1. George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author.
56 Facts About George Carlin
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George Carlin was known for his dark comedy and reflections on politics, the English language, psychology, religion and taboo subject matter.
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George Carlin often commented on political issues and satirized American culture.
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George Carlin released his first solo album, Take-Offs and Put-Ons, in 1966.
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George Carlin was posthumously awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2008.
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George Carlin placed second on Comedy Central's list of top 10 American comedians in 2004, while Rolling Stone magazine ranked him second on its list of the 50 best stand-up comedians of all time in 2017, in both cases behind Richard Pryor and ahead of Lenny Bruce.
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George Denis Patrick Carlin was born at New York Hospital in the Manhattan borough of New York City on May 12,1937, the son of Mary and Patrick John Carlin.
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George Carlin called himself "fully Irish"; his mother was born in New York to Irish immigrants and his father was an Irish immigrant from Cloghan, County Donegal.
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George Carlin's parents separated when he was two months old due to the alcoholism of his father, who George Carlin said was "never around".
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George Carlin's mother raised him and his brother on her own.
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George Carlin said that he picked up an appreciation for effective use of the English language from his mother, though they had a difficult relationship and he often ran away from home.
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George Carlin grew up on West 121st Street in Manhattan's Morningside Heights neighborhood, which he and his friends called "White Harlem" because it "sounded a lot tougher than its real name".
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George Carlin attended Corpus Christi School, a Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church in Morningside Heights.
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George Carlin's mother had a television set, a new technology few people owned at the time, and Carlin became an avid fan of the pioneering late-night talk show Broadway Open House.
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George Carlin went to the Bronx for high school, but was expelled from Cardinal Hayes High School after three semesters at age 15.
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George Carlin briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem and Salesian High School in Goshen.
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George Carlin spent many summers at Camp Notre Dame in Spofford, New Hampshire, where he regularly won the camp's drama award; upon his death, some of his ashes were scattered at Spofford Lake per his request.
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George Carlin joined the US Air Force and was trained as a radar technician.
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George Carlin was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana, and began working as a DJ at radio station KJOE in nearby Shreveport in July 1956.
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In 1959, George Carlin met Jack Burns, a fellow DJ at radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.
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Years later, when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, George Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.
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Burns and George Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and George Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.
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George Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during his three-decade tenure.
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George Carlin was cast in Away We Go, a 1967 CBS comedy show.
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George Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity at the Gate of Horn club in Chicago on December 5,1962.
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George Carlin lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm.
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George Carlin hired talent managers Jeff Wald and Ron De Blasio to help him change his image, making him look more "hip" for a younger audience.
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Over his career, George Carlin was arrested seven times for reciting the "Seven Dirty Words" routine.
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George Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live on October 11,1975.
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George Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height.
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George Carlin later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.
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George Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or two over the following decade and a half.
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George Carlin hosted SNL for the second time on November 10,1984, this time appearing in several sketches.
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George Carlin began to achieve prominence as a film actor with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series.
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In 1991, George Carlin had a major supporting role in the film The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand, as the gay neighbor of the main character's suicidal sister.
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George Carlin played Mr Conductor on the PBS show Shining Time Station until 1996, replacing Ringo Starr on both programs.
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In 1993, Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady.
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George Carlin later said that there were other, more pragmatic reasons for abandoning his acting career in favor of standup.
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In 2001, George Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards.
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George Carlin performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2004 his run at the MGM Grand Las Vegas was terminated after an altercation with his audience.
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George Carlin repeated the theme to his audience several times throughout the show: "It's all bullshit, and it's bad for ya".
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George Carlin met comedy writer Sally Wade six months after Brenda's death and said it was "love at first sight", but told her he was hesitant to act on his feelings so soon after being widowed.
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George Carlin said he needed to be alone, potentially for up to a year, before he would be ready to date again.
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George Carlin said several times that he had battled addiction to alcohol, cocaine, and Vicodin, and spent some time in a rehab facility in 2004.
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George Carlin had a history of heart problems, including heart attacks in 1978,1982, and 1991.
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George Carlin had an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, a significant episode of heart failure in 2005, and two angioplasties on undisclosed dates.
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On June 22,2008, at age 71, George Carlin died of a heart attack at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
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George Carlin's death occurred one week after his final performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino.
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George Carlin's will stated that there was to be no funeral and that he wished only for his widow and daughter to host a small gathering at his home for loved ones to share stories of him.
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George Carlin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 1987 and was a recipient of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2008.
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George Carlin became its first posthumous recipient on November 10,2008.
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For years, George Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York Boy.
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In 2008, Kelly George Carlin announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from George Carlin's friends and family.
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George Carlin later said the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own project, an autobiographical one-woman show called A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George.
55.
Moneyball screenwriter Stan Chervin announced in 2018 that a biopic of George Carlin was being written.
56.
Many quotations have been falsely attributed to George Carlin, including various joke lists, rants, and other pieces.