Getty Peter Tork of The Monkees performs live on stage at Town Hall on June 1, 2016 in New York City.
The Monkees bassist Peter Tork has died at the age of 77. He is survived by his wife and three children, Ivan, Hallie and Erica. Tork, who was born Peter Thorkelson, passed away on February 21, his family says.
Peter Tork’s oldest child, Hallie Thorkelson, is 49. She was born during his second marriage, to Reine Stewart. His second child, 43-year-old Ivan Joseph Iannoli, was born during his marriage to Barbara Iannoli. His third child, 21-year-old Erica Marie, was born during a relationship with Tammy Sestak.
“It is with beyond-heavy and broken hearts that we share the devastating news that our friend, mentor, teacher, and amazing soul, Peter Tork, has passed from this world,” Tork’s family and friends said in a statement posted to his official Facebook page.
Here’s what you need to know about Peter Tork’s kids:
1. Hallie Thorkelson Has Worked as a Teacher & as a Graduate School Professor in New York
Today in Monkees History (1970): Peter Tork’s daughter, Hallie, is born.
Hallie Thorkelson, who was born January 25, 1970, in Venice, California, during Peter Tork’s second marriage to Reine Stewart. She is his only child from that relationship.
According to her social media profiles, Thorkelson lives in New York City and has worked as an educator for several years. The 49-year-old eldest daughter of The Monkees’ bassist is currently an assistant professor of practice at Relay Graduate School of Education, according to her Linkedin profile. She has worked there since 2015, when she started as a senior instructional fellow.
Thorkelson was previously a special education teacher and assistant principal in the New York City schools system and director of student support services at Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School. She graduated from New College of California in 1996 and completed her master’s degree at Teachers College Of Columbia University in 2010.
2. Ivan Iannoli Is a San Francisco-Based Artist & Lecturer Who Created a Video Project About His Father in 2015
Ivan Iannoli is Peter Tork’s middle child. Iannoli was born December 22, 1975, during his father’s third marriage, to Barbara Iannoli. He now lives in San Francisco, according to his Instagram profile, and has children of his own.
Iannoli is an artist and lecturer at the San Francisco Art Institute and California College of the Arts, according to his website. “His photographs, collages, videos, and sculptures look at various pictorial strategies and manners of depiction. Among Iannoli’s interests are human potential & new age movements, intention & aptitude, and Pictorialism & Modernism,” the SFAI website says.
Iannoli, who studied at UCLA as an undergrad and Columbia University for his master’s, “has exhibited at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles; PØST Gallery, Los Angeles; Khastoo Gallery, Los Angeles; New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles; and others.” His most recent exhibitions were at the Bass & Reiner Gallery in San Francisco and the Galeria Enrique Guerrero in Mexico City as part of Condo Mexico City.
“The eight modest assemblages that make up the majority of Ivan Iannoli’s exhibition at Bass & Reiner slip easily between photography, printmaking, collage, and drawing, eluding fixity in any one media as the artist interrogates the physicality of the art object. Mixing borrowed images with his own, and layering and obstructing them in the frame variously with painted plexi, shards of drywall, and torn construction paper, Iannoli uses a process-driven approach to investigate the relationship between a photograph, the subject it indexes, and the viewer,” SFAQ wrote about a 2016 exhibition at Bass Reiner.
He also worked on a video project in 2015 about his father. You can watch the video project below:
3. Not Much Is Known About Tork’s Youngest Daughter, Erica Marie
GettyPeter Tork.
Not much information is publicly known about Peter Tork’s youngest daughter, Erica Marie. She was born in 1997 while he was dating a woman named Tammy Sestak.
Little is known about Erica’s mother or how long her relationship with Tork lasted.
4. While He Battled Cancer, Tork Said His Daughter Hallie Was a ‘Real Support’ to Him
GettyPeter Tork.
Tork battled cancer in 2009, but it is not clear if that contributed to his death. He was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare form of cancer that is often found in the salivary glands of the head and neck.
While fighting the disease, Tork said he leaned on his daughter Hallie for help.
“It was a matter of me learning how to get my tongue under control again. I did my vocal exercises and the doctors decided I didn’t need speech therapy. It was a tough time but my daughter, Hallie, 41, was a real support to me,” he told The Daily Mail in 2011.
5. Tork Rarely Talked About His Children & Seemed to Want to Keep Them Out of the Spotlight
Tork rarely spoke about his children when they were alive and appeared to want to keep them out of the spotlight. In an interview with People magazine in 1976, Tork mentioned that he was living at the time in Venice, California, with his then-wife, Barbara Iannoli, along with Hallie, then 6, and Ivan, who was then only 8 weeks old.
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Peter Tork’s Kids: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know