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The founding member of legendary punk-rockers the Ramones, bassist Dee Dee Ramone was a key contributor to such three-chord classics as "Blitzkrieg Bop," "I Wanna Be Sedated," and "Teenage Lobotomy." Born Douglas Glenn Colvin in Fort Lee, VA, in 1952, and raised in Berlin, Germany, Dee Dee's family relocated to Queens, NY, in the late '60s. It was in New York City that the streetwise youth developed an interest in unconventional music and what would become a lifelong addiction to heroin. Working numerous odd jobs and following the lead of bands such as the Stooges and the New York Dolls, Dee Dee began to shape the origins of what would eventually become the Ramones. During their enduring three-decade career, albums such as their eponymous debut, Rocket to Russia, and Too Tough to Die established the band as one of the punk movement's most important and influential groups whose reverberations would be felt well into the next century. Despite rocky relations with his bandmates and harrowing bouts with addiction that were the frequent cause of internal rifts, Dee Dee nevertheless provided the inspiration for some of the band's most memorable tunes. As the feature of the 1979 camp-classic Rock 'n' Roll High School, the Ramones made a successful foray into film, and Dee Dee would later turn up in such efforts as Born to Lose: The Last Rock 'n' Roll Movie (1999) and as shock-rocker G.G. Allin's bassist in the 1993 documentary Hated: G.G. Allin & the Murder Junkies. On June 5, 2002, Dee Dee's lifelong struggle with heroin sadly caught up with him, and the legendary musician was found dead in his Hollywood home. He was 50.