On return to New York, child George worked as a model in commercials, and at Caffe Cino and other off-off-Broadway theaters. At 13 he left home to live with an older man, with the understanding of his parents. One of his contacts was Jack Smith, the avant-garde filmmaker who was already cross-dressing his actors.
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One night after a performance he came home to find that his apartment building had burned down. He took a break, but on return found that he had been voted out of the group, and that shows were no longer free. He founded a new group, Angels of Light, which did their first performance in Grace Cathedral before the police evicted them. Allen Ginsburg did his first drag with the group and was was Hibiscus’s lover for a while.
Hibiscus left the group and returned to his family in New York, and started an East Coast version of the Angels. They were discovered by Swiss choreographer, Maurice Bejart who financed a European tour.
He died of AIDS at age 33.
- Mark Thompson. “Children of Paradise: A Brief History of Queens”. In Mark Thompson (ed). Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987: 61-8.
- “Hibiscus (entertainer)”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus_%28entertainer%29.
I'm surprised that any bio-sketch of Hibiscus wouldn't mention:
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i like when he put flowers in guns. also, i knew allen.
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