He won five Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album, for FM & AM (1972), Jammin' in New York (1992), Brain Droppings (2001), Napalm & Silly Putty (2002), and It's Bad for Ya (2008).

[8] In his autobiography Last Words, he wrote about a fantasy of Ireland he often had when his first wife was alive: "The southeastern parts so that it would be a little warmer, and the two of us there, close enough to Dublin that you could go buy things you needed.

[15] He 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".

[18] His 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.

[25] They formed a comedy team and after successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960.

[4] Within weeks of arriving in California, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood.

[26] Years later, when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.

[28] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, where he played various characters, including a Native American sergeant, a stupid radio disc jockey, and a hippie weatherman.

[29] Variations on these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take-Offs and Put-Ons, which was recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit and issued by RCA Victor in 1967.

[34] In 1970, he changed his routines and his appearance; he grew his hair long, sported a beard and earrings, and typically dressed in T-shirts and blue jeans.

He hired talent managers Jeff Wald and Ron De Blasio to help him change his image, making him look more "hip" for a younger audience.

[36] Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his style.

The "FM" side introduced Carlin's new style, with references to marijuana and birth control pills, and a playful examination of the word "shit".

[40] In 1973, a man complained to the FCC after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Carlin's Occupation: Foole, which was broadcast one afternoon on radio station WBAI.

[55] In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the title characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

In 1991, 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.

[57] According to Britt Allcroft, who developed both shows, on the first day of the assignment, Carlin was nervous about recording his narration without an audience, so the producers put a stuffed teddy bear in the booth.

[57] Carlin's Jammin' In New York, a new HBO special in 1992, highlighted the directional change he'd been honing the last few years as he wore all black with longer hair and a new biting humor.

In an interview for Esquire magazine in 2001, he said, "Because of my abuse of drugs, I neglected my business affairs and had large arrears with the IRS, and that took me eighteen to twenty years to dig out of.

After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin complained that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas; he wanted to go back east, he said, "where the real people are".

At the first tour stop, at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, he said the appearance was his "first show back" after a six-week hospitalization for heart failure and pneumonia.

Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.

[citation needed] In August 1960, while touring with comedy partner Jack Burns in Dayton, Ohio, Carlin stopped at a roadside diner, where he met waitress Brenda Hosbrook.

[3][70] 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.

Per his wishes, his body was cremated and his ashes scattered in front of various New York City nightclubs and over Spofford Lake in New Hampshire, where he had attended summer camp as an adolescent.

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame[85] in January 1987[86] and was a recipient of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2008.

[3] Comedians who have claimed Carlin as an influence include Adam Ferrara,[91] Bill Burr,[92] Chris Rock,[93] Jerry Seinfeld,[94] Louis C.K.,[95] Lewis Black,[96] Jon Stewart,[97] Stephen Colbert,[98] Bill Maher,[99][100] Liz Miele,[101] Patrice O'Neal,[102] Colin Quinn,[103] Steven Wright,[104] Mitch Hedberg,[105] Russell Peters,[106] Bo Burnham,[107] Jay Leno,[108] Ben Stiller,[108] Kevin Smith,[109] Chris Rush,[110] Rob McElhenney,[111] and Jim Jefferies.

[119] Four days before Carlin's death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named him its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.

[121] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past winner of the prize), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho.

For years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York Boy.