Davy Jones and . . .
… Steve Heller (1966).
I never met him, but when I was 15, at the height of The Monkees popularity, I was mistaken for him. Girls would swarm around me in the street begging for my autograph, clawing at my clothes, pulling on my jet black locks. How exciting, every week they’d watch the petite Mr. Davy Jones shake his maracas, and every day some starstruck young teeny bop would gaze at me longingly. Was I or wasn’t I?
Actually, I didn’t look exactly like Davy Jones. My features were more sculptural and refined. But, hey, anyone with the Beatle-cut and bangs, like mine and Davy’s, triggered a kind of pheremonal madness that cannot be entirely explained by science or pseudo-science, even to this day.
I was grateful to John, Paul, George and Ringo for making this proxy celebrity possible. But I was indebted to Davy Jones for being the pop star that resembled me and me resembled he, more than all the others. When I heard he died of heart failure the other day at 66, my heart beat heavy because my not-so-identical twin left us so young – and before I had a chance to thank him.