THE
DIVINE RASCAL
The Story of the Man who "Turned-On" the World with LSD and the People who Erased Him
LOG LINE
In 1959, when a dsillusioned British writer comes to
New York City and "trips” on LSD for the first time, he makes it his mission to “turn-on” the world with it, but when his mysterious past catches up with him, he goes from the man who turns-on the world to the man who
turns on the world.
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THE DIVINE RASCAL is a 3-season, one-hour, limited dramatic series based on the true story of Michael Hollingshead; the man who gave the notorious Harvard Professor, Dr. Timothy Leary his first hit of LSD and then was mysteriously erased from history.
Michael hollingshead
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Dr. Timothy
Leary
​
In 1965, when I was five years old, my dad left an entire tray of acid-laced sugar cubes out on the counter. I ate 9 of them. I don't have childhood memories, I have flashbacks.
The men my father turned-on with LSD and their personal relationships
with each other, and their families, have never been dramatized in a
TV series before -- until now."
Vanessa Hollingshead
Michael Hollingshead's Daughter
"I will create the world's first bloodless revolution"
Michael Hollingshead
""Turn On, Tune in, Drop Out""
Dr. Timothy Leary
"LSD is just a tool to turn us into who we're supposed to be."
Inventor of LSD, Dr. Albert. Hofmann
LSD blasts it's way onto the postindustrial, Norman Rockwell scene of the mid 1950s. It lifts America out of it's puritanical, myopic view of the world and opens the curtains of the mind.
Of all the figures in LSD history none are more complex and unfathomable than The Divine Rascal, Michael Hollingshead. A fool, an acid guru, a trickster, a black magician, a genius, a junkie, an alcoholic, deeply spiritual, psychologically and emotionally disturbed, a narcissist, a catalyst for social change, a secret agent, a father and the man without whom Timothy Leary would have never happened. The truth is Michael Hollingshead is all of these things and so much more.
The Divine Rascal begins in New York City at the dawn of the ‘60s...
Michael arrives in NYC via a passenger ship from England.
He meets his beautiful
future wife, Sophie
and Vanessa is born.
The story takes a hard left into
Harvard academia...
Michael gets a hold of 5000 hits of LSD and "turns-on"
Harvard psychology professor, Dr. Timothy Leary, who "turns-on"
his assistant, psychology professor, Dr. Richard Alpert.
The LSD scientific clinical trials officially begin.
Two years later they get sloppy and they all get fired.
And lands at the sprawling infamous Millbrook Mansion; a hippie commune in upstate New York, where LSD becomes the promised solution to an entire generation’s cultural ills.
Timothy Leary
runs the LSD sessions
with the greatest "trip-guide" of all time, Michael Hollingshead.
Set against the turbulent backdrop of racism, sexism and Vietnam - Michael gives LSD to Harvard college kids and they trade their briefcases in for knapsacks. Divinity students take it and become priests. Hopeless drunks become recovered alcoholics. And prisoners become upright citizens. Painters, poets, writers & musicians - most notably the world=famous Beatles take Michael's LSD and they go from "I want to Hold Your Hand" to "I am the Walrus."
Allen Ginsberg
Bill Wilson
Alcoholics Anonymous
Salvador Dali
Doc Ellis pitches a no-hitter on LSD
The Rolling Stones
The tripping scenes aren't like any tripping scenes you’ve ever seen before. Instead, they are deeply personal and evocative. Week to week, as a different character "turns-on" we will experience their trip through the lens of whatever it is they're going through; story wise - so that every episode we are entirely invested in whether that character has a spiritual awakening or a rude one.
But not everyone will have that priviledge.
Vanessa’s acid-orphan, coming-of-age story appears as little snippets throughout to remind us of where her father has come from and what he's left behind.
When the FBI and the CIA’s top-secret MK-Ultra LSD program infiltrates our story, the scenes become more granular and chilling. Russian spies, prisoners, prostitutes and children are given massive amounts of LSD to analyze it's potential for mind-control, mind-erasure, information gathering and psychological torture. These clandestine experiments lead to insanity and even death.
Sydney Gottlieb - CIA's MK Ultra
Children tortured on LSD
Captain Al Hubbard - CIA & FBI
Gordon Liddy - FBI
Michael Hollingshead is
The Divine Rascal
Born to a violent and abusive alcoholic father in the north of England, Michael has an insatiable need to be adored. He wants nothing more than to father the dawn of the psychedelic revolution and father Vanessa - all at the same time. A sinner and a saint, he’s the guy everyone can’t wait to get to the party and the one they can’t wait to leave. Drugs, booze and women distract him for a while - till they don’t - and he sabotages everything. If you do fall under his spell, and believe me you will, you risk losing your mind, your money or possibly both. But don’t get too close - because just below the surface seethes a rage so palpable; that since his father is disposable so is everyone else. The Divine Rascal’s greatest tragedy of all is that the liberation he so effortlessly guides thousands of others to find, he never finds for himself again. He spends the rest of his life chasing his first glorious LSD rooftop trip - even if it means losing the one he loves the most, his sweet little girl, Vanessa.
