Vernon Green
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Vernon Green (May 1, 1937 – December 24, 2000) was leader of the rhythm and blues band The Medallions. He wrote the 1954 song "The Letter" which contained the nonsense lyric, "the puppetutes of love," which was later picked up by Steve Miller as "the Pompatus of love." According to an interview with Green, puppetutes was "A term I coined to mean a secret paper-doll fantasy figure [thus puppet], who would be my everything and bear my children." (See the source article on The Straight Dope web site.)
Green died from a stroke in Los Angeles.