Smothers, Tom

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    Tom Smothers and the John Lennon Connection

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    He was close with John Lennon, and had a sophisticated understanding of wine, politics and literature. He only played the bumpkin onstage.I read the news today, oh boy.John Lennon’s lyric popped into my head Tuesday as soon as I read the texts from my friend Marcy Carriker Smothers. The first was a photo of a guitar next to a fire and Christmas poinsettia. The second included the news. “Beautiful and peaceful passing today at 1:40P. We had a lovely Christmas.”Tom Smothers had been in hospice for months so word of his passing induced a sigh not a gasp. I thought of the “Day in the Life” lyric not because of the circumstances of his death — Tom was 86 and died of lung cancer — but because Lennon and Tom were close. At the 1969 Montreal recording of “Give Peace a Chance,” only two acoustic guitars strum along. One is held by Lennon; the other by Tom.Tom came to the antiwar movement with sad bona fides. His father was a West Pointer who said goodbye to his namesake son in 1940, before heading to the Pacific to defend liberty. He never returned.Nothing funny about that origin story. Still, through music, Tom and his younger brother, Dick, found their way to comedy and created an act that instantly impressed Jack Paar, the “Tonight” show host, who remarked in 1961, “I don’t know what you guys have but no one’s going to steal it.”Six years later, the brothers debuted “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” their seminal variety show that used comedy to satirize issues like the Vietnam War, racial politics and drugs.Despite the heavy topics, Tom came across as lighthearted and simple. During an audience question-and-answer session, a woman once asked, “Are you both married?”“No, ma’am. We’re just brothers,” Tom said.Smothers was close with John Lennon and played guitar on “Give Peace a Chance” in 1969 in Montreal. In real life, Tom thought and felt deeply. He cared about social justice and the creative process. He labored over details. The biggest contradiction was Tom’s onstage persona. A classic Smothers Brothers sketch would begin with the two singing a song until Tom interrupted or screwed up the words so badly that Dick pulled the plug. This would lead to wry observations or an argument that built to a punchline. The brothers would then return to the song, providing the sketch with a natural and satisfying finish. At heart, this was character comedy with Dick playing the bass and the straight man and Tom playing the guitar and the fool.In an early episode, the brothers came out singing the Maurice Chevalier hit “Louise” while sporting boater hats. They paused to discuss the French and romance, and Tom instantly claimed familiarity. “You really know about those French wines and women?” Dick challenged Tom.“Oh I know all about that stuff.”The audience laughed, doubting his claim.Dick was not about to let Tom off the hook. “French wine — what do you know about it?” he pressed.“It gets you drunk,” Tom replied, nailing the punchline with exquisite timing.In real life, Tom knew everything about wine. For decades, he owned and operated a vineyard in Sonoma that produced award-winning merlot and cabernet sauvignon. At first, he lived in a barn on the property, then later designed a main house with a huge stone fireplace and views in every direction so that you could follow the sun throughout the day. If the hot tub could talk, it would tell spicy stories about parties in the 1960s and ’70s and probably be the only one that could remember what happened.By the time I visited Smothers-Remick Ridge Ranch, the hot tub was a place for kids to splash around. I’d first met Tom in 1988, when I was hired as a writer for the variety show’s second life. While working on the reboot, I roomed with the associate producer, Marcy Carriker, who married Tom in 1990. Their two children — Bo and Riley Rose — would play with my own two kids. Marcy co-hosted a food and wine radio show with Guy Fieri, so dinner was always delicious. After the meal, Tom would sit by the fire, reading a thick novel.Smothers played the guitar and the fool; his brother played the bass and the straight man.Mark Junge/Getty ImagesIt was a picture of domesticity that didn’t last. Soaking in wine country meant a lot of drinking, and the more Tom drank, the less fun he became. Knowing how brilliant and generous he could be, I found it painful to watch his behavior shift. If this seems harsh, I mention it because the truth mattered to Tom. Marcy and I would go on long walks to discuss the situation. We came up with a phrase that summed things up: “It’s tomplicated.”Tom and Marcy separated 15 years ago but never divorced. And when Tom grew ill, she was there for him along with their