Jim Carroll was an author, poet, and musician, best known for his 1978 autobiographical work "The Basketball Diaries" (1978), which was made into a film of the same name in 1995, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll. He grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and was awarded a scholarship to the private Trinity School in New York in 1963, and entered Trinity High School in 1964. Carroll was interested in writing and was an all-star basketball player all through grade school and high school. Carroll participated in the National High School All Star game in 1966. While in high school, he attended poetry workshops at St. Mark's Poetry Project. From the age of twelve, Carroll started keeping a diary of his dual teenage existence as an-all star basketball player at an elite private school, and his emerging heroin addiction and the street life that surrounded the junkie scene. Carroll published his first book "Organic Trains" at age 17, and had poems published in such magazines as "Paris Review" and "Poetry"He began working for Andy Warhol in 1970, writing film dialogue and inventing character names. He later was the co-manager of Warhol's Theater. In 1978, Carroll authored his autobiographical book, "The Basketball Diaries", an edited collection of the diaries he kept between the ages of twelve and sixteen, detailing his sexual experiences, high school basketball career, and his addiction to heroin, which began when he was 13. In 1978, Carroll formed The Jim Carroll Band, a New Wave/punk rock group. The band released a single ‘People Who Died', from their 1980 debut album, "Catholic Boy. The song was used in the 1982 film "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", and 2004's "Dawn of the Dead." Carroll returned to writing full time in the mid-1980s. Carroll died of a heart attack at his Manhattan home on September 11, 2009 at the age of 59.