Hibiscus (entertainer)

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Wikidata image Hibiscus (born George Edgerly Harris III; September 6, 1949 – May 6, 1982) was an American actor and performance artist. Starting his career in New York City, he moved to San Francisco, where in the early 1970s he founded the psychedelic gay liberation theater collective known as the Cockettes.

He was widely seen in Flower Power (1967), a photograph taken during a major anti-Vietnam War protest in Washington, DC. He was photographed putting flowers into the gun barrels of the MPs.

Early life

Harris was born in Bronxville, New York in 1949 to George Edgerly Harris II (1921–2005) and Anna Marie McCanless (1926–2016). The family moved to Clearwater Beach, Florida. The Harris parents became interested in theater and began performing with a local company known as "The Little Theater". George and his siblings started a children's theater troupe, the El Dorado Players.

In 1964, the family returned to New York. Harris appeared in commercials, and started acting in television. In 1966 he performed in an Off Broadway play titled Peace Creeps by John Wolfson, with Al Pacino and James Earl Jones.

In 1967, George Harris III and his father appeared in New York in the Off-Off-Broadway play Gorilla Queen by Ronald Tavel.

War protest

On October 21, 1967, Hibiscus (then George Harris) joined the March on the Pentagon, an anti-war march intended to "levitate" the Pentagon. He appears in Bernie Boston's Pulitzer Prize-nominated photograph, Flower Power; he was the turtleneck sweater-wearing protester photographed putting flowers into the gun barrels of a soldier of the 503rd Military Police Battalion (Airborne).

Boston recalled the moment in a 2005 interview in Curio magazine:

"When I saw the sea of demonstrators, I knew something had to happen. I saw the troops march down into the sea of people, and I was ready for it." One soldier lost his rifle. Another lost his helmet. The rest had their guns pointed out into the crowd, when all of a sudden a young hippie stepped out in front of the action with a bunch of flowers in his left hand. With his right hand he began placing the flowers into the barrels of the soldiers' guns. "He came out of nowhere," says Boston, "and it took me years to find out who he was ... his name was Harris."

1960's counter-culture member Paul Krassner, in a blog entry he did not post until a week after Bernie Boston died in 2008 (and three years after Boston was quoted in Curio), states that the young man in the photo was Joel Tornabene, a leader of the Youth International Party; in addition to Boston, both Harris/Hibiscus and Tornabene were dead before Krassner posted this statement.

Career

The Cockettes

Hibiscus, whose full beard, vintage dresses, make-up and costume jewelry, attracted a group of like-minded activists who loved show-tunes, dressing up, showing off, and dropping acid. The group took the name The Cockettes after performing a series of midnight musical reviews at the Palace Theater in North Beach, San Francisco. Each review was inspired by, or was a parody of, old films and movie musicals, such as: "Gone with the Showboat to Oklahoma", "Hollywood Babylon", and "Pearls over Shanghai". The reviews became a "must-see" for San Francisco's gay community. Notable former members included disco singer Sylvester and drag queen Divine.

When the Palace Theater began enforcing admission and limiting the number of free passes given to performers, Hibiscus would open the theater doors to allow spectators in without paying admission. He believed all shows should be free to the public and free of structure. However, The Cockettes' previously spontaneous performances became more structured over time. Later productions, such as "Pearls over Shanghai", were fully scripted with set changes, on-stage effects and lighting, and choreography. Hibiscus, who disliked the more commercial approach to community theater, either dropped out, refused to rehearse, or flubbed his scripted lines.

The Angels of Light

Hibiscus eventually left The Cockettes to establish The Angels of Light with whom he produced free "cosmic theater" revues in San Francisco and New York. After returning to New York, Hibiscus produced several Off-off-Broadway drag revues, of which "Sky High" ran the longest. He also appeared in a daytime soap opera under his birth name. In the late 1970s until his death, he and his sisters, Jayne Anne, Eloise, Mary Lou, and his brother Fred, performed as the glitter rock parody band "Hibiscus and the Screaming Violets".

Death

Hibiscus died from complications resulting from AIDS on May 6, 1982, at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. He was an early AIDS casualty; at the time of his death the new illness was still referred to as GRID.

External links

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