Legendary Punk Poet Jim Carroll Dead At 60

Jim Carroll, the poet and punk rocker who wrote "The Basketball Diaries," died Friday. He was 60.

He died from a heart attack at his home in Manhattan, his ex-wife Rosemary Carroll told the New York Times.

Carroll was a fixture of the 1970s downtown Manhattan scene, where he mixed with artists such as Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. His life was shaped by drug use, which he wrote about extensively.

"The Basketball Diaries" was made into a movie in 1995 starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and he also published several poetry collections. His 1980 album, "Catholic Boy," has been hailed as a landmark punk record, and he became known for one of its songs, "People Who Died."

But it was "The Basketball Diaries," his autobiographical tale of life as a sports star at Trinity, an elite private high school in Manhattan, that brought him his widest audience. The son of a bar owner, Carroll attended the school on a basketball scholarship.

During his career, Carroll collaborated with Lou Reed, Boz Scaggs, Ray Manzarek, Pearl Jam, Rancid and Blue Oyster Cult.