George Carlin

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, philosopher, satirist, actor, and writer/author who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums. Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Courtcase F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. From the late 1980s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor. He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. --- Carlin was born in Manhattan, the second son of Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun, and his wife Mary Beary, a secretary. His family was of Irish ancestry and he was raised a Roman Catholic. Carlin's mother separated from his father when George was two months old. His maternal grandfather, Dennis Bearey, was an Irish immigrant who worked as a New York City policeman. Carlin said he picked up an appreciation for the effective use of the English language from his mother. Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home. He grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan he said he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that "sounded a lot tougher than its real name" of Morningside Heights. He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights. After three semesters, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx at age 15. He briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem and the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY. He spent many summers at Camp Notre Dame on Spofford Lake in Spofford, New Hampshire. He regularly won the camp's drama award, and specified that after his death a portion of his ashes be spread at the lake. Carlin joined the United States Air Force when he was old enough, and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. He also began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in nearby Shreveport. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged early on July 29, 1957. During his time in the Air Force he had been court martialed three times, and also received many nonjudicial punishments. --- In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio stationKXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.[ After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night. Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street. Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood. In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. --- In 1961 Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook, whom he met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, Kelly, was born on June 15, 1963. In 1971 the couple renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer in 1997, a day before Carlin's 60th birthday. On June 24, 1998 Carlin married Sally Wade in a private, unregistered ceremony. The marriage lasted until he died, two days before their tenth anniversary. --- In tribute, HBO broadcast 11 of his 14 HBO specials from June 25–28, including a 12-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted. Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24 The New York Times printed an op-ed piece on Carlin by Jerry Seinfeld. Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27. Four days before his death the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree. He became its first posthumous recipient on November 10 in Washington, D.C.. Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C.K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him.