By Marisol Nicholson
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Thomas Bolyn Smothers III (February 2, 1937 – December 26, 2023) was an American comedian, actor, composer, and musician, best known as half of the musical comedy duo the Smothers Brothers, alongside his younger brother Dick.
In 2023, Smothers announced he had been diagnosed with stage two lung cancer. He died from the disease at his home in Santa Rosa, California, on December 26, 2023, at the age of 86.
Smothers and John Lennon played acoustic guitar during the live recording of Lennon’s 1969 song “Give Peace a Chance“.
Thomas Bolyn Smothers III was born on February 2, 1937, at the Fort Jay army post hospital on Governors Island in New York City, the son of Ruth (née Remick), a homemaker; and Major Thomas B. Smothers, a U.S. army officer who died a POW of the Japanese in April 1945. After moving to California, he graduated from Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach. He was a competitive unicyclist, and a state champion gymnast in the parallel bars. Smothers later attended San José State University, then known as San José State College. At SJSC, Smothers participated both in gymnastics and pole vault for the track team.
Tom Smothers negotiated creative control over their next CBS show, a variety show entitled The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967. 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. Tom Smothers is widely quoted as having said: “The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.” The brothers’ oppositional politics led to their show’s demise, with David Steinberg later claiming “The most innovative variety show on television shut down because of political pressure”. During the same years, Tom recorded mainstream songs, such as “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” Tom later stated, “When the Smothers Brothers came on the air we had no political point of view or social consciousness, it just evolved as the show was on the air.”
