Peter Tork (1942-2019)

[MA]

Died today at the age of 77 after being diagnosed with a rare form of tongue cancer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...=.6e9fab6ef8ca

[Zoneboy]

Link

Peter Tork, a blues and folk musician who became a teeny-bopper sensation as a member of the Monkees, the wisecracking, made-for-TV pop group that imitated and briefly outsold the Beatles, died Feb. 21. He was 77.

His death was confirmed by his sister Anne Thorkelson, who did not say where or how he died. Mr. Tork was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare cancer affecting his tongue, in 2009.

If the Monkees were a manufactured version of the Beatles, a “prefab four” who auditioned for a rock-and-roll sitcom and were selected more for their long-haired good looks than their musical abilities, Mr. Tork was the group’s Ringo, its lovably goofy supporting player.

On television, he performed as the self-described “dummy” of the group, drawing on a persona he developed while working as a folk musician in Greenwich Village, where he flashed a confused smile whenever his stage banter fell flat. Off-screen, he embraced the Summer of Love, donning moccasins and “love beads” and declaring that “nonverbal, extrasensory communication is at hand” and that “dogmatism is leaving the scene.”

A versatile multi-instrumentalist, Mr. Tork mostly played bass and keyboard for the Monkees, in addition to singing lead on tracks including “Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again,” which he wrote for the group’s psychedelic 1968 movie, “Head,” and “Your Auntie Grizelda.”

At age 24, he was also the band’s oldest member when “The Monkees” premiered on NBC in 1966. Not that it mattered: “The emotional age of all of us,” he told the New York Times that year, “is 13.”


Created by producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, “The Monkees” was designed to replicate the success of “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!,” director Richard Lester’s musical comedies about the Beatles.

The band featured Mr. Tork alongside Michael Nesmith, a singer-songwriter who played guitar, and former child actors Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones, who played the drums and sang lead, respectively. Like their British counterparts, the group had a fondness for mischief, resulting in high jinks involving a magical necklace, a monkey’s paw, high-seas pirates and Texas outlaws.

“The Monkees” ran for only two seasons but won an Emmy Award for outstanding comedy and spawned a frenzy of merchandising, record sales and world tours that became known as Monkeemania. In 1967, according to one report in The Washington Post, the Monkees sold 35 million albums — “twice as many as the Beatles and Rolling Stones combined” — on the strength of songs such as “Daydream Believer,” “I’m a Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville,” which all rose to No. 1 on the Billboard record chart.

Almost all of their early material was penned by a stable of vaunted songwriters that included Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, David Gates, Neil Sedaka and Jeff Barry. But while the band scored a total of six Top 10 songs and five Top 10 albums, they engendered as much critical scorn as commercial success. In one typical review, music critic Richard Goldstein declared, “The Monkees are as unoriginal as anything yet thrust upon us in the name of popular music.”

When the Monkees landed in Tokyo in 1968, around 1,000 fans gathered to see them arrive.

Detractors pointed to the fact that the band, at least initially, existed only in name. While the Monkees appeared on the cover of their debut album and were shown performing on TV, their instruments were actually unplugged. The songs were mostly done by session musicians — much to the shock of Mr. Tork, who recalled walking into the recording studio in 1966 to help with the group’s self-titled debut.

He was “mortified,” he later told CBS News, to find that music producer Don Kirshner, dubbed “the man with the golden ear,” didn’t want him around. “They were doing ‘Clarksville,’ and I wrote a counterpoint, I had studied music,” Mr. Tork said. “And I brought it to them, and they said: ‘No, no, Peter, you don’t understand. This is the record. It’s all done. We don’t need you.’ ”

After the release of the band’s second album, “More of the Monkees” (1967), Mr. Tork and his bandmates wrested control of the recording process and wrote and performed most of the songs on records including “Headquarters” (1967) and “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.” (1967).

They also started touring, playing to sold-out stadium crowds and backed by opening acts that briefly included guitarist Jimi Hendrix. But as Mr. Tork’s musical ambitions grew, leading him to envision the Monkees as a genuinely great group of rockers, he began to clash with bandmates who saw the Monkees as more of a novelty act.

He left the group soon after the release of “Head,” a satirical, nearly plot-free film flop that featured a screenplay co-written by actor Jack Nicholson. Mr. Tork seemed to have taken his cue from musician Frank Zappa, who made a cameo in the movie, telling Jones’s character that the Monkees “should spend more time” on their music “because the youth of America depends on you that show the way.”

For much of the 1970s, Mr. Tork struggled to find his own way. He formed an unsuccessful band called Release, was imprisoned for several months in 1972 after being caught with “$3 worth of hashish in my pocket,” and worked as a high school teacher and “singing waiter” as his Monkees wealth dried up. He also said he struggled with alcohol addiction — “I was awful when I was drinking, snarling at people,” he told the Daily Mail — before quitting alcohol in the early 1980s.

