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.

  
Full Length Videos 

[60:03]  

[60:08]  

[60:14]  

[58:52]  

[59:26]  

[60:26]  

[57:33]  

[60:03]  

[60:27]  

Audio Books 

George Carlin - When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?  [60:15]  

George Carlin loved Lewis Black. Larry King and Jules Feiffer love Lewis Black. They love him because his insights and love/hate relationship with America are brilliantly expressed in his concerts and TV appearances worldwide. How can you not love a man who says, "Republicans are a party with bad ideas and Democrats are a party with no ideas." Will Rogers would have been proud.

Lewis is one of the most prolific and popular performers working today. He executes a brilliant trifecta as stand-up comedian, actor and author. Receiving critical acclaim, he performs over 200 nights a year to sell-out audiences throughout Europe, New Zealand, Canada and The United States. He is one of few performers to sell out multiple, renowned theatres including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New York City Center and the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In August 2007, he was the first stand-up comedian to ever perform in concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Lewis' live performances provide a cathartic release of anger and disillusionment for his audience. Lewis yells so they don't have to. A passionate performer who is more pissed-off optimist than mean-spirited curmudgeon, he's perfected expressing what the rest of us cannot say in polite company. Lewis is the rare comic who can cause an audience to laugh themselves into incontinence while making compelling points about the absurdity of our world. It's no wonder he's been compared to Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, and Bill Hicks.

Lewis was born in Washington D.C. and raised in Silver Spring, MD. Colicky as a baby, it seems he was destined to be angry and easily irritated. His mother, a teacher, and his father, a mechanical engineer, instilled in both Lewis and his younger brother Ron the importance of education and the necessity to question authority -- lessons which have influenced Lewis throughout his private and professional life. When Lewis was 12, his father took him to his first play and he quickly fell in love with the theatre. This ultimately led Lewis to pursue a career in drama. Degrees followed from the University of North Carolina and Yale Drama School, with a stint in Colorado owning a theatre with a group of friends in the interim. During his tenure at UNC, Lewis first ventured into stand-up, performing at Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill. Stand-up continued to be a steady presence as he pursued his career in theatre.

Lewis eventually settled in New York City and became the playwright-in-residence at the West Bank Caf's Downstairs Theatre Bar. Lewis oversaw the development of more than 1,000 plays, including works by "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin, "American Beauty" writer Alan Ball as well as his own original works. In addition to overseeing the works on stage, Lewis emceed every show. As the West Bank grew, so did Lewis' skill as a stand-up and eventually, the fulfillment of performing stand-up outweighed that of working in the theater. Having found his public voice, Lewis left the West Bank in the late 80's to pursue stand-up full time.

In 1996, his friend Lizz Winstead tapped him to create a weekly segment for a show she was producing on Comedy Central called "The Daily Show." The segment, a three-minute rant about whatever was bothering him at the moment, evolved into "Back in Black." It became one of the most popular and longest-running segments on the show and also created a long and successful relationship with the network. Since then, Lewis has taped four specials for the "Comedy Central Presents" series, co-created "Last Laugh with Lewis Black" and continues to perform "Back in Black" on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" today. These popular appearances on Comedy Central helped to win him Best Male Stand-Up at the "American Comedy Awards" in 2001.

Increased exposure from "The Daily Show" eventually generated a record deal with Stand Up! Records. His first CD, "The White Album," was released in 2000 to much critical acclaim. Lewis followed with five more, three under the Comedy Central Records label. He received a 2006 Grammy nomination for "Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues" and in 2007 won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album for "The Carnegie Hall Performance." Lewis' Comedy Central series "The Root of All Evil," premiered in 2008, after which he embarked on his wildly successful, multi-state "Let Them Eat Cake" tour.

Lewis has filmed two HBO specials, "Black On Broadway" and "Red, White and Screwed." He has a regular feature on "Inside the NFL" and in 2006 was asked to participate in Comic Relief. He was honored to do so.

A much sought-after guest for several late-night television shows, he's been seen on "Larry King Live," is a frequent guest on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and has appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman." He's had numerous, memorable appearances on CNN and is particularly happy to have contributed to MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

In the midst of a rigorous touring schedule and several TV appearances, Lewis' first book, "Nothing's Sacred" (Simon and Schuster, 2005) debuted on the New York Times Best Seller List. His second, "Me of Little Faith," hit shelves in 2008.

Lewis has written over 40 plays, and much of his work has been produced around the country. "The Deal", a dark comedy about business, was made into a short film in 1998 and picked up by the Sundance Channel. In 2005, Garry Marshall's Falcon Theatre in Los Angeles produced "One Slight Hitch", a play that was later seen in 2006 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's Patel Conservatory. In October 2007, The New York Musical Theatre Festival staged a performance of "The Czar of Rock and Roll", a musical he co-wrote with the late Rusty Magee about the rise of an Elvis-type figure in the Soviet Union.

In 2006, Lewis had a break-out year as an actor. He co-starred with Robin Williams in Barry Levinson's "Man of the Year" (Universal Pictures), appeared as "the fake dean of a fake college" in Steve Pink's "Accepted" (Universal Pictures) and as the harried airport manager in Paul Feig's "Unaccompanied Minors" (Warner Brothers). In addition, he lent his voice to the role of "Jimmy" in Bob Sagat's parody, "Farce of the Penguins" (Thinkfilm).

In addition to his professional pursuits, Lewis is dedicated to a number of charitable organizations. As a long time mentor with the 52nd Street Project, Lewis was roasted in "Charred Black 2007," which drew the largest fundraising numbers in the Project's history. He's a member of their Advisory Board, is Co-Chair of their Capital Campaign and in 2000, the Ron Black Memorial Scholarship Fund was created in memory of his late brother. Lewis is also committed to raising funds for the Rusty Magee Clinic for Families and Health. He's a strong supporter of both the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Autism Speaks and was recently honored by The Brady Center for his commitment to ending gun violence. At the Williamstown Theatre Festival, he established the William Foeller Fellowship, having taught and performed at the festival for more than a decade.

Today Lewis maintains residences in both Manhattan and Chapel Hill, NC. Still loyal to his alma mater, he's worked with UNC students to create the Carolina Comedy Festival, a yearly festival on the UNC campus that not only highlights performances, but also provides workshops and lectures for budding comics, writers and performers. With his involvement at UNC, Lewis continues a life-long commitment to education and the arts.

In his leisure time, Lewis likes to play golf, even though golf hates him.