“Green Men in Viet Nam with USO perform for servicemen” from the November 12, 1968 Door County Advocate
THE GREEN MEN are shown above as they appeared on a “Bat Man” TV show prior to their leaving for a tour of the Orient and Japan. They are now appearing in a USO show being seen by servicemen in Viet Nam.
Green Men in Viet Nam with USO perform for servicemen
By FRANCES BADTKE
He’s stared at, asked for his autograph, even laughed at and called the “Jolly Green Giant,” but he doesn't mind, it only brings a larger audience to watch his act. And when his girl singer Marilyn Winters is with him, they look at her instead, as who wouldn’t.
We speak of Johnny Green, leader of the Green Men, who have appeared a number of times in Door county. In fact Johnny is considered a Sturgeon Bay boy because of his birth here. His mother and other relatives still live here.
Johnny, the leader of the group, plays the electric bass and does a fire-eating act. As a teenager, Johnny loved to wear his hair long and with sideburns, but his father always complained about it. Johnny remembers with a grin that he always replied: “Dad, someday my hair will be my fortune.”
It wasn’t until he dyed his hair green that his words proved true. At 6'3" and 220 lbs., Johnny is now an impressive figure with his green hair. In fact, he is often called “The Jolly Green Giant.”
Johnny was born in Sturgeon Bay, into a family of musicians. His father, John, had once played trombone with the Ray Anthony band, and his grandfather, Andrew, had his own Bohemian “brass polka and marching” band in the Midwest.
As a boy Johnny began to play the accordion and at 16 years of age he started his own combo, playing the polka and waltz music which is still so popular in that area.
In high school he made a record called “I Fought The Law,” which turned out to be a big success. He left high school after his third year, determined to try for a career in the entertainment field. At 18, Johnny started on the road as a professional, playing with a group known as the “Green Men.” Eventually he took over the group.
A versatile performer, Johnny plays bass, guitar, drums, accordion and other musical instruments. His specialty though is fire-eating, which he learned from one of the members of the Four Seasons rock ’n roll group. In the three and a half years that he has been performing the fire-eating feat, Johnny has had minor burns of the mouth and lips but never a serious accident. He has appeared at leading clubs throughout the United States and Canada.
Johnny Green and the Green Men have appeared in six sequences of “Bat Man” with Caesar Romero. They went to Hawaii for a month’s engagement and stayed for a year. Some of the places they have played include: The Sands and The Dunes in Las Vegas; The New York World’s Fair and the Peppermint Lounge, New York. In the works is a television series of their own and more albums of their original music. They are also planning to star in a movie.
Even after eight straight years of green hair, Johnny Green is still delighted by the stunned reactions he and the Green Men get from people who see them for the first time.
“People ran red lights or stop in their tracks and gape,” he laughed. “Then they run right up for autographs. They don't care who we are, they just want our autographs.”
Thursday, Nov. 7 Johnny Green and the Green Men left for a Hollywood Overseas Committee-USO sponsored tour of Viet Nam and Thailand, where they'll have six weeks to test the reactions of hard-bitten combat veterans who've probably seen just about everything, except green hair.
Johnny, John Frost, Rick Shaw, Richie Duane and singer-dancer Marilyn Winters, have made green hair their trademark. Not mint green, or light green, but blazing bright shocks of green hair that looks like it came straight off a reflectorized high way billboard.
Johnny took the stage-name Green long before his hair began to match. Playing cards one evening with his first group, the Royal Lancers, one of the players joked: “You’ll never make it, even if your hair turns green.”
“That’s it!” Johnny said, and eight years later his hair is still green and the Green Men are indeed making it, at The Sands and The Dunes in Las Vegas, the Peppermint Lounge in New York and on six sequences of TV show “Batman” last season.
Johnny and the Green Men dye their hair every six weeks with a dye specially made for them by Roux.
“Everyday is like we just tried it last night,” Johnny said. Each day brings a new share of incredulous expressions and headshaking disbelief.
At first the gimmick threatened to backfire. “We made money and the crowds came,” Johnny said, “but the people laughed.”
Then came the space age and color television. “Now that we're sending men to the moon, we’re not so far out anymore,” Johnny said. “And with color TV we really add a little color.”
After they return from their Hollywood Overseas Committee-USO tour, the group will “go space all the way,” with space suits, boots, antennae, “the whole thing.”
They’d even like to go to Cape Kennedy for a recording, a field the group will enter the first of the year with a single for Ranwood Records.
In Viet Nam and Thailand, the Green Men will visit military bases throughout the country, and they hope to visit a few hospitals.
They think their reception will be good, since they’ve been well received by stateside troops and officers on a recent tour of military bases. “The hair brings the guys to see us, and when they hear us they like us.” Also attracting attention is buxom Marilyn Winters, who dances with any serviceman who’ll don a green wig and go along with the gag.
Arriving in Los Angeles last week after a prolonged tour out-of-state, the group was a little taken aback by the reaction of Sunset Strip’s hippie population.
“They think we’re it,” Johnny said. “They come up and want to know what kind of a trip we’ve been on, and then they stand in the street and clap as we go by.”
This show, like others playing the USO overseas circuit, is made possible through voluntary contributions to the USO through the United Fund.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
Articles by Frances Badtke
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Vietnam or Vietnam War-related articles
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