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<\/a><\/p>\nBy 1961, soon after the Carnegie gig, Bruce became ill, the drugs and police trouble taking their toll. Recently released FBI files on “Lennie” Bruce reveal a man consumed by his own legal mishmash. He believed nothing less than that there was a well-orchestrated conspiracy by “the establishment” to destroy him, step by step. The FBI documents noted, with some sarcasm, that the comedian celebrated his fortieth birthday by declaring himself a pauper, and that because of police harassment he could no longer get booked to do his act. Bruce told the FBI that his income went from $108,000 in 1961 to $10,983 by 1965. When he did perform, his monologue was all about his legal battles and filled the rooms with the humorless, bad aroma of a drowning man. His final performance was on June 25, 1966, at the Fillmore in San Francisco and was not remembered fondly by promoter Bill Graham, who later remarked that Bruce killed his own chance at a comeback as “whacked on amphetamines” as he was. Less than two months later, Bruce died, at age forty, of “morphine poisoning” and was found with his pants around his legs and a needle in his arm in the bathroom of his empty house. Authorities allowed access to photographers as the final “we gotcha” on Bruce’s life, and humiliating pictures of his body circulated in the papers. In the end, the country’s class clown was expelled by an overdose. Playboy published the best farewell: “One last four-letter word for Lenny: Dead. At forty. That’s obscene.”<\/p>\n