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Sam Kinison
Born	December 8, 1953(1953-12-08) Yakima, Washington, U.S.
Died	April 10, 1992 (aged 38) Needles, California, U.S.
Medium	stand-up, television, music
Nationality	American
Years active	1978-1992
Genres	Black comedy, Satire, Observational comedy, Insult comedy
Subject(s)	human sexuality, current events, American politics, pop culture, religion
Influences	Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor
Influenced	Bill Hicks, Jeff Duran, Chris Rock, Jim Carrey, Joe Rogan, Tom Rhodes
Website	SamKinison.org

Samuel "Sam" Burl Kinison (December 8, 1953 – April 10, 1992) was an American stand-up comedian and actor.

Kinison was famous for his extremely raunchy humor and amazingly wild, colorful outfits. A former revival-style preacher, his standup routines were most often characterized by intense, angry ranting and punctuated by his trademark scream.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Comedy life 1.3 Death 2 Trivia 3 Discography 4 Filmography 5 External links

Born in Yakima, Washington, Kinison later attended high school in East Peoria, Illinois. He also lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a while with his parents who still live there. He was originally a preacher before becoming a comedian. Recordings of his sermons reveal that he used a "fire and brimstone" style, punctuated with shouts similar to the ones he would later use in his stand-up routines. He attended Pinecrest Bible Training Center in Salisbury Center New York. He was forced to leave preaching when he divorced his first wife, at which time he took up comedy.

Kinison's appearance on Late Night with David Letterman on November 14, 1985 is widely considered to be his breakthrough performance. David Letterman's introduction of Kinison would prove to be prescient: "Brace yourselves. I'm not kidding. Please welcome Sam Kinison."

Kinison might be considered a "heavy metal comedian," since he was occasionally accompanied by a touring band; he also had a prodigious appetite for drugs and alcohol. In 1988, he recorded a novelty version of The Troggs' "Wild Thing." The record didn't make the Billboard Hot 100, but the video was a hit on MTV, featuring cameos from Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Slash, Billy Idol, rock guitarist Steve Vai, guitarist Frank Zappa's son Dweezil Zappa, Richie Sambora, Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe, Robbin Crosby, Warren DeMartini and Stephen Pearcy of Ratt and a raunchy "roll on the mat" dance with Jessica Hahn. Sam hammered out some licks on a custom Stratocaster, with an airbrushed picture of his face frozen in his famous scream.

One of his albums featured four songs performed by him and his band, and during one notable The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson performance, he delivered what began as a straightforward version of Elvis Presley's Are You Lonesome Tonight, which descended into angry ranting during the spoken breakdown.

Some of Kinison's most spontaneous moments came during his frequent appearances on The Howard Stern Show. He made an angry phone call on-air to Bobcat Goldthwait, and he embarrassed comedienne Judy Tenuta to the point of driving her off the show, as he sat in with Penn Jillette, Chuck McCann, and Jack Riley. His most notorious stunt resulted in a highly entertaining on-air feud with Stern: he made an on-air promise to bring to the show members of the rock-n-roll band Bon Jovi, with whom Stern was feuding, but they never showed up. It turned out that Bon Jovi had no intention of appearing. Stern's reaction was swift and vindictive, resulting in Kinison's eventual apology, but not before one of the show's funniest moments in which comedian Gilbert Gottfried and Stern both savaged an emotionally-charged phone call between Stern and Kinison, in which both stars used the words "man" and "dude" with each other so often that Gottfried and Stern went into stitches on hearing the playback.

Stern and Kinison eventually made up and paired on Stern's pay-per-view special, U.S. Open Sores. Today Howard Stern remembers Kinison fondly and acknowledges his comedic genius often on his radio show. In the mid-1990s, Stern purchased the movie rights to Kinison's biography Brother Sam, written by his brother Bill, but later revealed on the air that "no studio was interested in financing the movie," partially because of the comedian's controversial nature, and partially because the story had such a tragic ending.

In 1991 Kinison starred in the Fox Network TV show Charlie Hoover, in which he played the inner voice of the title character, appearing as a 12" man. The show lasted only 7 episodes before being canceled.

