Poet Jim Carroll dead at age 60

This past Friday New York native poet Jim Carroll passed away due to a heart attack. He was found dead at his desk in his Manhattan apartment. He was said to have been working on his unfinished novel The Petting Zoo which he has been using excerpts from for years at his spoken word performances.His life came to fame in 1995 with the film 'Basketball Diaries' based on a book of his writings of the same name. The movie starred a young Leonardo Dicaprio as Carroll.

Carroll was born 1950 in New York City. In his teenage years in New York he was known as a great basketball player, but at the same time was hiding a growing dark secret.

According to RollingStone.com, The book The Basketball Diaries adapted into a film as well, "details Carroll's struggles with drug use as a teenager in the 1960s — depicts his fall from prep school basketball star to heroin addict who turned to prostitution, all before Carroll was even 17 years old." Carroll also was the leader of a punk band called the Jim Carroll Band. He started this band because close friend and fellow punk poet Patti Smith said his spoken word was really good and should start a band. His biggest hit was "People who died" off the 1980 debut album 'Catholic Boy'.

As reported on LiveDaily.com, Jim Carroll impressed one of rocks greatest songwriters/ guitarists, Keith Richards. Richards helped Carroll to arrange a three-record deal with Atlantic Records.