Micky Dolenz on How Bob Rafelson Used the Monkees to Help Create a Looser, Hipper ‘New Hollywood’

variety.com:

A.D. Amorosi Though regarded by cinephiles as one of the architects of the “New Hollywood” largely because of moody character studies like 1970’s “Five Easy Pieces,” filmmaker Bob Rafelson — who died Saturday at 89 — will also always be adored for his co-creation and production of the decidedly less moody, madcap television series “The Monkees,” and for further directing that makeshift band in the comically avant-garde 1968 film “Head.”Rafelson is very fondly remembered by vocalist and drummer Micky Dolenz, the final surviving member of the Monkees, who shared his thoughts about Rafelson’s role in the creation and development of the group with Variety.

A wildly silly sitcom about a faux teeny-bop band meant that its producer-showrunners, Rafelson and Bert Schneider (who died in 2011), had to find a willing quartet of actor-musicians.

Enter Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Michael Nesmith and Dolenz, who became the Monkees, recorded a dozen hits selling over 75 million records worldwide, and turned network television on its ear with their Marx Brothers-like sensibilities during two seasons on network TV in 1966-68. (Rafelson is pictured at center in the photo above, along with, l-r, Tork; Dolenz, Jones, Schneider and Nesmith.)Dolenz got on the phone Sunday night to recall his experiences with the filmmaker who brought the Monkees to the world — and with them, an improvisational spirit that soon came to be part of his more dramatic features as one of the innovators of the New Hollywood.