From the New York Times via their former property, The Boston Globe, April 27:
‘Dear Mr. Brody’: margarine heir, millionaire, media sensation
A millionaire stirs a movement by addressing the miseries and aspirations of the common people with impossible promises.
Had the title subject of Keith Maitland’s capricious and tragic documentary “Dear Mr. Brody” (2021) intentionally exploited this ocean of need, resentment, and hope — like some politicians today — he might have become a prototypical populist demagogue. But this was back at a time when the hippie ethos had not yet fully degenerated and some still dreamed of transforming the world through love. So, instead, a combination of naivete, narcissism, and PCP, as well as genuine idealism, motivated Brody’s quixotic ambitions.
In January 1970 Michael Brody Jr., the “21-year-old heir to an oleomargarine fortune” as he was often referred to by the media, flew back with his new bride, Renee (they married soon after they met when she delivered hashish to his Scarsdale home), from their Jamaica honeymoon in a leased Pan Am 707 to New York. There he announced to the press that he would give away $25 million to anyone in need who asked for help.
The story blew up into a media sensation. The network news covered it (one interviewee claims that Brody and his entourage got the newscaster Walter Cronkite stoned). The celebrity millionaire and his dazed-looking wife did the talk show circuit and appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” where Brody sang Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” He cut a record deal with RCA and was mobbed by fans wherever he went.And the letters poured in....
....MUCH MORE
