Mike best known on the Monkees TV series as the straightly guy, the leader of the group, the problem solver mostly for his famous green wool hat. He was born Robert Michael Nesmith on December 30, 1942 in Houston, Texas as the only child to Warren and Bette Nesmith. His father was away serving during the Second World War when he was born and when he returned the couple eventually divorced in 1946. His father would later remarry and give Mike a half sister Deborah Ann. Mike wouldn't reunite with his father until the Monkees era. Mike was raised by his mother who moved to Dallas in 1951 when she inheritated some of her late father's land in the poor black section. Despite protests from white residents to move out they remained and she supported them by working as a secretary. Surprisingly, his mother Bette who was a bad typist and made errors worked on a formula in her kitchen and invented liquid paper. She soon started selling the stuff to her neighbors and Mike and his friends helped in selling the new invention. She would eventually make about $50,000,000 by the time of her death in 1980 which she would leave half to Mike.
As a child growing up in a broken home, Mike was a bit of troublemaker not satisfied with school or home having described himself as a failure growing. Mike attended Thomas Jefferson High School, an all black school where participated in school plays but hated school so much he quit during his senior but he had the love of music and learned to play the saxophone. In 1962 his mother married frozen food salesman Bob Graham whom she would later divorce and Mike reacted by running away to Los Angelos for while before returning home to face his mother. She had him join the Air Force to learn some disipline. However, Mike hated the Air Force, learn little discipline and ending up serving only fourteen months when he was dischared for tripping over the general's airplane while cleaning it and returned to Texas. Back in Texas, Mike then enrolled in San Antonio Junior College and started singing at concerts on campus. Although it has been said that he learned to play the guitar after a firecracker accident injured his hand, in reality, Mike injured his hand when a group of neighborhood kids were smashing some rocks with a sledgehammer accidently smashed his hand while holding down the rocks causing him to lose the use of this third finger. While at San Antonio collage Mike met a bassist named John London and the two became friends. He also met a pretty college student named Phyllis Barbour through a friend David Price who was already in a singing group herself and they were instantly smitten (Both London and Price would work with Mike on the Monkees TV show). Since at the time Phyllis whom he would call April was already dating one of her band members, they started dating in secret. In December, Phyllis finally dumped her boyfriend and few months later she and Mike were married on June 27, 1964.
Not satisfied with college or Texas, Mike and Phyllis along with John London left Texas for Los Angeles later that year. There he and John formed a folk singing duo called Mike and John although they were hardly making any money. He did get a slight break when he signed a contract with Colpix Records Label under the name Michael Blessing and wrote a few songs and released a couple of singles. A skilled songwriter, one of Mike's song's "Different Drum" would become a hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys in 1968. In addition, he would appear on Lloyd Thaxton's syndicated teen dance show however, Mike still wasn't a success plus their was a third addition to his family when Phyllis gave birth to their first son named Christian Duvall on January 31, 1965. That same year, Mike finally got the big break he needed when he saw an ad in the Variety magazine regarding an audition for a new television series about a rock n' roll group called "The Monkees and despite being a musician with no acting experience he went to Screen Gems for the interview wearing his green wool hat an carrying his bag of laundry to take to the laundromat on his way home and impressed the creators/producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider he got the part on the spot.
That fall, Mike along Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork(although he'd already met Peter at the Whiskey-Au-Go Go) met and began filming the first episode of the Monkees. The Monkees became a huge instant success with the young viewers as a television series and a rock n roll group with Mike often referred was woolhat because he always wore his green wool hat during the early part of the show, the leader and the "smart one" of the zany group on the show. Soon enough they began touring around at concerts and selling millions of albums as Monkeemania began. Mike even put his songwriting talents to good use writing several of the Monkees songs such as "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", "Papa's Blue Genes", "Sweet Young Thing", "You Told Me", "You Must Be The One", "Mary, Mary"(which was already a hit for the Butterfield Blues Band)etc. and sang lead on some of them. Off the set, Mike formed a close friendship with his fellow castmates and bandmates although he and Phyllis weren't into the fast pace of drugs and wild parties like the others were. Eventually he moved Phyllis and their son into a Mansion in Hollywood Hills. However, despite The Monkees success, Mike wasn't satisfied with some of the arrangement which was basically the band not being allowed to play their own music. Wanting to be taking as a musician seriously, Mike was the first to be verbally objective about this fact and even rallied the other members to side with him fighting for their rights to play their own music. However, the plans were ruined when, the producers brought in Don Kirschner as a music supervisor. Although Kirshner brought in great hits for the Monkees, he and Mike often clashed over the Monkees rights to control regarding their music. One such infamous moment happened while Mike arguing with Kirshner in the studio punched a hole in the wall replying "That could have been your face mother f*****!"
