Last Words

Comedian George Carlin was born on May 12, 1937 in Bronx, New York. He began his career at age 19 at the KJOE radio station in Louisiana. After making numerous appearances on TV, Carlin moved to radio and produced two albums, Take-Offs and Put-Ons, and FM & AM, which won a Grammy Award and was the first of four albums in a row to go gold. One of his best known routines was Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. After performing this routine in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace and it also led to an indecency case after WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973.

Carlin also wrote three books and appeared on television and in movies. Besides his four Grammy Awards for best spoken comedy album, he was nominated for five Emmys. In 2002, Carlin was awarded the Freedom of Speech Award by the First Amendment Center in cooperation with the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, and he was the named 11th recipient of The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in June of 2008. George Carlin passed away at age 71 on June 22, 2008 in Santa Monica, California.

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