Bill Sargent | | The Guardian

Many of his ideas were of a technical nature, and he registered 400 patents of electric and electronic gadgetry – earning himself a reputation among technicians for being more an inventor than a showman. He was also a shrewd pioneer of such innovations as pay-per-view television, and his film Richard Pryor: Live In Concert (1979), which he cannily labelled “uncensored,” was the highest money-maker of its kind ever. It remains the standard today.