By Geoff Marsh
Whosoever plants a tree winks at immortality. — Felix Dennis
Felix Dennis, one of three editors of the 1960s-era pop-culture magazine Oz (and later publisher of Maxim) died as a result of throat cancer at home in Dorsington, England, on Sunday, June 22. Aged 67, he was one of the richest men in Britain — and a revolutionary publisher.
Dennis had all the enthusiasm of an avuncular Victorian entrepreneur and was an engaging blend of alternative journalist, publisher, bon viveur and raging capitalist. Despite the long hair and, later, copious amounts of chemicals, he didn’t quite fit the hippie mould but his business-like attitude made the alternative lifestyle a reality for many.
Rather like the musical “Hair,” he was packaging the Age of Aquarius concept and selling it to the newly emergent drug aficionados, in his case through the newsagents. He later proved, of course, that it was a social wave he was riding and he would repeat his success with many subsequent social and cultural trends.
“If I have the chance to make a penny and I don’t take it, that’s a penny lost as far as I’m concerned,” was his ethos. One business colleague commented that Dennis was the only hippie he could ever trust, a compliment to the way he managed to combine the conventional with the alternative in the early 1970s. His intuition enabled him to see business opportunities beyond the then-current publishing formats, and Dennis moved on from the underground press fully intending to make his fortune.