Micky Dolenz

Former child actor Micky Dolenz bloomed into one of the most popular teen idols of the 1960s as drummer and frequent lead vocalist of the Monkees, who successfully made the leap from characters on their eponymous television series (NBC, 1966-69) to an actual chart-topping pop act. Quick-witted and boundlessly energetic, Dolenz garnered the lion's shares of the laughs, in addition to singing some of the group's biggest hits, including "I'm a Believer," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Last Train to Clarksville" and many others. Like most of his bandmates, Dolenz fell on hard times after the show and band collapsed in the mid-1970s, but he quickly rebounded as a television director in England. In the late 1980s, a new wave of Monkee-mania gripped America, spurring Dolenz to reunite with his former musical partners for a string of successful tours. Some four decades after the Monkees' initial heyday, Micky Dolenz remained the band's most enthusiastic and accessible member, as well as one of the most accomplished outside of the pop-rock realm.