Burt Shavitz, the Maine beekeeper and co-founder of Burt's Bees whose face and untamed beard have been featured on thousands of cases of natural cosmetics, died Sunday of respiratory complications in Bangor, Maine. He was 80.
Born in 1935, he spent his childhood in New York. After serving in the Army in Germany and a brief stint as a photographer, Shavitz left for Maine and began his celebrated eccentric lifestyle as a hippie who made his livelihood selling honey.
According to The Associated Press, Shavitz' life was altered by a chance encounter with a hitchhiker, Roxanne Quimby. He struck up a friendship with the single mother, impressed with her self-reliance and back-to-land ethos.
In the 1980s she began making products from his beeswax. A business partnership soon resulted and Burt's Bees was born, with Shavitz' image as a key feature of the product labels.
In 1994 Quimby moved Burt's Bees to North Carolina, and the business partnership dissolved. He received an undisclosed monetary settlement and 37 acres of land in a remote corner of Maine. In 2007, Clorox purchased Burt's Bees for $925 million.
After separating from the business end of Burt's Bees, Shavitz returned to a reclusive, minimalist lifestyle. He famously lived in a cluttered house with no running water and enjoyed watching wildlife. His life was featured in the 2013 documentary "Burt's Buzz."
"Burt Shavitz, our co-founder and namesake, has left for greener fields and wilder woods. We remember him as a wild]bearded and free]spirited Maine man, a beekeeper, a wisecracker, a lover of golden retrievers, a reverent observer of nature and the kind face that smiles back at us from our Hand Salve."
- See more at:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bos....4UoFhmsP.dpuf
-------------------------------
Thanks for the almond creme stuff.