Jim Carroll
American author, poet, and punk musician (1949–2009)
James Dennis Carroll (August 1, 1949 – September 11, 2009) was an American author, poet, and punk musician. Carroll was best known for his 1978 autobiographical work The Basketball Diaries, which inspired a 1995 film of the same title that starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll, and his 1980 song "People Who Died" with the Jim Carroll Band.
Early life and education
James Dennis Carroll was born on August 1, 1949 to a working-class family of Irish descent, and grew up in New York City's Lower East Side. When he was about 11 (in the sixth grade) his family moved north to Inwood in Upper Manhattan.
He was taught by the LaSalle Christian Brothers. In the fall of 1963, he entered Rice High School in Harlem, but was soon awarded a scholarship to the elite Trinity School. He attended Trinity from 1964 to 1968.
Carroll was a basketball star in high school, but also developed an addiction to heroin. He sometimes financed his habit through criminal behavior, including engaging in prostitution in the vicinity of 53rd Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan. Carroll briefly attended Wagner College and Columbia University.
The public source identifies “Jim Carroll” as american author, poet, and punk musician (1949–2009). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Carroll, American and author.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q444806. VIAF identifies the subject as 14783289. The Library of Congress control number is n81023271. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 2009, 1978 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jim Carroll” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.