children. “They have been rocks,” Marcy texted me hours after he died. She told me that over the last few months, Tom had never had a stranger care for him. She, Bo, Riley Rose and Marty Tryon, Tom’s former road manager, watched over him.And so Tom spent a lovely Christmas Eve and Day surrounded by his family. He slipped away the next afternoon. As always, exquisite timing.I hope Tom will be remembered. He was last on TV three decades ago, so except for comedy nerds, no one under 40 would have reason to recognize him. If you’re curious, there’s a smart 2002 documentary, “Smothered,” about the brothers’ getting fired from CBS, and an excellent book by David Bianculli, “Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” Both the film and book reiterate what history has made clear: Tom was absolutely right about war being stupid and civil rights being worth fighting for. In his own way, he, too, defended liberty.Or try sliding down a YouTube rabbit hole where you’ll stumble over early routines from Steve Martin, whom Tom hired as a writer before encouraging him to perform. I never met an entertainer who was more respectful of other people’s talents than Tom. He adored so many fellow artists, including Harry Belafonte, Harry Nilsson, Martin Mull, and (Mama) Cass Elliot, who lights up one of my favorite sketches from the 1968-69 season.The concept is simply Elliot singing her hit “Dream a Little Dream” to Tom as he tries to fall asleep in a big brass bed. Tom doesn’t say a word but gets plenty of laughs. The bit is sweet, original, musical and funny. When you strip away the tomplications, Tom was all those things. More

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      Tom Smothers, Comic Half of the Smothers Brothers, Dies at 86

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      Though he played a naïve buffoon onstage, he was the driving force behind the folk-singing duo’s groundbreaking TV show.Tom Smothers, the older half of the comic folk duo the Smothers Brothers, whose skits and songs on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in the late 1960s brought political satire and a spirit of youthful irreverence to network television, paving the way for shows like “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show,” died on Tuesday at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., a city in Sonoma County. He was 86. He died “following a recent battle with cancer,” a spokesman for the National Comedy Center announced on behalf of the family.The Smothers Brothers made their way to network television as a folk act with a difference. With Tom playing guitar and Dick playing stand-up bass, they spent as much time bickering as singing.With an innocent expression and a stammering delivery, Tom would try to introduce their songs with a story, only to be picked at by his skeptical brother. As frustration mounted, he would turn, seething, and often deliver a trademark non sequitur: “Mom always liked you best.”Hoping to reach a younger audience, CBS gave the brothers creative control over “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” a one-hour variety show that made its debut in February 1967. For the next three seasons it courted controversy as it addressed American policy in Vietnam, religious fundamentalism, racial strife and recreational drug use.Running features like Leigh French’s “Share a Little Tea With Goldie,” replete with drug references, either delighted or scandalized, depending on the age and the politics of the viewer.“During the first year, we kept saying the show has to have something to say more than just empty sketches and vacuous comedy,” Mr. Smothers said in a 2006 interview. “So we always tried to put something of value in there, something that made a point and reflected what was happening out in the streets.”Tom, more liberal than his brother and largely responsible for the production of the show, brought in writers attuned to the thinking of the Baby Boom generation — among them Rob Reiner, Steve Martin, Pat Paulsen, and Mason Williams — and stretched the boundaries of taste at every turn.Steve Martin, left, who had been a writer on the original “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” rejoined Tom, center, and Dick on a 20th-anniversary reunion show in 1988.CBS, via Getty Images“Easter is when Jesus comes out of his tomb, and if he sees his shadow he goes back in and we get six more weeks of winter,” Tom said on one show.Far more combative than his mild-mannered brother, who survives him, Tom fought network executives and censors until CBS, tired of complaints from its rural affiliates, especially in the South, abruptly canceled the show in April 1969 and replaced it with “Hee Haw,” a corn-pone counterpart to the fast-paced (and often controversial) “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” that featured country music stars.