Upon The Monkees‘ 1966 television debut on the NBC network, Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork fit into molds that guaranteed success. The series’ producers created specific characters to guarantee the show’s success with teenage viewers. Their characters appeared to mirror the personas made popular by The Beatles. However, producers took casting one step further. They once asked Tork if he minded playing the role of “the dummy.”
What were the on-screen personas of the cast of ‘The Monkees?’
Part of Beatlemania involved each Fab Four member having simple identities fans could understand. Paul McCartney was the cute one, John Lennon was the smart one, George Harrison was the quiet one, and Ringo was the clown. Therefore, for The Monkees producers to try and mimic The Beatles’ popularity on the small-screen, they took the same approach with their actors.
Closer Weekly reports that the four guys cast as musicians on The Monkees had similar roles to play. Davy Jones was the cute one, Micky Dolenz was the funny one, Mike Nesmith was the smart one, and Peter Tork became the clown. However, The Monkees producers went further and asked Tork, “do you mind playing the dummy?”
Peter Tork revealed said he knew he’d be playing ‘the dummy’ on ‘The Monkees’
Tork discussed The Monkees’ casting process in a 2014 interview with Guitar World. He admitted he knew the type of on-screen character he would portray.
“They actually chose me and then said, ‘Do you mind playing the dummy?'” Tork admitted. [Producers] didn’t say, “We’re choosing you if you’ll play the dummy.” They said, ‘Do you mind?'”
However, Tork understood the role well. He claimed that while living in New York City, he developed that same persona as a struggling musician.
“I had developed that character on the Greenwich Village stages when I was a basket-passing, coffee house folk singer in the early ’20s,” he revealed. “One reason I could play that character so well was that I’d been working on it for quite a while.”
Tork was a multi-layered musician before starring in ‘The Monkees’
Per a 2019 obituary published by The Scotsman, Peter Halsten Thorkelson was born in Washington, DC, on Feb. 13, 1942. Tork developed his love for music at the age of nine. He played guitar, bass, keyboards, banjo, and other instruments.
In the early 1960s, Tork moved to New York to become a part of the growing folk music movement in Greenwich Village. He then moved to Los Angeles, where singer-songwriter Stephen Stills, a member of the music group Buffalo Springfield, recommended his friend to The Monkees producers.
Tork’s Monkees bandmate Dolenz once told Forbes Magazine, “He [Stephen Stills] auditioned, and the joke is he didn’t get it because he had bad teeth. He also told Peter Tork about the audition because they had been together in the Greenwich Village-era scene in New York. He and Peter had similarities, especially in how they looked.”
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