barry crimmins dead at 62

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Comedian and activist Barry Crimmins dead at 64

The influential comic fought for those who couldn't.

 

Audra Schroeder

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Posted on Mar 1, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 11:10 pm CDT

Comedian Barry Crimmins passed away at age 64, after a battle with cancer.

His wife Helen broke the news to fans on Twitter early Thursday morning, saying he passed away peacefully.

Crimmins, an influential comic who got his start in Boston, was the subject of Bobcat Goldthwait’s 2015 documentary Call Me Lucky, which explored his roots in the early ’80s comedy scene and his confrontational style. He told the Daily Dot in 2015 that he started doing comedy because “I had to turn several years of being a screw-up into research.” (Call Me Lucky is streaming on Netflix.)

Crimmins was also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and became an advocate for fellow survivors, most notably testifying before Congress in 1995 to fight back against AOL for facilitating chat rooms for pedophiles.

He’d started doing standup again in the last few years, and Louis C.K. released his first standup special, Whatever Threatens You, on his website in 2016.

And up until the end, Crimmins was pointing out hypocrisy.

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*First Published: Mar 1, 2018, 10:15 am CST