George Carlin

Biography

Growing up in Manhattan, George Carlin was raised by his single parent - his mother. With his mother at work most of the day, Carlin spent a lot of time out on the streets, going where he wanted. He also spent a lot of time exploring his own creative impulses, his own mind. Both made him a loner - someone who felt outside of society.

Through five decades in comedy, George Carlin did not vary his personal style. He remained a likable monologist able to balance a clowning, zany streak with the sharp-edged wit to dissect words and emotions with cutting irony. Yet through those five decades, Carlin changed emotionally and physically, reflecting the tumultuous shifts in culture and lifestyle from the 50's to the 90's.

He offered engaging nightclub patter in the 50's and early 60's, cheerfully "hippy dippy" humor in the late 60's, more crusading comedy in the 70's, slightly mellowed humor in the early 80's, and then more disillusioned, angry observations into the 90's. Yet through it all, his style remained distinctly and identifiably his own.

Each step of the way Carlin produced gems of monology. There were his early, solid and silly routines from "The Indian Sergeant" ("Cut out the horseplay. You guys playin' with the horse -- cut it out!") to Al Sleet, the weatherman who announced: "Tonight's forecast: dark!" These were followed by Lenny Brucian, banned-on-radio routines ("The Seven Words You Can't Say On TV") and gently philosophical and ironic observations ("A Place for My Stuff"). He was also known for comic querelousness, his Andy Rooney-styled questioning of words and phrases: "Undisputed heavyweight champion? Well, if it's undisputed, what's the fighting all about? Selling like hotcakes? Is this the biggest selling item?"

Born in New York City, Carlin grew up the "class clown" After quitting high school and nearly getting tossed out of the Air Force, he became a disc jockey in Louisiana. At 20 he moved on to WEZE in Boston and met comedian Jack Burns. They formed a partnership and eventually came out to California where an impressed Lenny Bruce helped them find work. Some routines were standard (George as a punch-drunk boxer) but others dabbled in the new freedom of "sick" comedy (a TV commercial for the "Lolita Kit" that lets little girls "pick up a little cash after school...")

Carlin went solo in 1962 and soon became a TV regular, known for rubber faced comedy (his first album cover contained dozens of funny faces taken in a subway photo booth) and clean, inoffensive material. In the late 60's, he and another "straight" comic, Richard Pryor, began to pursue comedy in the Lenny Bruce tradition. It began in 1970 when he was fired for using a four letter word in concert at The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. A short time later a few satiric comments on the Vietnam War caused a storm at the mainstream Playboy Club. Audience members were hostile and Carlin left; the club unable to guarantee his safety.

Carlin was no longer willing to work in the restrictive casinos and nightclubs of the day. He found his audience at rock concerts. The change liberated his comedy and changed his delivery a bit. Since he had to work huge theaters opening for rock stars, he had to reach the crowd by using a lot of facial and physical cartooning. He noted, "You have to raise your voice above the din to be heard, to get their attention." He also tended to "talk down" to the crowd and acted out phrases ("I sent awaaaaaay for it"). Critics sometimes insisted Carlin's controversial routines (such as "The Seven Words You Can't Say on TV") were a lot milder and cuter than Lenny Bruce. That might have been true, but audiences got the message. So did the authorities who, in a supposedly more liberal age, tried to censor Carlin as they had Bruce.

In 1972 Carlin was arrested in Milwaulkee at an outdoor concert. The police worried that some children might be hearing his comedy. The disorderly conduct charge was later thrown out. When a radio station played a Carlin routine, announcing beforehand that the routine might be objectionable to some people, the FCC fined them. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and the radio station lost. Carlin continued to perform his "counter-cultural" routines and in the early 70's was supported by enthusiastic fans who bought millions of them (his "AM & FM" and "Class Clown" discs were certified gold in 1973 and "Occupation Foole" went gold in 1976).

Carlin was a tireless stand-up performer through the 70's. In the mid 80's some of the wear and tear began to show. Ironically he and Richard Pryor had similar problems: cocaine abuse and a heart attack. While Pryor made fun of it all on stage, Carlin kept the experience private. He told Ron Smith in 1989, "I feel vaguely embarrassed and presumptuous to present my life and my story as the subject for an evening's entertainment. My imagination is aroused more by the things that are out there in the world that all of us deal with...language has always been a favorite subject for me... I don't find my own story important."

For a time his stand-up turned more aggressive and bitter, with growling routines about the mindless violence of football and even some rare ringsider abuse ("You're wearing an earring, sir? How about a kotex? Are you wearing one of them, too?") What seemed to be eating at him was an unfullfilled desire: "I always wanted to be a movie actor like Danny Kaye. My plan was to become a radio disc jockey first, and then go into nightclubs as a comedian. My theory was, if I was a good enough comedian, they'd have to let me in the movies the way they let him in."

Carlin was able to land his first important role in a movie, a burned-out hippie in "Outrageous Fortune." He later starred in the hit "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." Whether he made films or maintained his heavy schedule in stand-up, he had enthusiastic audiences waiting. Rather modestly, he simply characterized himself as "just someone who is open to things that surprise and delight and make you wonder; things that are ironic or absurd. I like contemplating silliness."

Though still young, in 1990 Carlin was perceived as "The Grand Old Man of Counterculture" in a New York Times review. TV interviewer Bob Costas asked him, "Do you think you're as funny now as you were in the 70's and 60's?" He answered, "I'm doing my best work. I'm the only one that can ever really be the judge because I do it for myself. The fact that the audience is there is wonderful, but I do it for me. And I'm thinking better than I ever have, my observations I think stand out in better...I'm having more fun with it than I ever have, I know that."