Biography

His birth occurred on Friday, December 31st, 1943, as the son of an Air Force officer, Denver was constantly moved from state to state and country to country. It was in Tucson, Arizona, that his grandmother gave him his first acoustic guitar, a gift that would prove an icebreaker when meeting other students at the many new schools in which he was placed. After settling with his family in Fort Worth, Texas, Denver ran away to California for a short time. He returned to Texas and graduated from high school, but soon returned to California on a more permanent basis. He began performing at Leadbetter's night club in West Los Angeles but had a major career breakthrough when he was selected to replace the departing Chad Mitchell of The Chad Mitchell Trio. He remained with that organization until 1968 when he struck out on his own. From 1969 through 1975, Denver was the top-selling recording artist, appearing on both country and pop charts alike. His peak year was 1975, during which he was awarded the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year in addition to being selected as the American Guild of Variety Artists' Singing Star of the Year. During this period, he tried his hand at acting, appearing as Deputy Dewey Cobb in a 1973 episode of McCloud (1970) and hosting Day of the Bighorn (1972), an ecologically-minded television special. His most memorable role came in 1977 when he starred opposite George Burns in the hit comedy, Oh, God! (1977). Following this, his record sales began to decline, and he made fewer movies and television specials. He became something of a political activist, with his main focus being on environmental issues. He was killed on Sunday, October 12th, 1997, (505 years after Christopher Columbus' discovery of North America) when the plane he was piloting crashed into Monterey Bay. John Denver's lifetime: 19,616 days (2,802 weeks & 2 days).
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

(until mid-'80s) Wore wire-framed glasses

His blond hairstyle.

His long smile.

[on composing for The Bears and I (1974)] Heck, I'm no Henry Mancini or Michel Legrand. I just play the guitar and write songs. I know I'm incapable of orchestrating an entire film. They just asked me to write something expressing the story about a guy who's back from Vietnam and sorta lost, who goes to an Indian village in the Northwest.

[testifying before the Senate in 1985] Let me be clear--I'm strongly opposed to censorship of any kind in our society or anywhere else in the world. I've had in my experience two encounters with this sort of censorship. My song "Rocky Mountain High" was banned from many radio stations as a drug-related song. This was obviously done by people who have never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains and also never experienced the elation, the celebration of life or the joy in living that one feels when he observes something as wondrous as the Perseid meteor shower, on a moonless, cloudless night when there are so many stars that you have a shadow from the starlight. And you're out camping with your friends, your best friends, and introducing them to one of nature's most spectacular light shows for the very first time. Obviously a clear case of misinterpretation. Mr. Chairman. What assurance have I that any national panel to review my music would make any better judgment? To my knowledge, my movie "Oh, God" was not banned in any theaters; however, some newspapers refused to print our advertisements and some theaters refused to put the name of the film in the marquis.

[testifying before the Senate in 1985] What most concerns me aside from potential legislation which might be enacted, which we've heard today is not going to be the case, is that the whole presentation made by the PMRC comes from, in my experience, a foundation of fear. The only thing we have to fear as President [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] said, is fear itself. I'm not afraid of anything. I'm not afraid of what my children might see. I'm not afraid of anything that might be shown them, or done in their presence, that would lessen my influence on them, or their opportunity to grow up and be fine, upstanding adults.