From Newsgroup: alt.obituaries

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/arts/television/monti-rock-iii-
dead.html

Monti Rock III, Gleefully Untalented rCyTonight ShowrCO Favorite, Dies at 86

He couldnrCOt sing, dance or tell funny stories. But Johnny Carson loved him and his persona: a D-list star clinging to celebrity.

By Trip Gabriel
March 9, 2026
Monti Rock III, an entertainer of murky talents who regularly appeared on rCLThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny CarsonrCY in the 1960s and rCO70s, invariably dressed outrageously and working a shtick as a star clinging to celebrity by his fingertips, died on Feb. 23 at his home in Las Vegas. He
was 86.

His death was confirmed by Lucille Thaler, a friend. She said he had been
in home hospice care since breaking a hip.

Mr. Rock was born Joseph Montanez Jr. in the Bronx and was known as Mr.
Monti when he worked as a hair stylist at Saks Fifth Avenue in the early 1960s. Perpetually craving the limelight, he launched a career as a
nightclub singer in Manhattan and had a pair of dance hits in the 1970s fronting a group called Disco Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes.

But his closest brush with fame was as a recurring guest with Mr. Carson,
who played up rCo or perhaps invented rCo Mr. RockrCOs persona: the D-list celebrity who entertainingly recounts his failures in show business.

It was clear that Mr. Rock had few actual skills. He could not sing, dance
or tell funny stories, as he was the first to admit. rCLI was a failure for
11 years on TV,rCY he said in a 1976 profile in The Province, a newspaper in Vancouver, British Columbia.

His act was a bit in the vein of Andy Kaufman, the comic who, a decade
later, uncomfortably blurred the line between his own life and his alter
ego, an obnoxious lounge singer named Tony Clifton.

Mr. Rock, though, was not putting anyone on. He sincerely believed in
himself.

rCLEvery time I would come on,rCY he said of his rCLTonight ShowrCY appearances,
in an interview with The Las Vegas Sun in 2005, rCLit was like, rCyI failed in this show, but IrCOm in a new show.rCO Or, rCyIrCOm in a bad movie. IrCOm in a western.rCOrCY

Mr. Carson, he added, would say, rCLrCyHow did you get a western?rCO I said, rCyI
donrCOt know, but I can ride a horse.rCO He would break up.rCY

His earnest ramblings about his misadventures charmed many viewers,
including an adolescent Howard Stern, who later called him one of the
greatest talk show guests of all time.

Mr. Rock was a flamboyant dresser with shoulder-length hair and a single
hoop earing rCo a transparently gay man in the subversive style known as
camp in the mid-1960s. His clothes, an entertainment writer for the Copley News Service wrote in 1966, rCLmake Liberace, by contrast, look like the man in the gray flannel suit.rCY

The details that Mr. Rock gave about his biography and career could not
always be trusted. He claimed he was a guest of Mr. CarsonrCOs 84 times, though the IMDb entertainment database says he was on 43 times. He also appeared on the talk shows of Merv Griffin, Joey Bishop and Mike Douglas.
A 1966 singing performance on rCLThe Merv Griffin Show,rCY available online, shows him in his flower.

By the early rCO70s, Mr. Rock had moved to Miami and was working as a host
at a restaurant rCo or perhaps as a hairdresser again, depending on which interview of his one believed.

This much was correct: He indeed fronted Disco-Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes,
at the invitation of the songwriter and producer Bob Crewe. The group had
a pair of hits, rCLGet DancinrCOrCY in 1974 and rCLI Wanna Dance WitrCO Choo (Doo
Dat Dance)rCY in 1975. Both reached the top 25 on BillboardrCOs Hot 100 chart.

Mr. Rock, shouting the lyrics over the singing of four female Sex-O-
Lettes, took that tongue-in-cheek act on the road. Not everyone got the
joke.

rCLNot only does Monti Rock III have no discernible talent whatsoever,rCY an entertainment writer for The Fort Lauderdale News wrote in a 1975 review, rCLhe also has a filthy mouth.rCY

Two years later, Mr. Rock had a cameo role, playing a DJ named Beautiful Monti, in the disco-era blockbuster movie rCLSaturday Night Fever,rCY with John Travolta.

He moved to Las Vegas in 1996 rCo one might ask what took him so long rCo and became a character on the cityrCOs entertainment fringes. He appeared in cabaret shows with a stuffed cat and drove a car wrapped in leopard print
with his name emblazoned on it in large letters. He wrote a gossip column
for Gaming Today magazine.

rCLLife has a way of, you either sink or swim,rCY he told The Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2017. rCLAnd IrCOve been able to sink more times than swim. IrCOm the worldrCOs most successful failure.rCY

Joseph Moses Montanez Jr. was born on May 29, 1939, the youngest of six children of Rose and Joseph Moses Montanez, who had moved to New York from Puerto Rico in the 1920s. His father was a laborer, and his mother was a seamstress in a garment factory.

Mr. Rock left no immediate survivors. A longtime partner, Bruce Moshman,
died in 2016.

Though he was never quite a show business success, Mr. Rock never stopped trying, and he seemed pleased, not bitter, about his modest place in the entertainment industry.

rCLIrCOm not a good actor, but I did film,rCY he said in 2017. rCLIrCOm not a good
singer, but I did records. IrCOm a columnist who canrCOt type. My one genius was hair. I could do hair. But doing hair for 30 years was not exactly something I had in mind.rCY



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