Kinison was working to become clean and sober in the months before his death and he married his girlfriend Malika Souiri in 1992^{[citation needed]}. Just six days after the wedding, Kinison's white Pontiac Firebird Trans Am was struck by a seventeen-year-old drunk driver on US 95, four miles north of where it intersects Interstate 40 several miles west of Needles, California. He had taken US 95 North instead of taking the well known shortcut to Laughlin, Nevada. Kinison was not wearing his seat belt, and his chest struck the steering wheel upon impact.^{[citation needed]} His best friends J.J. Wall and Carl LaBove were in the van behind him. Kinison got out of his car and fell to the ground, and LaBove picked him up and held him until help came. As they sat on the road, LaBove reports that Kinison was looking down the road and laughed and was talking to somebody and said, "No, not now." Then he laughed and said, "No, not yet," and laughed again. He said, "Ok, ok," then died in the arms of his best friend. Oddly enough, Kinison often joked about drunk driving and the futility of trying to prevent it in his act, firmly stating: "We're going to drink, we're going to drive, we're going to pull it off." His wife survived the accident. The other driver received only minor charges. Kinison was found to have very slight traces of cocaine in his bloodstream.^{[citation needed]} Friends and relatives insisted that the comedian was 100% sober at the time of the collision.

Howard Stern did a tribute to Kinison for several hours a few days after his death, and the show featured a song parody, "The Sound of Kinison" (featuring the melody from Simon & Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence). Portions of the 1992 tribute show have been replayed at least once during 2006 on Stern's satellite radio show on Sirius Radio.

He is interred with family members at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His grave marker gives his full name, his date of birth and death, and an unattributed quote, "In another time and place he would have been called prophet."

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Kinison was voted #20 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.
• Tony Scott's 2005 film "Domino," starring Keira Knightley and Mickey Rourke, featured the Sam Kinison Monument in Needles, California. No such monument exists. The "monument" in the film was merely a foam prop.
• Kinison was considered for the role of Al Bundy in the sitcom Married... with Children, but producers thought he would be too controversial, so Ed O'Neill won the part. However, Kinison did make an appearance on the series as an angel during a Christmas episode when Al had an It's a Wonderful Life-like moment. That performance is at this link, in two parts; the links are partway down the page
• He had a supporting role as a history teacher in the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School; the link is here, the first link on the list
• He had a supporting role as a Mexican bandit in the 1986 movie ¡Three Amigos!, but his scene was cut. Kinison believed this was due to Chevy Chase being jealous of how Kinison stole several scenes in Back to School.
• Comedian and impressionist Craig Gass has also performed the voice of Sam Kinison on The Howard Stern Show and in his comedy routine.
• In the late 80s, Kinison was linked romantically with Seka the porn star, who made an appearance during the sign-off at the end of the episode of Saturday Night Live that Sam was hosting.
• In Pauly Shore's movie Pauly Shore Is Dead, the closing shot is an epitaph to Kinison. Kinison also "appears" several times in the movie to give Pauly advice. Again, his voice was provided by Craig Gass.
• Comedian Chris Rock said among his fondest memories from his early days in stand-up was the pleasure of "hangin' with Sam."
• In the early 1980s, Blackie Lawless was so inspired by Kinison's routine at the Troubadour that he proceeded to write the lyrics for the debut single of W.A.S.P., Animal (Fuck Like a Beast), based on it. In the routine, Kinison went on and on about his (alleged) wife, whom he hated, calling her a beast.
• Heavy metal band Anthrax sampled one of Kinison's famous screams in their 1987 song I'm the Man.
• The Bon Jovi video of "Bad Medicine" (1988) is introduced by Kinison.
• Kinison can be heard in the song "The Kid Goes Wild" by the heavy metal band Babylon AD on their self-titled album (1989).
• Kinison was close friends with comedian Bill Hicks.
• He had a fierce rivalry with fellow stand-up Andrew Dice Clay. In his special Family Entertainment Hour, he tells a fan to take off his Dice t-shirt.
• Actor and filmmaker Kevin Smith has said he is a big fan of Kinison. He loosely based the appearance of his character Silent Bob on Kinison.

• Louder Than Hell (1986)
• Have You Seen Me Lately? (1988)
• Leader of the Banned (1990)
• Live From Hell (1993)

• Charlie Hoover (1991) (TV) ... Hugh
• Bon Jovi's Bad Medicine music video ... himself
• Mötley Crüe's Kickstart My Heart music video ... himself
• Back to School (1986) ... Professor Terguson
• Savage Dawn (1985) ... Barber

• Official Sam Kinison website
• Sam Kinison at the Internet Movie Database

• Interview with Sam's Brother Bill
• A Multimedia Tribute to the Life and Comedy of Sam Kinison
• Sam Kinison Tribute Site by Comedian Screamin Sam
• Clip featuring an example of Kinison's stand up routine
• Sam Kinison's Gravesite