Jim Carroll was a basketball prodigy and a fountain of untapped talent during the 1960s. He was also progressively becoming an addict. Throughout his teenage years, Carroll discovered love, loss, pain, and joy, which he recounted in his memoir, "The Basketball Diaries", a story of being lost, searching for something of substance and meaning, and about the beauty of innocence and the darkness of its loss.
As copies of the diary began to circulate in the literary underground, Carroll was hailed as an important writer, with Kerouac and Burroughs dubbing him "a born writer". By 1978, "The Basketball Diaries" was published, and Carroll had become a genuine literary icon. In 1973, he published "Living in the Movies", and moved to California. However, the purity he sought was not achieved until the origination of his second diary, "Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries", which recalls his years working under the wing of Andy Warhol at the latter's legendary Factory, and illustrates Carroll's battle with heroin addiction.
After touring with rocker Patti Smith, Carroll explored the idea of starting his own band, which eventually became The Jim Carroll Band. The band released three records under the Atlantic Records banner. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Carroll continued to publish poetry and spoken word albums, as well as a greatest hits compilation of his band.
In 1995, Scott Kalvert released a biopic of Carroll's life, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Carroll. Despite a strong lead performance, the film ultimately did not capture the beauty and brutal honesty of Carroll's book, with certain events changed, characters invented, and entire plot devices added. Carroll was quoted as having been "unpleased" with the final product. After this, he published another compilation of poetry and recorded his first straight rock album of all new material in almost 20 years.
Carroll continued to tour through live readings and book signings, remaining in his native Manhattan, where he experienced a lifetime wrought with exploration and self-discovery until his death there at age 60 in 2009.
