Davy Jones, lead singer of The Monkees,
died of a heart attack February 29 at age 66,
in Indiantown, Florida,
where he lived. |
|
I Remember Davy Jones
BY BERNIE ILSON
FIRST met Davy Jones when
I was the public relations director for Ed Sullivan and
the Ed Sullivan Show. Davy was in the Broadway play
Oliver, the musical based on Charles
Dickens’s
Oliver Twist. Davy was cast as the Artful Dodger, a
singing role. It was 1964 and I believe he was only 18 years
old. Ed Sullivan often presented scenes from current Broadway
shows on his weekly television variety program along with the
comics, the plate-spinners, the ballet dancers and Topo Gigio.
Bernie Ilson |
Sullivan presented the Beatles to the American
television public for the first time on February 9, 1964.
I later met Davy Jones when I did the publicity for his TV
series, The Monkees.
Of the four young actors starring
as The Monkees, only Davy Jones had a real strong singing
voice. The others were Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith and
Mickey Dolenz. The series ran only from September 1966 to
March 1968, but did win two Emmys in 1967 for Best Comedy series
and Best Direction.
The Monkees was basically
assembled in the editing room where it was pieced together as a
fast-moving, slapstick comedy in the mode of the Beatles feature
films.
Davy told me that he hoped The Monkees
would lead to a series of his own on television, but it never
did.
Although The Monkees was short-lived on TV,
Davy and the group continued to make it pay off with concert
dates, recordings and night club appearances for forty years.
