Disgraced Music Legend Dies of Bladder Cancer: Peter, Paul and Mary’s Peter Yarrow Dead at 86

Peter Yarrow, one third of the chart-topping 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary who co-wrote “Puff the Magic Dragon,” has died. Yarrow passed away Tuesday in New York following a battle with bladder cancer, his publicist Ken Sunshine confirmed to the Associated Press. He was 86.

“Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life,” his daughter Bethany said in a statement. “The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest.”

Born May 31, 1938, in New York, Yarrow met his bandmates Mary Travers and Noel Paul Stookey after graduating from Cornell University in 1959 and returning to New York, where he worked as a struggling Greenwich Village musician. Brought together by Albert Grossman, who was looking to put together a group that would rival the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary quickly became an overnight sensation and went on to be part of the soundtrack for the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, performing their cover of Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind, beside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.

Their debut album, 1962’s Peter, Paul and Mary, reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart, with their second, In the Wind, climbing to No. 4 and their third, Moving, again reaching No. 1. The group scored hits with “The Great Mandala,” “Day Is Done,” and “Puff the Magic Dragon,” which Yarrow based on a poem by fellow Cornell grad and author Leonard Lipton, per Billboard. Yarrow received an Emmy nomination in 1979 for the animated film Puff the Magic Dragon.

Yarrow’s fame was also marred in controversy. In 1970, he was convicted of molesting a 14-year-old girl in a Washington, D.C., hotel room the year prior. Yarrow spent three months in jail before he was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1981. He maintained a low profile in the decades that followed, repeatedly apologized, even voicing his support for the #MeToo movement.

“I fully support the current movements demanding equal rights for all and refusing to allow continued abuse and injury — most particularly of a sexual nature, of which I am, with great sorrow, guilty,” he told The New York Times in 2019 after his invitation to a festival in Binghamton, New York, was withdrawn. “I do not seek to minimize or excuse what I have done and I cannot adequately express my apologies and sorrow for the pain and injury I have caused in this regard.”

Following his conviction and release from jail, Yarrow continued to work in the music industry. He wrote and co-wrote songs including 1976’s “Torn Between Two Lovers” for Mary MacGregor. After Peter, Paul and Mary split in 1970, Yarrow also went on to reunite with his former bandmates in 1981. The group continued performing and released five additional albums before Travers’ death in 2009. Stookey, 87, is now the last surviving member of folk music trio.

Yarrow also continued his activism, helping to organize the 1978 anti-nuclear benefit show Survival Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl, and founding Operation Respect, a non-profit that aimed to tackle the mental health effects of school bullying, in 2000.

Yarrow was diagnosed with bladder cancer four years ago, with his son Christopher and daughter Bethany sharing in a statement in December that the Grammy-winning folk singer-songwriter had been “battling cancer for some time.”

Yarrow is survived by his wife, Marybeth; a son, Christopher; a daughter, Bethany; and a granddaughter, Valentina.