lit a candle 1d agoThe man could write. Every album was sharp. Every special was built like a song. Lost a master.
Their story
George Denis Patrick Carlin was born on 12 May 1937 at New York Hospital in Lenox Hill, Manhattan, to Mary (née Bearey) and Patrick John Carlin. He called himself "fully Irish": his mother was New York-born to Irish immigrants, and his father was an immigrant from Cloghan, County Donegal. His…
George Denis Patrick Carlin was born on 12 May 1937 at New York Hospital in Lenox Hill, Manhattan, to Mary (née Bearey) and Patrick John Carlin. He called himself "fully Irish": his mother was New York-born to Irish immigrants, and his father was an immigrant from Cloghan, County Donegal. His parents separated when he was about two months old; his father, an alcoholic, died when George was eight. Mary raised George and older brother Patrick Jr. in Morningside Heights, at 519 West 121st Street, a neighborhood the boys nicknamed "White Harlem." He attended Corpus Christi School, was expelled from Cardinal Hayes High School after three semesters at about age 15, and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem and Salesian High School in Goshen, New York. Summers at Camp Notre Dame on Spofford Lake, New Hampshire, fed a lifelong love of performing.
He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1956, trained as a radar technician at Barksdale Air Force Base near Bossier City, Louisiana, and started as a DJ at KJOE in Shreveport. Superior officers called him an "unproductive airman"; he was court-martialed three times and received a general discharge on 29 July 1957. Radio work followed in Boston and Fort Worth, where he teamed with Jack Burns. As Burns and Carlin they recorded an album and reached California by 1960. On *The Tonight Show* and in clubs he first wore the clean-cut suit-and-tie look that television preferred.
In Dayton, Ohio, in August 1960 he met waitress Brenda Hosbrook. They married at her parents' home on 3 June 1961. Daughter Kelly Marie was born on 15 June 1963. Through the mid-1960s Carlin flooded network television: Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, *The Tonight Show* (eventually more than 130 appearances), *Away We Go* with Buddy Greco, and a first solo album, *Take-Offs and Put-Ons*. By 1970 he grew a beard, dressed down, and returned to irreverent material. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas fired him in September 1970 for saying "shit" on stage. He left establishment rooms for the counterculture circuit.
*FM & AM* (1972) went gold and won a Grammy. *Class Clown* introduced the "seven dirty words" routine. On 21 July 1972 he was arrested after performing it at Milwaukee's Summerfest; the case was dismissed. A WBAI radio broadcast of related material led to *FCC v. Pacifica Foundation* (1978), in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld limited government power to regulate indecent broadcast speech. Carlin hosted the first *Saturday Night Live* on 11 October 1975 (he declined sketches). From 1977 he built an unmatched run of 14 HBO stand-up specials, ending with *It's Bad for Ya*, aired live on 1 March 2008 from Santa Rosa, California.
Film and TV roles included *Car Wash*, *Outrageous Fortune*, Rufus in *Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure* and *Bogus Journey*, *Dogma*, *Jersey Girl*, voice work as Fillmore in *Cars*, Mr. Conductor on *Shining Time Station*, and U.S. narration for *Thomas & Friends*. Books *Brain Droppings*, *Napalm and Silly Putty*, and *When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?* were New York Times bestsellers. He won five Grammy Awards for comedy or spoken comedy albums. A Hollywood Walk of Fame star was dedicated on 21 January 1987 at 1555 Vine Street, near former KDAY studios as he requested.
Personal life mixed devotion and struggle. Brenda died of liver cancer on 11 May 1997, the day before his 60th birthday. He married comedy writer Sally Wade in a private ceremony on 24 June 1998. He spoke publicly about cocaine, alcohol, and Vicodin addiction and about periods of sobriety. Raised Catholic, he rejected organized religion in his act while sometimes allowing for an impersonal "organizing intelligence." Internet hoaxes often pasted false rants under his name; he and later his estate warned fans that only albums, books, HBO specials, and official channels should be trusted.
Heart attacks in 1978, 1982, and 1991, later arrhythmia ablation, heart-failure episodes, and angioplasties shadowed the final decades. On 22 June 2008, one week after a final Orleans Hotel performance in Las Vegas, he was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica with chest pain and died of heart failure that evening, aged 71. Per his wishes there was no funeral; his body was cremated and ashes were scattered at New York nightclub sites and over Spofford Lake. In June 2008 he learned he would receive the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor; the ceremony on 10 November 2008 honored him posthumously. Daughter Kelly and the estate continue georgecarlin.com and official social channels, and have contested unauthorized AI imitations of his voice and likeness.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (George Carlin); georgecarlin.com; NYT; Los Angeles Times; Reuters; Variety; NPR; Wikiquote; Kennedy Center/PBS; Snopes..
In their own words
“I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.”
Widely cited Carlin maxim on individuals versus groups (Wikiquote lead).
“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”
Carlin on Campus (1984) observational bit (Wikiquote).
“There are four hundred thousand words in the English language, and there are seven you can't say on television.”
Setup to the seven dirty words routine on Class Clown (1972) (Wikiquote).
“The planet is fine. The people are fucked.”
Environmental material, The Planet Is Fine, from the Jammin' in New York (1992) era (Wikiquote / special).
“It's called the American Dream, 'cause you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Dumb Americans / owners-of-the-country rant, Life Is Worth Losing (2005) (Wikiquote).
“No, there's no God, but there might be some sort of an organizing intelligence, and I think to understand it is way beyond our ability.”
Interview answer on belief (Onion A.V. Club / Wikipedia personal-life sourcing).
“Here's a rule of thumb, folks: nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website.”
Official site warning against misattributed Internet quotes (Wikipedia Internet hoaxes; georgecarlin.com).
Photos
6Portrait photograph of George Carlin, about 1972.
Jan 1972
by People Forever
George Carlin, 1975 Little David Records publicity photograph (cropped).
Jan 1975
by People Forever
Your dad had good taste. Carlin made you feel less alone in what you were seeing.