The Monkees
In an attempt to cash in on the popularity of The
Beatles movies A Hard
Day's Night and Help!
US producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson interviewed 400 applicants
for a madcap TV series based on the day to day life of a pop
group.
The successful applicants were Mickey Dolenz (formerly Mickey
Braddock of Circus Boy fame), Michael Nesmith (whose mother
invented the correcting fluid used
on typing errors), Peter Tork, and British actor Davy Jones
(formerly Ena Sharples' grandson in Coronation
Street).
The series won the 1966 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy and the group
became world wide chart toppers with songs such as Last Train To
Clarksville, Daydream Believer and I'm a Believer (the
latter composed by the still unknown Neil
Diamond).
The
group starred in their own movie in 1968 entitled Head
which was co-written by Rafelson and Jack Nicholson (who would go on to
co-write the blockbuster Five
Easy Pieces) but it died at the box office.
The groups last single to enter the British popular music charts was
in 1969, but by that time they had already split up and gone their
separate ways.
Mickey Dolenz turned TV producer and in 1980 had a minor hit in
Britain with a series called Metal
Mickey, a children’s comedy about a robot that bore a
startling resemblance to Star
Wars' R2D2.
In 1997 The Monkees, who still
had a massive following on both sides of the Atlantic re-formed for a
time to do a series of concerts that received less than rave reviews.
Davy Jones died in his sleep at his home in Florida in February
2012. The singer (aged 66) had suffered a massive heart attack.
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