Michael Butler (producer)
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theatrical producer
Theatrical producer
A theatrical producer is the person ultimately responsible for overseeing all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The independent producer will usually be the originator and finder of the script and starts the whole process...
best known for bringing the rock musical Hair
Hair (musical)
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...
from the Public Theater
Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as The Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers. It is headquartered at 425 Lafayette Street in the former Astor Library in the East Village...
to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1968. During his time as Hair producer he was dubbed by the press as "the hippie millionaire". Other Broadway production credits include the play Lenny in 1971 and the musical Reggae in 1980.
Biography
In the early 19th century, his ancestors Asa and Simon Butler were the first American paper makers to make paper for the U.S. Congress. In 1841, Julius Wales Butler founded the J.W. Butler Paper Company on State Street in Chicago, IL., the oldest family owned business in Chicago. The family business would later diversify into aviation and ranching.Butler is the godson
Godson
Loongson is a family of general-purpose MIPS-compatible CPUs developed at the Institute of Computing Technology , Chinese Academy of Sciences in the People's Republic of China. The chief architect is Professor Hu Weiwu....
of Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
, and in his early twenties he lived with Power and his wife, actress Linda Christian
Linda Christian
Linda Christian was a Mexican movie actress, who appeared in Mexican and Hollywood films. Her career reached its peak in the 1940s and 1950s. She played Mara in the last Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film Tarzan and The Mermaids...
. Through Power's friend, film director Edmund Goulding
Edmund Goulding
Edmund Goulding was a British film writer and director. As an actor early in his career he was one of the 'Ghosts' in the 1922 British made Paramount silent Three Live Ghosts alongside Norman Kerry and Cyril Chadwick. Also in the early 20s he wrote several screenplays for star Mae Murray and...
, he befriended the Kennedy family, particularly Joe and John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. Butler and JFK socialized often in Hyannisport, Greenwich Village and in Newport, R.I. where they got fogged in on a sailing trip.
Early career
Butler served as Special Advisor to then-Senator John F. Kennedy on the Middle EastMiddle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Chancellor of the Lincoln Academy, Commissioner of the Port of Chicago, President of the Organization of Economic Development in Illinois, Assistant to Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, Jr.
Otto Kerner, Jr.
Otto Kerner, Jr. was the 33rd Governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968. He is best known for chairing the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and for accepting bribes....
, President of the Illinois Sports Council, and he was a Democratic Candidate in Du Page County for the State Senate.
Hair
In 1967, Butler was preparing to run for the US Senate when he began to discuss the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
with a young student who worked as a gardener at his home. As a result of these discussions, Butler says, "I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the popular 'hawk' stand I had been taught as an axiom." Later that year in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on business related to Otto Kerner, Jr.
Otto Kerner, Jr.
Otto Kerner, Jr. was the 33rd Governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968. He is best known for chairing the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and for accepting bribes....
's Commission about Civil Disorders, he saw an ad in the New York Times for Hair at the Public Theater that featured a photo of five Indian chiefs. Thinking the show was about Indians he bought a ticket. Instead he saw what he described as "the strongest anti-war statement ever written" and decided to obtain rights to the show. Hair opened on Broadway in April 1968 and became a huge success, running for 1,750 performances and spawning numerous other productions. By the time the Broadway production closed in 1972, Butler had overseen nine national productions and nineteen international productions.
Activism
Around the time of his first association with Hair, Butler became a political activist. Before the 1968 Democratic National Convention1968 Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek a second term, the purpose of the convention was to...
in Chicago he arranged a meeting between Chicago mayor Richard Daley
Richard J. Daley
Richard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F...
and Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....
. Of the meeting Butler said "I told [Daley] that the city should smother the Yippies with tender loving kindness. He decided to go a different way. And what did we get? Richard Nixon." He held "Cause" meetings in Oak Brook, Illinois
Oak Brook, Illinois
Oak Brook is a village in DuPage and Cook Counties, in Illinois. The population was 8,702 at the 2000 census. A suburb of Chicago, it is the headquarters of McDonald's and Lions Clubs International.-History:...
in the summer of 1969 with Tom Smothers
Tom Smothers
Tom Smothers is an American comedian, composer and musician, best known as half of the musical comedy team The Smothers Brothers, alongside his younger brother Dick.-Early life:...
, Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow is an American singer who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote one of the group's most famous songs, "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...
, and Black Panther
Black panther
A black panther is typically a melanistic color variant of any of several species of larger cat. Wild black panthers in Latin America are black jaguars , in Asia and Africa they are black leopards , and in North America they may be black jaguars or possibly black cougars A black panther is...
Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton was an African-American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party...
, among others. Butler donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to left-leaning causes and was listed on Richard Nixon's Enemies List.
Personal life
Butler dated Candice BergenCandice Bergen
Candice Patricia Bergen is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy Murphy Brown , for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal...
and Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
, who he had a relationship with in the early 1950s before her marriage to Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Early life:Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in Elberon, New Jersey, of Catalan and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer , was born in Cuba, was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St....
. Butler was involved in Hepburn accepting a role in the New York production of the play Ondine, where she worked with Ferrer soon before marrying him. He has a son, Adam, from his 1962 marriage to Loyce Stinson Hand.