“In any other medium we would be regarded as moderate,” Tom Smothers told reporters at a news conference the day after the show was canceled. “Here we are regarded as rebels and extremists.”An Army FamilyThomas Bolyn Smothers III was born on Feb. 2, 1937, on Governors Island in New York Harbor, where his father, a West Point graduate and Army major, was stationed. The family relocated to Manila when Major Smothers was reassigned. Shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the family moved again, to the Los Angeles area, where Tom and Dick’s mother, Ruth (Remick) Smothers, had grown up. She found work in an aircraft factory.Major Smothers remained on Corregidor in Manila Bay to fight and was taken prisoner on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. He survived the Bataan death march, but in 1945 he died of injuries sustained when American planes mistakenly bombed the prison ship transporting him to a camp in Japan.Tom attended an assortment of schools as his mother descended into alcoholism and moved from husband to husband. In 1955, he graduated from Redondo Union High School, where he was a state champion on the parallel bars.While in high school, he and Dick, two years his junior, sang in a barbershop group that won second prize on “Rocket to Stardom,” a local talent contest broadcast from the showroom of a Los Angeles Oldsmobile dealer.At San Jose State College (now University), where Tom studied advertising, the brothers decided to ride the folk music wave and formed the Casual Quintet. In early 1959, by then a trio with Bobby Blackmore as lead singer, they began performing at the Purple Onion in San Francisco, a popular showcase for folk singers and comedians, billed as the Smothers Brothers and Gawd.Gradually, the brothers introduced comic patter into their act, satirizing the folk music scene and turning their sibling rivalry — which was genuine — into shtick. The act “slowly evolved to be a running argument between two brothers who sang but never finished a song,” Mr. Smothers said in 2006.Audiences loved it. Their two-week engagement at the Purple Onion was extended to nine months, and in 1961 the Smothers Brothers, now a duo, were booked into the Blue Angel in New York.Robert Shelton, reviewing the show in The New York Times, compared Tom’s delivery to “a frightened 10th grader giving a memorized talk at a Kiwanis meeting.”He added, “He speaks in a nervous, distracted sort of cretin double-talk that has him stumbling over big words, muffing lines with naïve unconcern, singing off-key, committing malapropisms, garbling lyrics and eternally upstaging his younger brother.”The brothers became regulars on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar, “The Garry Moore Show” and “The New Steve Allen Show.” They signed with Mercury Records and recorded “The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion,” the first of several successful albums. They toured college campuses nonstop.In 1963, Tom married Stephanie Shorr. The marriage ended in divorce, as did his marriage to Rochelle Robley. In addition to his brother, he is survived by his wife, Marcy Carriker Smothers; their son, Bo, and daughter, Riley Rose Smothers; and a grandson. His son from his first marriage, Thomas Bolyn Smothers IV, died this year.In a statement, Dick Smothers said, “Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner.”In 1965, CBS gave the brothers their own sitcom, “The Smothers Brothers Show,” produced by Aaron Spelling. It did not play to their strengths: Tom played a probationary angel sent back to earth to move in with and watch over his brother, a swinging bachelor played by Dick.The ratings were strong, but it was a miserable experience. Deprived of their instruments and a live audience, and saddled with a laugh track, the brothers struggled.“It was a nothing show,” Tom told The New York Times in 1967. “There was no point of reference, nothing meaningful, no satire in it.”After “The Garry Moore Show” failed to challenge “Bonanza” on Sunday nights, Michael Dann, the head programmer at CBS, took a chance on a Smothers Brothers variety show.Connecting With the YoungExpectations were low, but “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” connected with viewers, especially younger ones, and outperformed “Bonanza” in the ratings. The humor was irreverent, the writing was sharp, and musical guests like the Who and Jefferson Airplane broke the variety-show mold.The Smothers Brothers looked like clean-cut collegians, but their comedy could bite. They were at war with CBS almost from the beginning of their show’s run.CBSThe brothers looked like clean-cut collegians, but their cheery, up-tempo songs could bite. “The war in Vietnam keeps on a-ragin’,” one began. “Black and whites still haven’t worked it out./Pollution, guns and poverty surround us./No wonder everybody’s