Comedian Honored; Author Disgraced

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/19/2001 at 11:56 AM EDT

VOTED: After two failed attempts last spring, the city of Peoria, Ill., is trying once more to rename seven city blocks after a native son, comedian Richard Pryor, reports the Associated Press. The City Council voted 8-3 Tuesday to begin the process. Another vote is due soon, as is a public meeting is also expected. The prior rejection of the renaming occurred when some city council members cited Pryor's history of drug use, womanizing and profanity in his comedy. Pryor, 60, now lives in California and suffers from M.S. . . . JUDGED: Best-selling British novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer, 61, was found guilty in London's Old Bailey court on Thursday of perjury and perverting the course of justice in a case that centered on allegations that he had sex with a prostitute. He was acquitted of one charge of perjury. Archer was accused of lying and creating false diaries to win $700,000 in libel damages from the Daily Star newspaper in 1987, after it had reported that he paid Monica Coghlan for sex in 1986 . . . DIED: Folk singer and social activist Mimi Farina, 56, the sister of Joan Baez, died of cancer on Wednesday at her home in Marin County, Calif. Farina recorded several hits in the 1960s both as a solo artist and with her husband, Richard Farina, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966. She then turned her back on her music career and took up charity work.