Did you know that all but one of the members of the Monkees have now passed away?
With the passing of Michael Nesmith in late 2021, the only remaining member of the band
who is still with us is Micky Dolenz.
In this video, we’ll take a look at the ups and downs of The Monkees, as well as how
each of the band's members died.
We'll also look at how Micky Dolenz is dealing with the fact that he’s the final member
of the band who is still with us.
It certainly hasn’t been easy for him to lose all three of his friends and bandmates
in the span of one decade.
So join Facts Verse, as we take a look at how the last surviving member of The Monkees
is struggling to hold it together.
The rise and fall, and eventual rise again of The Monkees was a classic American story.
In some ways, they were a fake band, created strictly for the TV show that shared their
name.
At the least, you could say that their origins were far from organic.
When TV producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson were creating the show, they chose the four
musicians as actors, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Davy Jones, and Michael Nesmith, to be the
'band' inside the show.
Jones hailed from England, while the other three were Americans.
Early on, it appeared that the boys were far better actors than they were musicians, despite
the fact that they could indeed play instruments and sing.
So, despite their best attempts to actually be the band that performed on air, the producers
felt they lacked the skills and talent to do so.
As such, studio musicians were used to fake their performances on the air and on their
albums.
The TV show was a success, and the albums and singles released under The Monkees name
were even more successful.
All seemed to be copasetic until the actors grew frustrated that their musical performances
weren't being utilized.
They were also being mocked in public because of their perceived lack of musical talent.
The show ran from 1966 to 1968, but by 1967 the band revolted and demanded they be the
ones playing the actual music.
The producers reluctantly agreed, and the band made two more albums before each member
began to pursue solo careers.
As such, the band fell apart by 1970.
But a resurgence in interest in the TV show during the 1980s meant that the members found
new success and fame, and they reunited.
Over the next three decades, they toured, released four full-length albums, and became
a more legit aspect of rock and roll history.
Davy Jones’ Death The first member of the Monkees to die was
Davy Jones.
He was living in Florida at the time and owned 14 horses that were kept on a farm in Indiantown.
Jones was an avid fan of horses and enjoyed riding his around the property and on the
track.
On Feb 29, 2012, he got on top of one of his favorite steeds and began to ride around the
track.
This wasn’t unusual.
But what was unusual was his sudden sensation of chest pains.
Those pains, combined with some breathing issues led him to initially think he was suffering
from indigestion.
He took some antacids and called it a day for riding.
As he got back into his car to return home, however, he collapsed.
A man who worked on the farm discovered Jones in his car, and call an ambulance.
Jones was unconscious when the worker found him, and sadly he never woke up.
The ambulance took him to Martin Memorial South Hospital in nearby Stuart, where doctors
tried to save him, to no avail.
They pronounced him dead of a heart attack that morning.
The cause of the heart attack was said to be arteriosclerosis.
A week later Jones was given a private funeral at a Catholic church in Indiantown.
Then a public ceremony was held for him in Pennsylvania on March 10th.
Jones had actually purchased a church in Beavertown, PA, in the hopes of renovating it.
Sadly, he never got the chance to.
Finally, his friends and family in Manchester, England held a ceremony for him on March 12.
It took place at the Lees Street Congregational Church.
The location was chosen specifically because Jones had been in plays there when he was
a child.
Peter Tork’s Death The next member of the Monkees to pass away
was Peter Tork.
While Davy Jones’s experience was fast and sudden, Tork’s was the opposite.
In 2009, he revealed to the public that doctors had diagnosed him with adenoid cystic carcinoma.
It’s a type of head and neck cancer that’s quite rare.
It also tends to grow very slowly.
Tork reported that, at least in terms of longer-term prognosis, the news was relatively good.
Scans of his body showed that it hadn’t yet moved anywhere other than the initial
site where it was found.
Tork also revealed that his case was made even rarer by the fact that it had been discovered
in his tongue.
Tork noted in a message on his website that doctors didn’t have a lot of experience
with adenoid cystic carcinoma which is located on the tongue.
However, he did point out that they did have experience with the disease in general, and
because of that, he felt his prognosis was good.
He underwent surgery that month, which reportedly went well.
But unfortunately, only a few months later, in June of 2009, he received news that a new
tumor had grown back.
Despite that, Tork’s doctors told him they thought the chances of shrinking the new tumor
up and containing it before it spread anywhere was around 80%.
Tork began radiation treatments to shrink the tumor, and even continued touring while
he recovered.
Throughout his journey, he would post on Facebook about the process, so his fans could keep
tabs on how he was doing.
He even asked people to donate to adenoid cystic carcinoma research.
Things looked better and better for Tork for a decade.
But sadly, the cancer returned in 2018.
This time it was too much for his body to handle.
Tork died on February 21, 2019.
He was at his home in Connecticut at the time.
Michael Nesmith’s Death Michael Nesmith was the most recent Monkee
to pass away.
Nesmith had remained in the music industry over the years, both as the founder of Countryside
Records and Pacific Arts Records.
He was married three times throughout his life and had four kids.
In 2018, he was in the middle of a tour with Micky Dolenz, when he suddenly had to cancel
the final four stops.
At the time, Nesmith released a statement saying the dates had been canceled due to
a minor health scare.
Later it was revealed that the issues were much more serious than that.
It came out that Nesmith had actually undergone quadruple bypass heart surgery.
As a result, he’d been in the hospital for more than a month.
While that episode didn’t kill him, it did limit his ability to be on tour.
His heart issues continued for the next couple of years, finally resulting in him dying of
heart failure on December 10, 2021.
He was at his home in Carmel Valley, California.
Nesmith was 78 and was only a few weeks from turning 79.
Micky Dolenz It’s never easy to lose people in your life.
And for Micky Dolenz, the last decade has been particularly rough in that regard.
All three of the other Monkees members die within a 10-year span, leaving Dolenz as the
only remaining member.
Sadly, this has taken an emotional toll on Dolenz.
He has said publicly that he is still having trouble processing the loss of his dear friends
and former bandmates.
Dolenz is currently 77, and perhaps because of the loss of the other Monkees, he’s had
a renewed interest in taking better care of himself.
He told The Mirror that he’s actually surprised to have been the final remaining member.
He remarked that if he’d known he was going to live this long, he would have taken better
care of his body.
So these days, Dolenz has a focus on eating right, exercising more, and curbing his drinking
habits as well.
He says he does yoga and at least another form of exercise every day.
Part of this process has been because he is trying to enjoy what time he has left, and
live in the moment.
He says he has also become a lot more selective on the types of jobs he accepts because he
knows that working to hard might cut years off of his life in the end.
However, Dolenz still made sure he was up for a tribute tour.
In February of 2022, he announced that he planned to do a short tour to honor his departed
bandmates.
He toured the US in April of 2022, and it was a bittersweet way for him to keep playing
the music that made him famous, while still paying tribute to the men who had gone on
the journey with him.
Now it’s time to hear from you.
What was your favorite Monkees song of all time?
Let us know in the comments section.
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haven’t already.
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