droppin’ out.”A war with CBS executives began almost immediately, and a pattern quickly developed. The censors would cut words, lines or entire sketches. Mr. Smothers would fight tooth and nail to have them reinstated, often successfully. When thwarted, he would complain loudly and publicly.After CBS cut the words “breast” and “heterosexual” from an early sketch, written by Elaine May, about two professional censors (played by Tom Smothers and Ms. May), Mr. Smothers told The Times: “The censors censored the censorship bit. It’s a real infringement of our creative rights.”He lost the first round of his campaign to have Pete Seeger, absent from television after being blacklisted in the 1950s, perform his antiwar ballad “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.” The segment was pulled in 1967 but broadcast a year later.“Television is old and tired,” Mr. Smothers told McCall’s magazine in 1968. “Television is a lie. The people who censor our shows are all conditioned to a very scared way of thinking, which is reflected in the kind of programs the networks put on. Television should be as free as the movies, as the newspapers, as music to reflect what’s happening.”CBS began insisting that an advance tape of each week’s show be sent to the network and its affiliates for their review. In April 1969, when the tape of a show that included a satirical sermon, delivered by the comedian David Steinberg, failed to arrive on schedule for the second time, CBS informed the brothers that they had broken their contract and that the show, whose option had been renewed two weeks earlier, would be canceled.The move was not a complete surprise.“Tommy has been sticking pins in CBS ever since he started feeling his oats when he found he could command good ratings,” Percy Shain, the television critic for The Boston Globe, wrote. “He has been at times snide, ugly, resentful, bullheaded. In his various arguments with the network he has refused to compromise one iota. Every deletion meant a battle.”TV Guide, in a stern editorial, deemed the cancellation “wise, determined and wholly justified.”For the rest of his life, Mr. Smothers remained convinced that President Richard M. Nixon, who had assumed office just three months earlier after defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, had pressured CBS to cancel the show.“When Nixon said, ‘I want those guys off,’ they were off,” he told “Speaking Freely,” a television program produced by the First Amendment Center, in 2001. “If Humphrey had been elected, we would have been on.”The brothers briefly returned to network television in 1970 with the tepid “Smothers Brothers Summer Show” on ABC. The next year Tom, increasingly outspoken on politics, starred, without his brother, in “Tom Smothers’ Organic Prime Time Space Ride,” a syndicated half-hour variety show that was long on relevance and short on laughs.“I lost perspective, my sense of humor,” he said in the 2006 interview. “I became a poster boy for the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and I started buying into it. It was about three years when I was deadly serious about everything.”The brothers’ careers took some twists and turns after their TV show was canceled, including an appearance on Broadway in the comedy “I Love My Wife” in 1978.Hollywood and BroadwayTom pursued a career as an actor, in “Serial,” “The Silver Bears” and other movies. With his brother, he appeared in the comedy “I Love My Wife” on Broadway in 1978 and on a national tour.The brothers reunited on television in 1975 for a new, tamer version of “The Smothers Brothers Show,” broadcast on NBC, and a 1988 reunion show. They also appeared (not as brothers) in a short-lived 1981 drama series, “Fitz and Bones.” But their career ended as it had begun, in concert performances.Tom added a new comic persona to the act, Yo-Yo Man, performing dazzling yo-yo tricks that he learned after falling in love with the song “(I’m a) Yo-Yo Man.” In 2010, Tom announced that he and his brother were retiring as an act.Plans for a 2023 tour were announced last year, but the tour was canceled.At the 1969 Emmys, “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” received an award for outstanding writing achievement in comedy, variety or music. Mr. Smothers had removed himself from the show’s list of writers on the ballot, worried that his name might alienate voters. In 2008 the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences gave him a special commemorative Emmy for the show, presented by Steve Martin.In an interview for the Archive of American Television in 2000, Mr. Smothers looked back on the show and its impact. “It was the ’60s that we reflected,” he said. “The country was going through a revolution — a social revolution, a political and consciousness revolution, about government and its part. We tried to reflect that.”Alex Traub More