Micky Dolenz has been in show business since Dwight Eisenhower was president, and at 81, the last surviving Monkee is still on the road. So when the subject of “nepo babies,” the children of famous parents who follow them into the business, came up in an October 28 interview with Biff Bam Pop, he did not hold back. “Now they call it nepo baby. I think it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said, as People and Parade also reported.
“My parents were both in the business, both singers and actors,” Dolenz explained. “We used to call it following in your father’s footsteps, which so many people do in many different industries, just standard practice.” It is a fair point from a man whose family story starts with an Italian-born movie star and ends, so far, with three generations in front of the camera.
Who Was Micky Dolenz’s Father?
Micky was born George Michael Dolenz Jr. on March 8, 1945, in Los Angeles, the son of actor George Dolenz. His father was born Jure Dolenc in Trieste on January 5, 1908, and came to Hollywood with a story Micky still loves to tell. “The story goes that my dad met Howard Hughes in the restroom and he signed him on the spot!” he told the Italian American magazine Fra Noi.
George Dolenz went on to roles in My Cousin Rachel and The Last Time I Saw Paris, and in 1956 he became a TV swashbuckler as Edmond Dantes in 39 episodes of The Count of Monte Cristo, according to Micky’s official biography and Wikipedia. Micky’s mother, Janelle Johnson, was a Texas-born singer and actress who had her own radio show in Austin. “My mom played piano,” Micky said, “so it’s just following in my father’s footsteps.” By the time he was 10, he was taking his first steps in them.
How Did Micky Dolenz Become ‘Circus Boy’?
He almost didn’t. “When I was 10, my mother convinced me to audition for a show called ‘Circus Boy,'” Dolenz told Fra Noi. He got the part of Corky, the orphaned water boy for a circus elephant, and the series premiered on NBC on September 23, 1956, before moving to ABC for its second season. He was billed as Mickey Braddock. “I spent two years on the show and definitely got bit by the bug,” he said.
His father did not live to see what came next. George Dolenz died of a heart attack on February 8, 1963, at just 55, when Micky was 17. “It was traumatic,” Micky told Fra Noi. “He was only 55.” He added that he regretted never having the chance to talk with his dad about the family’s roots in Trieste. Three years later, the son was starring in a TV show of his own, and this one would make him a household name.
Did Micky Dolenz Ever Want To Be Famous?
Surprisingly, he says no. “I never ever had that burning desire that you see in movies and musicals,” he told Biff Bam Pop, and he admitted he never loved “the disappointment of rejection, which is constant in this business.” For him it has always been a trade, the way it was for his parents. “It’s what I do, and it’s how I make my living.”
That trade took him to The Monkees, which ran on NBC from 1966 to 1968 and turned four young actors into one of the biggest bands of the decade. Davy Jones died on February 29, 2012, Peter Tork on February 21, 2019, and Mike Nesmith on December 10, 2021, which left Dolenz as the group’s last surviving member. And the family business did not stop with him.
The Third Generation Of Dolenz Performers
Micky’s daughter, Ami Dolenz, born January 8, 1969, to Micky and British TV presenter Samantha Juste, became an actress herself, appearing in the 1987 teen comedy Can’t Buy Me Love and playing Melissa McKee on General Hospital, according to Wikipedia and IMDb. She stepped away from acting years ago, but for a while there were three generations of Dolenzes with screen credits. If anyone in Hollywood ever earned the right to scoff at the “nepo baby” label, it may be this family.
Meanwhile, the boy from Circus Boy is still working. His “60 Years of The Monkees” tour opened on February 12 in Solana Beach, California, and has been extended into 2027, including an Australian leg next May, with stops this month in Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Mississippi and Alabama, according to Ultimate Classic Rock. He also has a new EP, Timeless, co-produced by Sam Hollander and John Hughes. Asked how long he has been at it, he did the math without blinking. “I’ve been in the business for seventy years,” he said, “since my first television series.”
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