Burt Shavitz died of respiratory complications in Bangor, Maine, surrounded by friends and family, a Burt's Bees spokeswoman said.
Best known as the man whose bearded visage lies at the heart of the Burt's Bees logo, Shavitz was a photographer for the Army in Germany and for Time-Life in 1960s New York City before he turned to beekeeping in rural Maine.
According to company lore, Burt's Bees began after a chance meeting in 1984. Shavitz, then 49, a reclusive beekeeper who lived in a converted turkey coop and sold honey in pickle jars from the back of a truck, picked up a hitchhiker on a Maine roadside: Roxanne Quimby, 34, a divorced mother of two. The two moved in together and began selling Quimby's hand-cut candles and Shavitz's honey at craft fairs.
In 1988, Quimby began selling lip balm made from warm beeswax and clove oil. Burt's Bees incorporated in 1989, with Quimby holding a 70 per cent stake and Shavitz per cent.
The new company's first factory was in an abandoned Maine schoolhouse. In 1994 it moved to North Carolina. Although Shavitz moved back to Maine after a falling-out with Quimby, he remained a company advisor and made promotional appearances for the rest of his life. Quimby later bought his share of the company. In 2007, Clorox bought Burt's Bees for a reported $US925 million.
Shavitz reportedly ended up with about $4 million. But he embraced the kind of simple lifestyle he had before his company began, staying alone with his dogs in the converted turkey coop without electricity or hot running water.
"He's everything you want him to be, but nothing you think he should be," filmmaker Jody Shapiro, who made the 2013 documentary "Burt's Buzz" about Shavitz's life, told Canada's National Post last year. "If you looked at the logo, you'd think he's probably not a real guy, but OK, maybe he's a farmer who raises bees and lives naturally. Then you find out he's a real person and he really is like that."
Shavitz's survivors include his brother, Karl Shavitz.
© Los Angeles Times 2015
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