Overview (4)

Mini Bio (1)

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 Ein Sheriff in New York (1970) and hosting Denver in Colorado (1974), an ecologically-minded television special. His most memorable role came in 1977 when he starred opposite George Burns in the hit comedy, Oh, Gott (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

Spouse (2)

Trade Mark (1)

Wore wire framed glasses



Trivia (21)

Listed as one of 12 "Promising New Actors of 1977" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 29. [1977]





Children from marriage with Annie Martell ; Zachary and Anna Kate (adopted).



Children from marriage with Cassandra Delaney ; Jesse Belle.



Uncle of the twin babies who played "Oscar" in the film Ghostbusters 2 (1989), William T. Deutschendorf and Henry J. Deutschendorf II . It could be reasonably assumed that Henry was named after him, although his father was also named Henry John Deutschendorf and his paternal -grandfather was John Henry Deutschendorf.



He was an early follower of Werner Erhard , founder of the self-improvement association known as EST (Erhard Seminars Training). Denver once asked Erhard if he might become a trainer in the EST organization but was told he could contribute more by continuing his career as an entertainer--spreading the message, through his music, of taking personal responsibility for whatever happens in the world. Several of his subsequent songs reflected that philosophy.

Was cremated, and his ashes spread over the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.



Biography in: "American National Biography." Supplement 1, pp. 155-156. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.



Lost two toes in an accident with a lawn mower.



Briefly attended the School of Architecture at Texas Tech.



Mentioned in the song "Life Is a Rock But the Radio Rolled Me" by Reunion.





Met wife Annie Martell while performing a gig at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN, where she was a student.

His final concert was in Corpus Christi, TX, a week prior to the plane crash in which he died.



Inducted into the American Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1996.



His plane crashed into the ocean about 100 yards offshore from a very popular landmark known as "Lover's Point".



The Federal Aviation Administration's report on the crash that killed him was inconclusive regarding what caused it. It is widely known that Denver had twice been arrested for DUI in prior years, leading to questions as to whether his pilot's license should have been revoked.



The National Transporation Safety Board report about the airplane crash that killed him states that the cause of the crash was his having diverted his attention to the fuel selector when, shortly after takeoff, his engine stalled due to fuel starvation. The fuel selector in his newly purchased home-built was positioned behind the pilot in such a way that to change it he needed to turn left and reach behind his head. That caused him to move the control stick inadvertently to the left and down. That was a factor that led to the accident.



His father was of German descent (including ancestry from ethnic Germans who had lived in South Russia for many generations). His maternal grandfather was of German and Swiss-German ancestry, and his maternal grandmother was of English and Irish descent.





Was offered the lead role of Zack Mayo in Ein Offizier und Gentleman (1982), which he turned down saying he felt the script "read like a 1950s movie". The role was instead given to Richard Gere

He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 7065 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on October 24, 2014.





John Denver and William Katt were to star in the film "The Higher Ground" produced and directed by Bruce Reisman . It was inspired by Denver's song of the same title and was scheduled to film in San Jose, California, in February 1993, delayed to fall 1993. The project was never completed.

Born on exactly the same date as Sir Ben Kingsley (of "Gandhi" fame).



Personal Quotes (3)



[on composing for Meine Bären und ich (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.

