Carlin went into a Santa Monica hospital Sunday afternoon complaining of chest painand died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, performed as recently as last weekendat the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. It was announced Tuesday that Carlin was beingawarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
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Carlin constantly pushed the envelop with his jokes, particularly with the "SevenWords" a routine called "The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV."
When Carlin uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested fordisturbing the peace. And when they were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in aSupreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government's authority to sanction stations forbroadcasting offensive language.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind ofproud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV showsand appeared in several movies. Carlin hosted the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live and noted on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all weeklong."
When asked about the fallout from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended withJanet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction," Carlin told the AP, "What are we,surprised?"
"There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts ofit that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built intothe attitude toward sex and the body," he said. "It's reflected in these prohibitions and thesetaboos that we have."
Carlin was born May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section ofManhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, hejoined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinarypunishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radiostation in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing jobat WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," hisWeb site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station inForth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist anda marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with a Texas radio buddy, Jack Burns, for Hollywood to pursue anightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break camejust months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Carlin said he hoped towould emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over thedecade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of itstimes.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, peoplein nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years whenit finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people,"Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, It's Bad For Ya.
