James Rado, the last surviving member of the brilliant trio that created the musical “Hair,” died of cardio-respiratory arrest on June 21 in a Manhattan hospital. He was 90.
It may be difficult for today’s millennials or Gen-whatevers to understand or appreciate the sociological and cultural impact that “Hair” had not only in its day, the 1960s, but ever since. That show, both loved and reviled, represented, to some people, everything that was wrong with America; to others, it represented everything that could be right.
It’s equally difficult to believe that Rado was 90. He seemed eternally youthful and handsome. In one picture where he sported a mustache, he somewhat resembled Robert Redford, the Sundance Kid.
Rado and his fellow writer and actor Gerome Ragni teamed with the composer Galt MacDermot in 1967 to create an “American tribal love-rock musical,” which first opened off-Broadway at the Public Theater before moving to Broadway the following year and playing 1,750 performances.
It had only the barest of plots, mainly revolving around sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, spirituality and race relations, in a lighthearted, humorous, audience-participation way that eventually turned tragic and sad, but with the most infectious and unusual music ever heard on Broadway up to that time.
Musical theater was mainly shows like “Oklahoma” and “The Sound of Music” and “My Fair Lady”; “Hair” was a rowdy, joyous party-crasher.
Rado and Ragni portrayed, respectively, Claude Hooper Bukowski (Rado’s mother’s maiden surname) and George Berger, who spent all of their time with their “tribe” of hippies taking drugs, protesting against the Vietnam War, dancing and making love. Claude was drafted and conflicted about whether to go or dodge it. Amid the raucous proceedings and love-ins was a brief nude scene, the likes of which had never occurred on Broadway. All of this ushered in a new era in theater.
Ragni died in 1991, MacDermot in 2018. The trio never had another significant success; like James Dean or the 1968 New York Jets, “Hair” was something of a one-hit wonder. But as those stars did in their fields, that one hit changed Broadway and the American theater forever. The original cast album won a Grammy Award, was inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress and generated numerous pop hits like “Aquarius,” “Let the Sunshine In,” “Good Morning Starshine” and “Easy to Be Hard.” It’s arguable that without “Hair,” there would be no “Rent” or “Hamilton.”
I first saw “Hair” around 1969, and again in a revival around 1977. The last one took place in 2009, first at the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, then again on Broadway, a production Rado helped guide and which won a Tony Award for best revival. I attended those performances too. At the Broadway show, I was in the lobby looking at a poster when a man posed in front of it for a picture with a young friend. As I stared at him, I realized that it was Rado himself, completely unrecognized by anyone else. At the end of those performances, the audience was invited onstage to dance with the cast. I worked my way onto the stage and suddenly found myself dancing right alongside him. I’ve never been one to talk to or bother celebrities, but in hindsight, I wish I had told him how much the show had meant to me for so many years, how it sustained me in times of personal tragedy, and uplifted me with its joy.
James Rado helped to usher in the Age of Aquarius, but more than that, in a world so often filled with darkness, he truly let the sunshine in.