Redd Foxx collapsed on a Hollywood soundstage in October 1991, clutching his chest while crew members laughed, assuming it was another Sanford gag. He died minutes later. The man who made America laugh about poverty died working, broke, and misunderstood to the very end.
Before television fame, Redd Foxx was a king where cameras never went. On the Black comedy circuit, he was untouchable. By the 1950s and 1960s, Foxx was selling thousands of so called “party records,” raw stand up albums recorded live, sold hand to hand, and banned from white radio. He was called the “King of the Party Records” because he owned his audience before anyone thought ownership mattered. Richard Pryor studied him. Eddie Murphy memorized him. The receipts existed, just not on mainstream paper.
When Sanford and Son premiered in 1972, Foxx was already in his fifties and suspicious of television. Norman Lear promised him control and money. The show exploded anyway. It finished in the Nielsen Top 10 for five consecutive seasons. Foxx became one of the highest paid Black actors on TV, earning up to $40,000 per episode, an unheard of figure at the time. America loved Fred Sanford’s insults. Foxx hated how clean the character had to be.
The trap snapped shut fast. Foxx lived loud. Mansions. Cars. Jewelry. He trusted managers who did not protect him. Taxes went unpaid. By 1983, the IRS seized his Las Vegas home for owing over $750,000. The same man who helped build modern stand up lost everything because nobody taught him how the money system actually worked.
He tried to reset. Foxx walked away from Sanford and Son in 1977 over contract disputes, convinced he was bigger than the show. NBC shows followed. None lasted. The audience moved on. The checks stopped. Pride delayed recalibration.
By the late 1980s, Foxx was back on the road, touring relentlessly to pay debts. He accepted roles he once would have mocked. In 1991, he was cast in The Royal Family, meant to be his return to television. The set felt hopeful. Then his heart failed during rehearsal. The joke became the ending.
Redd Foxx is often remembered as crude comedy. That is lazy. He was a blueprint. He brought Black vernacular, timing, and truth into American humor long before the system allowed credit. Television made him visible. The business left him exposed.
Redd Foxx did not die poor because he failed. He died because the industry monetized his voice without ever teaching him how to protect it. The laughter paid everyone else first.