Before LSD
After LSD
Dr. Timothy Leary is
LSD's High Priest
The alpha-male antithesis to Michael's flamboyant peacock, Tim goes from Harvard clinical psychologist to psychedelic Professor. He's the guy everyone wants to teach their class or take to bed. On his 35th birthday, his wife, due to his promiscuity, commits suicide and he's left to raise their two children on his own. Guilt ridden, all he wants is to scientifically prove that LSD can accomplish in 12 hours what takes 12 years to do in psychotherapy. But with his relentless womanizing, his insatiable need to be in the limelight and irresponsibly preaching to the youth of America to rebel against the establishment; he goes from LSD’s “High Priest” to Nixon’s “Most Dangerous Man in America.” During his numerous prison stints, he writes more than 20 books; some even edited by Michael. On his deathbed, when asked how he feels about ruining an entire generation of 72 million people, he replies, with that megawatt smile, “Yeah man, but only 100,000 thanked me for it.”
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Before LSD
After LSD
Dr. Richard Alpert is
Baba Ram Dass
Leary’s right-hand man, until Michael shows up. A Harvard psychology professor, Richard Alpert brings an unrequited romantic love for Leary and the money to pay for all of their projects – one being Michael, himself. Alpert desperately wants to fit in, but how, when you’re a gay man in the ‘60s. His competition with Michael to win Leary’s heart becomes his undoing. The first time Alpert trips, instead of seeing God, he has a full-blown panic attack and the chains of conformity are not removed for him. When he pilgrimages to India, he becomes the famous Guru, Baba Ram Dass and writes Be Here Now, selling over 2 million copies.
Before LSD
Before LSD
After LSD
After LSD
This enmeshed trio become known as the
Lords of the Revolution
with one goal: to save humanity with LSD.
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Sophie Hollingshead,
Michael’s wife & Vanessa's mother
A jazz pianist, Sophie is a complicated woman who follows her own internal compass. Initially, she supports Michael’s fledgling writing career, but with his “acid-work”, his relentless adultery, and never sending her any money, she stops caring for everyone and everything – well, except for grass, amphetamines and Vanessa; in that order. Poverty stricken, she and little Vanessa are forced to move to the slums of Bed-Stuy where she endures assaults, loses her teeth and eventually her mind. She always reminds Vanessa, “When I met your father, I hated all men, after I married him, I hated everybody.”
Before Michael
After Michael
Vanessa Hollingshead
When Michael leaves her behind to turn-on the world, Vanessa is left in Sophie’s care; a woman who prefers smoking pot and taking pills than being a mom. ​​ Back and forth between abusive foster homes and mentally ill Sophie, Vanessa longs for the stability of her alcoholic father. Vanessa represents an entire generation of kids left out of the 1960s vacuous promise of peace, love and understanding. At 5, when she accidentally eats LSD, she's forced to survive by any means. She grows up fast and turns her childhood into comedy.
After LSD
the brilliant comedy of
HOLLINGSHEAD
anessa
V
Limited Series Overview:
The show opens with a flash-forward, to 1966 London, where our Divine Rascal - in his signature raccoon coat and pink sunglasses - has the world by the psychedelic balls. At his World Psychedelic Center, he hosts yet another outrageous LSD mind-altering party. McCartney, Lennon, Burroughs, Jagger andPolanski; everyone who’s anyone is there. As Michael floats about, spraying his atomizer full of LSD all over everyone, Scotland Yard busts in and arrests him.
John Lennon
Jaggar & Richards
Paul McCartney & Linda
Roman Polanski & Sharon Tate
Jefferson Airplane
36 hours later, on the cold cement prison floor, Michael detoxes a serious meth amphetamine addiction. He flashes back to 1959 - to where our story begins - with his arrival on the docks of New York City.
He heads for the West Village, to the White Horse Tavern, where the poetry Gods of Angst; Kerouac, Ginsberg & Burroughs, all hang out. He meets the beautiful, yet tragically flawed jazz pianist Sophie. He gets her pregnant. They quickly marry. And Vanessa is born. Full of joy, Michael vows to be the father he never had . . . until she won’t stop crying.
Kerouac & Ginsberg
Michael & Sophie
Burroughs
Michael escapes her nightly tears by disappearing to the White Horse, where he too can't stop crying on the famous shoulder of author Aldous Huxley about his debilitating writer's block. Huxley tells him that LSD is the thing responsible for transforming his own writing and that maybe he should take some. Michael finagles a phony prescription from his doctor friend - saying he needs it for a "bone-marrow transplant". And he immediately sends it to LSD's inventor, Dr. Albert Hofmann. Three weeks later, 5000 hits of pure Lysergic Diethylamide-25 arrive in the mail, with a bill for $285.00.
