Tom Smothers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Bolin "Tom" Smothers, III (born February 2, 1937) is an American comedian, composer and musician from New York, New York.

Tommy Smothers is best known as half of the musical comedy team The Smothers Brothers with his brother, Dick Smothers. Tom was portrayed as the "dumb one".

The brothers graduated from Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California, Los Angeles, California, where Tommy was a state champion gymnast in the parallel bars. They attended San José State University.

The brothers have appeared on numerous television shows since the mid 1960s, and even hosted two shows, The Smothers Brothers Show from 1965–1966, and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967.

Tom Smothers negotiated creative control over the CBS show. The documentary Smothered describes how the brothers (particularly Tom) fought CBS censors to sneak in references to religion, recreational drugs, sex, and the Vietnam War. Smothers is widely quoted as saying: "The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen." He and others have implied that the brothers' oppositional politics led to their show's demise. Tom also admits that politics sometimes took precedence over humor.

Smothers is also the owner of Remick Ridge Vineyards in Sonoma County, California with his wife Marcy and two children, Riley Rose (b. 1996) and Bo (b. 1993).

In motion pictures, Tom Smothers portrayed corporate-executive-turned-tap-dancing-magician Donald Beeman in one of Brian De Palma's earlier films, Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972). He later portrayed Spike in Serial (1980).

Tom Smothers played guitar on John Lennon's recording of his single "Give Peace a Chance".

To augment their act in recent years, Tom Smothers created the mostly non-speaking character "Yo-Yo Man", a surprisingly expert performer of difficult tricks using a Yo-yo. In their 2008 tour for instance, Yo-Yo Man is listed as the group's opening act. The name is evidently taken from that of famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Currently, he can be found in commercials promoting River Rock Casino in Geyserville, CA.

[edit] Sources

• Tom Smothers at the Internet Movie Database
• Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour at the Internet Movie Database
• The Smothers Brothers at TV Party
• Tommy Smothers quotes at ThinkExist
• Tom Smothers 'Speaking Freely' transcript
• Tom Smothers interview in 'Being There'
• Tom Smothers interviewed by 'Jerry Jazz Musician'