Hibiscus (entertainer)

Hibiscus
Hibiscus as Madame Butterfly at Sonoma State College in 1970
Born	George Edgerly Harris III September 6, 1949 Bronxville, New York, United States
Died	May 6, 1982(1982-05-06) (aged 32) New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Actor, performance artist

Hibiscus (born George Edgerly Harris III; September 6, 1949 – May 6, 1982) was the founder of the psychedelic gay liberation theater collective known as the Cockettes in early 1970s San Francisco.

Harris was born in Bronxville, New York in 1949 to George Harris II and Ann M. Harris. The family moved to Clearwater Beach, Florida. The Harris parents became interested in theater and began performing with a local community theater called "The Little Theater". George and his siblings started a children's theater troupe, the El Dorado Players. In 1964, the family moved to New York, and Harris appeared in commercials, television, and in 1966 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 George Harris II appeared in New York in the Off-Off-Broadway play Gorilla Queen by Ronald Tavel.

Hibiscus (then George Harris) joined the October 21, 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon (in order to "levitate" it) and appears in the historic photograph of that event, Flower Power; he was the turtleneck sweater-wearing protester photographed putting flowers into the gun barrels of the MPs.

Bernie Boston, the photographer, recalls the moment in a 2005 Curio Magazine (James Madison University) interview with Alice Ashe. Quoting from the interview: ""When I saw the sea of demonstrators, I knew something had to happen. I saw the troops march down into the sea of people,” Boston says, “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."