Michael Nesmith, the ‘Quiet Monkee,’ Is Dead at 78

Michael Nesmith, who rocketed to fame as the contemplative, wool-cap-wearing member of the Monkees in 1966, then went on to a diverse career that included making one of the rock era’s earliest music videos and winning the first Grammy Award for video, died on Friday at his home in Carmel Valley, Calif.

Davy Jones, a British vocalist, was the cute scamp; Micky Dolenz, the drummer and primary lead singer, was the wild jokester; and Peter Tork, the bass player, was the lovable dim bulb.

The show made its debut in September 1966, and though it lasted only two seasons, the Monkees became a cultural reference point, thanks largely to their best-selling albums .

“They wanted me to stand in front of a microphone and sing,” Mr. Nesmith was quoted as saying in the 2011 book “I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution,” by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum.

“As we edited these images,” he added, “an unusual thing started to emerge: The grammar of film, where images drove the narrative, shifted over to where the song drove the narrative, and it didn’t make any difference that the images were discontinuous.

Almost by accident, he had made one of the first music videos as that term came to be understood.

The show is often said to have helped inspire the creation of MTV in 1981, although accounts of the various people who claim to have had a role in MTV’s emergence differ widely.

His mother later remarried, took the last name Graham and became wealthy from inventing Liquid Paper and running the company that produced it.

In 1960 he enlisted in the Air Force .

He enrolled at San Antonio College, where he began performing on a guitar he had received as a Christmas gift from his mother and stepfather in 1961.

Among the songs he wrote in 1965 was “Different Drum,” though its best-known incarnation, a hit version by Linda Ronstadt and her group the Stone Poneys, would not come out until 1967, after the Monkees were famous.

The mania, though, soon played itself out.

Several other musical ventures followed, but Mr. Nesmith was growing increasingly interested in video.

Mr. Nesmith only occasionally joined them onstage, but all four played and sang on, and wrote songs for, the group’s 1996 album, “Justus.” In 2016 the group released the album “Good Times,” which included some archival material recorded by Mr. Jones.

And he and Mr. Dolenz went back on the road this year, for what was billed as the Monkees’ farewell tour.

He is survived by three children from his first marriage, Christian, Jonathan and Jessica Nesmith, and a son from a relationship with Nurit Wilde, Jason Nesmith, as well as two grandchildren.

Early in the video era, his company, Pacific Arts, had bought the home video rights to some of PBS’s most popular programs, including “Nature.” PBS sued him over royalties, but in 1999 a federal jury in Los Angeles found in Mr. Nesmith’s favor and awarded him $47 million.

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