George Carlin, the frenzied performer whose routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died of heart failure. He was 71.
George Carlin began his professional career in radio at KIOE, Shreveport, LA in July, 1956 at the age of nineteen while serving in the USAF. Following KIOE, he landed at WEZE in Boston, MA. That job lasted three months in 1959.
The turning point for Carlin came in Fort Worth, Texas (1959) in KOXL. Together with newsman Jack Burns, he started developing comedy routines for an eventual nightclub act that led to a two-year stint, playing leading clubs and making a first appearance on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. They also recorded an album, Burns & Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, on ERA Records.
After splitting with Burns in 1962, Carlin spent about a year working in nightclubs without much success. In 1963, he found the Caf au Go Go in Greenwich Village and spent the better part of two years developing his comic style. It was in this folk/Jazz setting that he developed the first bits that got him on television with The Indian Sergeant, Wonderful Wino and Hippy Dippy Weatherman.
In 1965, Carlin began to get extensive TV exposure: fifty-eight appearances in 1965 and 1966 alone, mostly on Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas. Network spots during that period included The Hollywood Palace, Jimmy Dean, Roger Miller and Carlin was a regular on Kraft Summer Music Hall with John Davidson, and the following year he starred with Buddy Greco and Buddy Rich on Away We Go, the summer replacement for Jackie Gleason. His first album, Take-Offs and Put-Ons, was released in 1967 on RCA Victor. Between 1967 and 1970, he made another eighty TV appearances, including Ed Sullivan, Tom Jones, Steve Allen, Jackie Gleason and Carol Burnett. He also worked in all major nightclubs, including the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.
In 1972, a recording contract led to the release of FM & AM, and album that won a Grammy Award after going gold. It was the first of four successive gold albums that Carlin recorded for Little David Records during the first half on the 1970s. In all, he released fourteen solo albums, ten of which have been nominated for Grammy awards. There have been four separate collections, the most notable being 1999's George Carlin: The Little David Years (1971-1977).
To date, Carlin's HBO specials have garnered three Emmy nominations and won six CableACE awards, and thus far eight of these shows have been released in two separate DVD packages. In the early 1990s, Carlin picked up two additional Emmy nominations for the Mister Conductor in forty-five episodes of the critically acclaimed PBS children's show Shining Time Station.
In August 2001, "The George Carlin Collection," a special package of Carlin's first four HBO stand-up concert shows (1977-1984) was released on DVD. In November 2001, Carlin performed his twelfth special "Complaints and Grievances," live, from New York's Beacon Theatre. The album of the same name was released in December.
Through the end of his life, Carlin still managed to perform 90 concerts each year around the country, selling nearly a quarter of a million tickets.
