George Carlin Net Worth: George Carlin has a $10 million net worth as an American comedian, actor, and social critic.
George Carlin was known for his dark humor and his frequent discussion of taboo topics such as politics; religion; and psychology.
He was dubbed “the dean of counterculture comedians” and is largely recognized as one of the most prominent and influential stand-up comedians of his generation.
George Carlin Early Life
Born in New York City on May 12, 1937, and died in Santa Monica, California on June 22, 2008.
He was the younger son of The Sun advertising manager Patrick Carlin, an Irish immigrant from County Donegal, and secretary Mary Beary, an American of Irish descent.
Carlin was raised in a Catholic family but renounced religion. Due to his father's drinking, his parents divorced when he was two months old, and he was raised by his mother and elder brother, Patrick, Jr. Carlin enlisted in the United States Air Force as a radar technician when he was old enough.
He also started working as a disc jockey at Shreveport's KJOE radio station, although he struggled in his first foray into the entertainment industry. He met fellow DJ Jack Burns in 1959 and the two established a comedy duo.
The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood, was born after the pair arrived in California and put together an audition tape.
They split up after two years as a duo to pursue individual professions but remained good friends.
Carlin was making around $250,000 a year by the late 1960s and began changing his look and routine in the 1970s, morphing into the persona that made him famous.
The 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which the judges maintained the government's ability to prohibit indecent material on the public airways, featured Carlin and his “Seven dirty words” comic routine.
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In 1977, he taped the first of his 14 stand-up comedy specials for HBO.
George Carlin Career
Carlin's routines began to center on a sociological critique of modern American society in the late 1980s.
He frequently satirized American culture's excesses and remarked on current political issues in the United States.
During the three-decade Johnny Carson period, he was a frequent performer and guest host of The Tonight Show, and he hosted the first edition of Saturday Night Live.
Carlin was ranked second on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians in 2004, behind Richard Pryor and ahead of Lenny Bruce.
It's Bad for Ya, his final HBO special, was shot less than four months before his death.
He was given the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor posthumously in 2008.
Carlin met Brenda Hosbrook in August 1960 while on tour with Burns and Carlin in Dayton, Ohio; the couple married in 1961 at her parents' house in Dayton.
Kelly was the couple's only child, born on June 15, 1963. In Las Vegas, the pair repeated their wedding vows in 1971.
Brenda died of liver cancer the day before Carlin's 60th birthday, on May 11, 1997.
He met Sally Wade, a comedy writer, shortly after his wife died, and they married a year later in a secret ceremony.
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They were wedded until his death two days before their tenth anniversary in 2008.
George Carlin’s American Dream Captures the Many Phases of an Iconoclastic Comedian
The two-part HBO documentary by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio provides an intimate portrait of an ever-evolving artist.
As George Carlin's American Dream comes to a close—and it does, as this two-part HBO documentary is nearly four hours long—we're bombarded with footage of everyday life in America, all of it shot recently, well after the iconic comedian died in 2008, and all of it accompanied by Carlin's articulate, motormouthed rants.
In his black-long-sleeve-and-slicked-back-gray-hair phase, the kind he was famed for.
During the George Floyd protests, we saw cops pepper-spraying individuals' faces.
Outside the Capitol, we observe protestors demanding abortion rights, followed by others storming the Capitol. Donald Trump is seen holding the Bible.
We have one billionaire who launched a penis-shaped rocket into space and another who is interested in purchasing Twitter for whatever reason.
See manufacturing workers, fast-food workers, and overworked nurses.
We witness Ted Cruz shooting a meat-wrapped firearm and exclaiming, “mmm…machine-gun bacon,” with a smile and satisfaction.
Another demonstration takes place, this time outside a big-pharma building. Isn't that Matt Gaetz there?
Is anything here subtle? No. “See, George Carlin was right,” it smacks you in the face.
(People tweeting recordings of his prescient comedy routines with exclamations like, “I can't believe George Carlin foresaw [insert injustice here] 30 years ago!!”) drive home the same idea early in the film.
Carlin wasn't exactly a subtle comedian at this point in his career, his truth-teller stage if you will.
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What's more, you know what? He was correct. That section, that mashup of current nonsense juxtaposed against Carlin pontificating on the causes of all of our country's nonsense, is tremendously effective and rousing; the kind of montage that makes you angry and want to volunteer for worthwhile causes.
