Get the latest gossip

‘It was not a boyband!’ Micky Dolenz on the madness of being in the Monkees


He was in one of the biggest groups in the world – all without playing a note. As the last surviving Monkee turns 80, he remembers 60s fame – and what happened when the band broke free

The series was green-lit and the Monkees proved so successful at parting young people from their disposable income that, within a year, Dolenz was unable to visit the shopping mall near his parents’ home in San Jose without causing pandemonium. But here Dolenz is, Zooming from his holiday home on the Delaware River a few days after his 80th birthday, the last surviving Monkee, looking jaunty in orange-tinted sunglasses and a rakishly angled trilby. “We were looking to move on: we didn’t want to make a film that was a feature-length Monkees episode where Davy falls in love and the girl’s uncle is a crook and we have to save him and we sing her some songs.

Get the Android app

Or read this on The Guardian

Read more on:

Photo of micky dolenz

micky dolenz

Related news:

News photo

The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz on Telling Stories on Stage and in His Book: ‘Collecting Stuff All My Life’