Tom Smothers

Overview

Tom Smothers was born on February 2, 1937 in Governors Island, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967), Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972) and The Informant! (2009). He was married to Marcy Carriker, Rochelle Ruth Robley and Stephanie Rose Shorr. He died on December 26, 2023 in Santa Rosa, California, USA.

He and his brother Dick Smothers were born on Governor's Island in New York Harbor. Their father, who was stationed on the military base on that island, moved his pregnant wife there to be close to him.
He is an expert with the Yo-Yo.
His father, Major Thomas Bolyn Smothers Jr., was a West Point graduate who was a POW in World War II and was thought to have died during the infamous Bataan Death march. In fact, he survived that experience but died later on a Japanese POW ship. He was buried at sea.
On the 1969 John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band song "Give Peace a Chance", he plays guitar and shares the bed with John and Yoko - and he also gets a mention in the lyrics - "Ev'rybody's talking about John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rose Marie, Tommy Smothers".
On one of their "Smothers Brothers" television shows, Tom Smothers unintentionally sparked a firestorm of controversy when he innocently said as a joke, "Easter is when Jesus comes out of his tomb, and if he sees his shadow he goes back in, and we get six more weeks of winter.".

[11/28/02, interview in Chicago Tribune] I'm watching television and I'm not seeing anything. I watch all the cable shows where you should see some looseness and you're not hearing anything . . . There's a general dumbing down of everybody in this country . . . It just kept going and going until it's gotten to the point where it's all mean-spirited and vulgar. It not only affects comedy, it affects film. It affects literature. It's pervasive on radio. There's that guy Howard Stern and all that smart ass, vulgar, sexual pretending like they're expanding freedom of speech. They ought to put an amendment to the First Amendment that says there shall also be freedom of hearing.
[his evaluation of President Lyndon B. Johnson] I think he's indisputably the best president we have at the moment.

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