Aldous Huxley
Dr. Hofmann
Michael throws the bill in the trash and heads for the kitchen - where he dilutes the entire bottle into a sugar paste. As he scoops it into a mayonnaise jar, he licks his first lovin' spoonful and heads for the roof. His entire life is about to change forever.
Suddenly, his entire sense of worthlessness and self-hatred, instilled in him by his cruel alcoholic father is instantaneously replaced with a knowledge of God so profound; he realizes the entire world must have it. And there is only one man who can help; Harvard psychedelic researcher and professor, Dr. Timothy Leary.
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Michael bursts into Leary's office with his mayo-jar, but Leary wants nothing to do with him or his "man-made" chemicals. Never taking "no" for an answer, Michael threatens to kill himself. Leary, now really leery, is forced into finally taking it. 45 minutes later, Leary is so overcome by its transcendent omnipotence, he insists Michael move in with him and his two kids. Michael has literally just thrown his LSD hand-grenade right into the middle of Leary's strait-laced Harvard academic career.
With Vanessa and Sophie in tow, Michael squeezes them all into Leary's teeny attic. But soon Sophie wants out of this "acid-laced, Anne Frank, shit-hole!" Michael is forced to choose: Leary? Or his own family. As Michael puts them both back on the train to New York City, Vanessa screams, "Daddy!"
Vanessa & Sophie (before LSD)
Jackie & Susan, Leary's kids
Now that he's deep in Leary's Harvard inner sanctum, Michael "turns-on" the rest of Leary's research team. But with two years of successful LSD research on grad students; they, themselves are also participants - a huge 'no-no'. As they consume more and more of their own stash, Alpert gets caught giving LSD and to a male undergrad he's had the hots for, and Harvard fires them all.
The now "homeless" Leary, Alpert and Michael eventually relocate their "acid-work" to the sixty-four-room decaying Millbrook Mansion. With 2300 acres of fresh air and lots of extravagant animals, Michael thinks that not only is Millbrook a great place to guide his acid-trips, it's a great place to raise a child..., so he convinces Sophie to let Vanessa come and stay. Every morning, Vanessa wakes up and runs to her Dad's room just to make sure he's still there. But when she accidentally eats the acid-laced sugar cubes, their time together is short-lived. Furious with Michael's irresponsibility, Sophie shows up, demands Michael give her some pot and amphetamines, and then whisks Vanessa back to NYC.
Depressed, and without his little girl, Michael buries himself into discovering more extraordinary ways to guide his LSD sessions. By cultivating the talents of the visual artists and audio engineers living there, Michael masterminds an audio/visual acid experience so spectacular, famous artists come from all over the world to have him guide their trips. These sessions are so astonishing, they re-create them at the Village Vanguard as part of the budding avant-garde "Happenings" art scene in NYC. Michael is finally recognized by the elite art-set and even receives an outstanding review in the New York Times for these performances.
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But as Michael's drinking gets out of control and his childhood demons resurface, he sabotages everything. We collectively hold our breath as Michael takes deep dives into new projects only to abandon them, just as Leary is about to throw him out. Michael burns every bridge, except for one: Captain Al Hubbard of the C.I.A.
Throughout the series, the CIA's MK-Ultra program keeps tabs on the Millbrook trio and their revolution. Leary's growing power over the American youth to "Turn-on, Tune-in and Drop-out" becomes a threat to the US government and the nation's moral fiber. The only way to bring them down is to seduce, who they believe is the weakest link; Michael. Does the Divine Rascal become a double-agent and rat on his psychedelic family? Does the man who turns on the world become the man who turns on the world?
CIA MK-Ultra Headquarters
In the 11th hour, immigration receives an anonymous tip that Michael's passport has expired. They show up, cuff him and deport him back to England. But just before he boards the ship, Leary and Alpert race to the pier to give him 200 copies of Leary's "Psychedelic Manual" with the deluded hope that Michael might continue their mission in London. Leary’s contempt for Michael is palpable, but his genuine love for him forces his kindness. Once out of sight, Leary dismisses Michael as a forgotten man and tells Alpert, "Well, that writes off the British Psychedelic Revolution for the next ten years." They have no idea that Michael has 10,000 hits of pure Czech LSD hidden in a bar of soap; enough to turn-on London 10 times over and have a hell-of-a stash left for himself.
​Which brings us to that same flash-forward opening party scene in London, 1966 - but with a completely different spin. This time, as Michael - in his raccoon coat - gets arrested by Scotland Yard, the FBI raids Millbrook and arrests Leary. Now they’re both in jail.
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THE DIVINE RASCAL
reveals, with a matchless degree of intimacy, both the conflicts within and between the brilliant minds of The Lords of the Revolution – and how, through his daughter, we survive its collateral damage. Over the course of the show we will solve the mystery of who Michael Hollingshead is and why the tripping subculture was so swiftly stamped out.