After this incident and several other conflicts, Kirchner was eventually fired and Mike brought in his friend bassist and former member of The Turtles, Chip Douglass to produce their next album "Headquarters" where the group was in total control of their own music. But soon near tragedy struck when in 1967 year after The Monkees premiered that Phyllis while driv-ing one her and Mike's Mercedes around Hollywood Hills crashed their car and was seriously injured. Since both Mike and Phyllis were Christian Scientists which meant they didn't believe and hospitals or medicine, Phyllis was taking to her home and put in bed to re-cuperate. Shortly after this incident was over, she and Mike were soon expecting another child and on February 4, 1968, they welcomed their second son Jonathan Darby. Unfor-tunately their marriage wasn't quite so perfect. Mike had started having an extramarital affair with a rock star photographer named Nurit Wilde who was a friend of Peter's and did a cover of one of their LPs. This resulted in the birth of their illegitimate son named Michael Jason (who was just known as Jason) born on August 7 of that year just six months after the birth of Jonathan. Mike for the longest time wouldn't acknowledge Jason but his marriage was strained and Phyllis took their two sons and left for a year before reconciling. After this Mike and Phyllis would continue to break up and reconcile off and on for several years. Also in that year, things were on going down hill for the Monkees. The TV series was cancelled early that year and their records were selling less and less although Mike did record his solo album called "Wichita Train Whistle Songs". The group later starred in their own feature film called "Head" written by actor Jack Nicholson that was an instant failure in the box offices, plus near end of that year Peter left the group. Mike remained with The Monkees as a trio but their albums weren't as successful during their TV series and in 1969 Mike left the group.
After his Monkees days were over, Mike concentrated on a solo career. In 1970, Mike reunited with his old friend John London and formed a new band called The First National Band along with drummer John Ware and guitarist Orville"Red" Rhodes. With this new band, he wrote the material adding a combination of country music and rock n' roll in which became the inspiration to country rock. The First National Band signed a contract to RCA and released two albums that same year as well as the single "Joanna" hitting the top 25 and "Silver Moon" a year later. By the following year, the band dissolved in Mike then formed The Second National Band with some new members although Red Rhodes remained. This new National Band only released one album "Tantamount To Treason" in 1972 before it dissolved as well. Mike continued on as a solo artist and with Red Rhodes still on has his backup musician, he made two solo albums "And The Hits Keep Comin" and 1973's "Pretty Much Your Standard Stash". By 1974, he had left RCA and formed his own communications label company "Pacific Arts Corporation. That following year, he released the company's first album "The Prison" a combination of book/record and next year returning to the charts with "From an Engine To A Photon Wings" that had the hit single "Rio". He toured in and out of the country behind "Rio" even as far as Australia. In 1977, he furthered his talents by putting together a half hour TV top 40 show called "Pop Clips" which had his single "Rio". Several years later, Warner Bros. bought the show from Mike and formed it into MTV thus making Mike the inventor of MTV.
Despite his career success during the 70s his personal life was a different matter. His rocky marriage to Phyllis continued to get worse even though she had given him a third child and their only daughter Jessica Buffler back in September 10, 1970. But that didn't help their marriage any and the couple finally divorced in 1975 after eleven years. Less than year later he remarried to Kathryn Bilb on February 26, 1976 but the marriage would end too in 1988. Near the end of the decade Mike continued to make a couple of albums and in 1979 he mad his last album for over a decade titled "Infinite Rider On the Big Dogma". Beginning in the 1980s with Pacific Arts becoming a huge success, Mike turned to television and films. He had already produced short films for "Saturday Night Live" and "Fridays" in 1979. By 1981, he created a film-length music video and comedy sketch and commercial spoof titled "Elephant Parts" in which he won a Grammy award. He even produced and starred in his own tele-vision series "Mike Nesmith and Television Parts" an eight-episode comedy series that aired on NBC in 1983. Fellow former Monkee Member Micky Dolenz directed some of the epi-sodes. Around his time he also turned to producing several films that include "Repo Man" starring Emilio Estevez, "Timeriders", "Tapeheads" and the TV film "Square Dance".
When Monkeemania returned for a 20th reunion in 1986, Mike declined to rejoin the band because of his busy schedule. However, he did make two appearances with his former bandmates. First on Sept 7, 1986 concert at the Greek Theatre in L.A. and on July 9, 1989 at the Universal Ampitheatre also in L.A. That following day, Mike along with the three remaining Monkees were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Also that year, he returned to his music career in a decade starting with releases such as "The Newer Stuff", "The Older Stuff", "Tropical Campfires" and 1994's "The Garden" which was nominated for a Grammy award in a new category, as well as sang backup for fellow former Monkee Peter Tork on his solo album. When the Monkees reunited again for their 30th anniversary tour in 1996, this time he agreed to rejoin them. He produced their first and only album as a quartet since 1968, called "Justus" where they all wrote and played their own music. Although he didn't tour with the others, he did join them at a mini concert to promote their new album at the Billboard Live Club on November 20th of that year. Early in the following year, Mike had written, produced and directed The Monkees TV special "Hey Hey It's The Monkees". After the Monkees made their UK tour in March, Mike dropped out without explanation or a good-bye later claiming he wasn't getting the thrill of it anymore plus he hates long tours.
Since his departure from the Monkees again, Mike was being busy forming another com-pany, Videoranch in 1997. A year later Mike started a new career as an author when he published his first novel "The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora" which was released on audio cd in 2002. He also won a long battle$47,000,000 lawsuit against him by PBS. In April 2000, he married for the third time to his long-time girlfriend former model Victoria Kennedy. Today the former Monkee and father of country rock who's now a grandfather continues his music career, has since the released of his latest of album of 2004 "Ray"s as well as con-tinuing his writing career with the release of his second novel "The America Gene" in 2005. That same year he started a small video game development company called Zoomo Produc-tions and now resides in Monterey Peninsula. Some of his Children are also carrying on the tradition of music. All of his children are recording artists just like their dad . Mike continues to shine with his music impressing generations young and old alike.
