Michael Butler, the millionaire producer and hippie with long hair and bushy mustache who brought the counterculture musical "Hair" to Broadway
, where it broke the norms with its celebration of drugs, anti-war protest and free love,
died at the age of 96,
in a nursing home in Los Angeles.
The announcement of the disappearance was given by Aunt Wesley, friend and biographer of Butler, as reported by the "New York Times".
Michael Butler, who had been an adviser to US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy,
defined himself as a
bon vivant
who filled his days with polo matches, romantic stories, adventurous affairs and left-wing political causes.
Butler was considering running against Everett Dirksen, the husky-voiced Illinois senator,
when he saw an Off-Broadway production of "Hair."
"
I was blown away. It was
the strongest anti-war statement I've ever seen
," he said later.
After that viewing, Butler abandoned his political aspirations, reworked the storyline of the show,
added the famous nude scene
, made the ending more upbeat, and nearly doubled the number of songs in the production.
Beginning in 1968, the rock
musical
ran
for 1,742 performances on Broadway,
spawned more than two dozen other productions, was nominated for a
Tony Award, and won a Grammy Award for Best Original Score
.
A decade later, in 1979, on the wave of great success, director
Milos Forman brought "Hair" to the cinema.
Wikipedia
Scene from the movie Hair
For Broadway ,
"Hair" was a hippie baptism
, with all its
psychedelic substances, "flower child" costumes, "tribal" gatherings and the ethos of the Age of Aquarius
: one of the twelve periods in which some
esoteric beliefs divide the history of mankind.
This period is framed as that of youth movements, such as the hippies, which between the 60s and 70s gave rise to alternative cultural and student movements, considered by many as
the harbinger of the change in connected values
.
Astrologically, this New Age
phenomenon
, characterized by the conjunction of Uranus (the change) with Pluto (the popular mass) is considered
only the dawn of the change and not the actual change.
Songs such as "
Let the Sunshine In
", "
Aquarius
" and "
Good Morning Starshine
" indeed became
anthems for the counterculture movement
and the theme song "
Hair
" became common throughout the
hippie communities of America
.
Spectators were invited onto the stage for a finale featuring the
racially integrated black and white
cast .
As the
musical
played in numerous American theaters, Butler was generally
involved in every production, occasionally joining the
cast
on stage
.
"
I did the nude scene in San Francisco. I lived with two actors from the cast
", he told the "Chicago Tribune" years ago.
Butler estimated that he
made about $10 million
from the
musical
and then went through the 1970s: a
fixture at the most exclusive society parties, arriving in a chauffeured Rolls-Royce and flying in a private jet
.
With his shoulder-length hair and bushy mustache, Butler slipped easily into a
world of Hollywood celebrities, aristocrats, and rock stars
.
Nicknamed "the hippie millionaire" by the press, he has invested the profits in an
ice rink, a soccer team and a reggae band and given hundreds of thousands of dollars to support
liberal
causes .
Born November 26, 1926 in Chicago, Butler grew up in a family of great wealth.
His father and grandfather founded the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook and the Oak Brook Polo Club, which Butler and a sister later ran
.
He also became a polo player of caliber and traveled the world to attend matches.
Thanks to his many contacts, Butler entered
politics
: in addition to being an
adviser to President Kennedy
, he managed the re-election campaign of the
Governor of Illinois, Otto Kerner,
and was
Commissioner for the Port of Chicago
.
Before the
1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago
, Butler negotiated a meeting between the co-founder of the
Youth International Party (Yippies)
, radical
Abbie Hoffman
, and
Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley
, hoping to form a political bloc of left.
Thanks to the enormous success of "Hair",
Butler felt free to support other Broadway productions.
Some shows like
the Lenny Bruce-inspired "Lenny"
worked;
others, like Caribbean "Reggae," don't.
He also helped
produce the hippie film 'You Are What You Eat' (1968)
and had a small
role as a truck driver in 'Electra Glide in Blue' (1973)
.
For years Butler has been in a
legal battle with his brothers over their father's inheritance
, once valued at up to $100 million, though the valuation has proved controversial.
Whatever entity it was, in 1991 "the loot disappeared," Butler filed for bankruptcy and sold his holdings to help pay off all debts.
“
Twenty years ago I had five homes, one with 15 bedrooms, but I've discovered that possessions are a liability.
I wanted to live simpler.
After all, I have built my life not on materialism, but on 'Hair'
”
, he told the
"New York Times".
At the time of his death, at the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging, Butler was working, with other producers, on an
updated production of the
musical
which will open at the
El Portal Theater in North Hollywood next year
.
Married three times
, Butler is survived by son Adam, nephew Liam and a sister, Jorie Butler Kent.