Mike Nesmith
"Having no community spirit whatsoever."*
Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, Texas. His parents--Bette and Sergeant Major W.A. Nesmith--seperated in Mike's early childhood, bringing Mike and his mom just outside of Dallas for the remainder of his teenage years.
Mike had an unhappy childhood (most stars do for some reason...). "I couldn't keep up with the other kids because I went to a pretty rich school due to the weird zoning of school districts." Mike has said. "I was unpopular because I was poor, thin and ugly. Until I was about sixteen I kept trying to make friends but other kids were crummy to me because they were wrapped up in themselves and their huge social system." He tried to make up for his loneliness and unpopularity by behaving in odd, strange ways to be noticed, such as just walking out of class for no reason and whistling in the hallway. (That does sound like fun.)
It was in high school when the music bug bit him. He was mostly interested in black rhythm and blues and artists like B.B. King, Ike and Tina Turner and Bo Diddley. Also some country artists like Jerry Lee Lewis tweaked his interest.
In his late teens, Bette Nesmith remarried to Robert Graham. Mike was *not* happy with this, and in protest he resorted to juvenile delinquency (stealing cars, that sort of thing). To sort of straighten him out, Bette sent her son off to the U.S. Air Force when he was eighteen. He wasn't happy with that either; after tipping over the general's plane while cleaning it one morning, he was pretty much told that he was not wanted in the Air Force.
So Mike went back home and bought himself a guitar, which he learned to play himself by listening to records and picking out the right cords. Since listen-and-learn is very hard to do with most songs, Mike took to writing his own in his free time.
Mike enrolled himself in San Antonio college where he managed the campus theater. He also met his wife, Phyllis Barbour, around that time. They were married on March 16, 1963, and one year later Phyllis gave birth to a son they named Christian Du Val. (God knows *why* they named him that. Poor kid, that's all I'm gonna say.)
Soon Mike grew bored of Texas. He and Phyllis moved out to California so he could pursue his musical interest. During this time he wrote Different Drum, Some of Shelley's Blues, Nine Times Blue, Propinquity, Mary, Mary and other such songs, some of which were made very famous by the Monkees later on.
When he found out about the ad in the paper for a television show about a band, Mike wasn't to keen on trying out. "I thought, ugh! That'll be the worst kind of show business...the kind of clowns who'd put an ad like that in the paper." But (despite what he said), he went out and auditioned anyway. Apparently he made an impression on the producers and was cast as Mike Nesmith, guitarist...which Mike supposed he could do pretty well.
Most people know about Peter Tork's time in jail, but not many know of Mike's. Okay, he didn't commit anything horrible like theft or harrassment, but he had some unpaid debts that crept up on him and he had to spend a very brief amount of time in the local courthouse until Lester Sill bailed him out. Mike chooses not to talk about that time in his life.
*Thanks to Monkeemania by Glenn A. Baker for all the quotes and the back story. If you want a more complete description of Mike, Peter, Davy and Micky's lives, please check this book out. (Even though it did get some of the birthdates wrong.)