I did not know Nesmith, but I spent three days with him 20 years ago for a story in “Wired.” I found him alternately charming and funny and unpredictable and distant. He was with his third wife, Victoria, who was considerably younger and would eventually leave him by sticking a note on his computer monitor. He loved talking to me about good coffee and the sorts of creatives he wanted to identify with: Director Jay Roach stopping by for a pool party; writer Douglas Adams tapping away on his laptop on the patio. And Papa Nez, as his fans called him, was clearly financially comfortable. I didn’t ask to see his bank balance, but I knew that this wasn’t Monkees money. His mother, Bette, a secretary and single mother, had invented Liquid Paper. When she died in 1980, she left him millions.