By then, television reruns and album reissues had fueled a resurgence of interest in the Monkees, and Mr. Tork had come around to what he described as the essential nature of the music group, which he joined for major reunion tours about once each decade, beginning in the mid-’80s, in addition to performing as a solo artist.

“This is not a band. It’s an entertainment operation whose function is Monkee music,” he told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper during a Monkees tour in 2016. “It took me a while to get to grips with that but what great music it turned out to be! And what a wild and wonderful trip it has taken us on!”

He was born Peter Halsten Thorkelson in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 13, 1942. His mother was a homemaker, and his father — an Army officer who served in the military government in Berlin after World War II — was an economics professor who joined the University of Connecticut in 1950, leading the family to settle in the town of Mansfield.

Both parents collected folk records and bought him a guitar and banjo when he was a boy. Peter went on to take piano lessons and studied French horn at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., where he reportedly flunked out twice before settling in New York City. At coffee shops and makeshift folk music venues, he performed with the shortened last name Tork, which had been emblazoned on one of his father’s hand-me-down sweatshirts, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Tork played with guitarist Stephen Stills before moving to Long Beach, Calif., in 1965. Stills moved west as well and auditioned for “The Monkees” after the show’s producers placed an advertisement in Variety calling for “4 Insane Boys, Ages 17-21.”

When Stills didn’t get the part — purportedly on account of his bad teeth — he suggested that Mr. Tork audition. “I went, ‘Yeah, sure, thanks for the call,’ and hung up,” Mr. Tork later told the Los Angeles Times. “Then he called me a few days later,” finally persuading Mr. Tork to try out.

He later appeared in episodes of television shows such as “Boy Meets World,” playing the love interest Topanga’s guitar-strumming father, and in recent years performed with a band called Shoe Suede Blues. Mr. Tork also released a well-received 1994 solo album, “Stranger Things Have Happened,” and partnered with folk singer James Lee Stanley for several records.

Mr. Tork’s marriages to Jody Babb, Reine Stewart and Barbara Iannoli ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife, Pamela Grapes; a daughter, Hallie, from his second marriage; a son, Ivan, from his third marriage; a daughter, Erica, from a relationship with Tammy Sustek; a brother; and a sister.

Many of the Monkees reunion tours were conducted without Nesmith, who inherited a fortune from his mother, the inventor of Liquid Paper, and largely dropped out of public view after the band first split up. Nesmith returned to performances after the death of Jones, the Monkees’ singer, in 2012, which helped spur a 50th anniversary reunion tour and album, “Good Times!,” four years later.

And while the Monkees were dogged by reports of squabbling and frequent tensions — Mr. Tork was once head-butted by Jones and said he dropped out of a 2001 tour because he had a “meltdown” and “behaved inappropriately” — Mr. Tork insisted that they were at their best when they were together. Their musical chemistry was special, he said, even if it was the result of a few producers looking to cast a few handsome men for a television show.

“I refute any claims that any four guys could’ve done what we did,” he told Guitar World in 2013. “There was a magic to that collection. We couldn’t have chosen each other. It wouldn’t have flown. But under the circumstances, they got the right guys.”

[stevearino]

Hello Out There From TV Land,

As many of you are aware, the Entertainment Industry lost former "Monkees" cast member Peter Tork, who died today at age 75.

Peter Halsen Thorkelson was born on February 13, 1944 (according to an "Entertainment Tonight" Birthday segment from 1997 announcing his 53rd Birthday that year) in Washington, D.C., the son of late parents John and Ginny Thorkelson, and one of 4 children, including brothers Nick and Chris and younger sister Elizabeth.

At age 16, in 1960, after Dropping out of High School (he eventually got his GED 2 years later before flunking out of college--TWICE--in Minnesota), Peter got married to Jody Babb (his first of 4 marriages) in a marriage that ended in Divorce before the year ended.

After his 2nd College Flunkout, Peter relocated to Greenwich Village in New York City, where he subsequently became a Folk Singer--an experience that eventually led him to audition for a role in 1965 on "The Monkees"; though unlike his TV counterpart, in reality Peter was smart and intelligent.

After the show's Cancellation and subsequent failure of 1968's "Head," Peter spent 3 years teaching at a Private High School, after which he rejoined "The Monkees" for a series of Tours after MTV and Nickelodeon began airing reruns of the Original Series, touring on and off until 2018.

In 2009, just after turning 65, Peter announced that he had recently been diagnosed, on March 4, 2009, with a rare form of Tongue Cancer--specifically, Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma--and was declared Cancer Free shortly afterward.

With Peter's passing (predeceased by Davy Jones in 2012), there leaves only 2 remaining original stars of "The Monkees": Mike Nesmith, age 76, who himself survived Bypass Surgery last year after Collapsing during a "Monkees" reunion tour; and Micky Dolenz, who'll be 74 next month on March 8.

