all the credit for me even to consider doing standup,
you know. He was the first soldier on the front lines.
And, for that, everybody's gotta give him credit, you know.
- I wish that he was around because he went
through that and he would've been able to say to me
what I say to young comics.
"Hey, look, you're getting success.
"Watch out. These are the pitfalls.
"This is gonna happen."
(audience cheering)
- How I wish he were alive today. I would've loved
to have been his writer, his friend, his second banana,
if you will.
(audience cheering)
- Freddy was 22 years old when he died
and the entertainment field never got to see him
come to fruition.
- You're gonna be like the next, I don't know who.
Lenny Bruce, I guess.
- I don't wanted people to say I'm the next Lenny Bruce,
next Richard Pryor, next Bill Cosby.
I want them to say, "Freddy Prinze, the voice
"of the Puerto Ricans."
I'm not a social commentator.
I'm a comedian and an entertainer.
And if I said something of relevance,
that's icing on the cake for me. I'm glad, I'm happy.
(audience applauding)
(big band music playing)
- Thank you very much, people. Looking good
(audience laughing)