For those unfamiliar with the show, here's the Inside Scoop on the hit 1960s TV show "The Monkees," courtesy of "The E! True Hollywood Story."

The year is 1965. Lyndon Baines Johnson, age 66, is U.S. President; the Vietnam War is in full effect; and aspiring filmmakers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider conceive and create a situation comedy pilot titled "The Monkees."

The show was pitched in early 1965 to Schneider's father, Abe, the President of Columbia Pictures, and on April 16, 1965, Columbia's TV subsidiary, Screen Gems Films, gave the go-ahead to shoot a Series Pilot.

The following Fall, September 8, 1965, 437 young men auditioned for "The Monkees" TV series, and among those who auditioned for the series, but were passed over, included Danny Hutton (futurely of "Three Dog Night"), Steve Stills (futurely of Crosby, Stills and Nash and Buffalo Springfield), Harry Nilsson (future Singer/Songwriter behind such hits as "Everybody's Talkin'," "Lime in the Coconut" and "**** You" among others), and Paul Williams (futurely an Actor/Songwriter who wrote songs for The Muppets among other acts).

Of those young men, the final 4 chosen were 22-year-old Mike Nesmith, 21-year-old Peter Tork, 20-year-old Micky Dolenz, and 19-year-old Davy Jones; Jones was the first star of "The Monkees" hired, and the only one hired without EVER auditioning for the series.

Its Pilot Episode, aired as the 10th Episode in the Series, "Here Come The Monkees," was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios (then Columbia Ranch) in Burbank, California in November 1965; less than a year later, September 12, 1966, "The Monkees" premiered on NBC.

Well over a month before the series' debut, the boys released their first single as "The Monkees," "Last Train to Clarksville," the first of 11 Top 40 Hits, including 3 #1's, over the next 2 years; despite this fact, except for the 1967 "Headquarters" album, the actors NEVER played their own Instruments on records, supplying only the vocals.

The success of "The Monkees," both on TV and the Record Charts, was short-lived, as NBC canceled "The Monkees" in February 1968 after Mike Nesmith refused to do a 3rd "Monkees" season in its Sitcom format, causing the Cancellation, as opposed to a Variety Show format; its final episode, written and directed by Micky Dolenz, aired on March 25, 1968.

After the cancellation, the movie "Head" was made in 1968 and released that November as a big Box-Office Bomb, and after 2 years, 58 TV episodes, 6 albums, and a movie, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones faded into Oblivion until the aforementioned MTV/Nickelodeon reruns.

The reruns lead to Several Reunion Concerts plus 4 reunion albums--the final 2 made after the passing of Davy Jones at age 66 on February 29, 2012 of a Massive Heart Attack in his Indiantown, Florida ranch. Personally, when I first heard about Davy's death, I was, like so many, Stunned, most importantly because Davy was a Vegetarian, Avid Exerciser, and Marathon Runner as well as Trained Athlete, and was in great health to the end.

And now it's Peter Tork's turn to leave behind a legacy of the Made-for-TV Sensation.

Late in life, shortly after his Cancer diagnosis, Peter also revealed a recent diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, a Mild form of Autism, a serious Brain Disease affecting 1 in 50 kids in America today. He is survived by his 4th and current wife, Pam, as well as 3 grown children (2 daughters from his 2nd marriage as well as a son, Ivan, from a Brief Affair).

RIP Peter, and God Bless!!!

[TVShowAddict]

Just to correct you, Peter is 77 and is born in 1942

[Zoneboy]

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/...d.php?t=379843

[TVShowAddict]

Rest in peace Peter! You are singing and dancing with David in heaven now

[dakert]

RIP Peter, Thank you for the 30 years of MONKEES reunions

[D-Dey]

Peter didn't play in this (unless you count the commercial), but I have to add this in his honor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apnu-smjrMo

[Mr. Television]

R.I.P. Peter.

[IllinoisTVFan]

RIP. Always loved the Monkees and he was funny.

[MA]

Here is an article from Billboard and it has the two surviving members of the group remembering him:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news...cid=spartanntp

[Dude111]

Very sad

[PhoenixAcres]

[Theda Bara]

Rest In Peace, Peter

I used to have a crush on Peter Tork. One year, I found out that he was performing at a record store in Los Angeles, so I drove all the way from San Diego just to see him in person. I am so glad that I did.

Mr. Tork will be missed but not forgotten.

[um]

Originally Posted by MA

Died today at the age of 77 after being diagnosed with a rare form of tongue cancer.

So far, the news that I have heard is that there is yet no confirmation as to his cause of death.
He was diagnosed with the cancer years ago and he had surgery years ago for it.
I have not heard that the condition re-emerged or anything like that.