Burt Shavitz is all about rustic living. He spends his days in a 400-square-foot converted turkey coop in the backwoods of Maine. He doesn’t own a television and ever since his water heater broke years ago, heats water on a wood stove.
Now the accidental entrepreneur is getting the documentary treatment in Jody Shapiro’s film, Burt’s Buzz, which made its world premiere at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and which Creston’s Friends of the Cinema is showing April 28. The film traces Shavitz’s journey from wayward hippie new photographer in the 1960s to cofounder of a multimillion-dollar company to his current gig as brand ambassador for the company he was forced out of.
While many are aware of the story of Shavitz’s falling out with Burt’s Bees (and his wife), the film gives viewers a little glimpse into Shavitz’s famously eccentric personality. Here is the background: In 1984, Shavitz met hitchhiker Roxanne Quimby. The two soon became business partners and lovers, with Quimby’s knack for design helping the Burt’s Bees empire grow. They started making beeswax candles, then shoe polish, then lip balm.
By the 1990s, the company was raking in millions in revenue. But Quimby found out that Shavitz was having an affair with a college-aged girl, which he admits in the film. According to reports, along with a divorce, Quimby bought Shavitz out of his one-third stake in the company by buying him a $130,000 house in Maine. By 2000, Burt’s Bees was making a reported $23 million in revenue, and in 2007 Clorox bought the company for a reported $925 million — leaving Shavitz out of a huge payday.
Quimby did give him $4 million when she sold off 80 per cent of Burt’s Bees for $173 million. And the company still pays him an undisclosed amount to use his likeness and name. Esquire magazine reported that Burt’s Bees is now worth over $1 billion. Shavitz continues to be the brand ambassador for the company, but lives in the backwoods of Maine with no television or hot water.
In the documentary, Shavitz exposes the contrasts and ironies that pepper his life — including the collision between business and personal values — and delicately mines the humour and emotion of his story. The result is a thoughtfully layered portrait of this highly idiosyncratic pioneer, and a revealing study of what it means to be a living icon.
Burt’s Buzz runs at 7:30 p.m. April 28 at the Prince Charles Theatre.
—FRIENDS OF THE CINEMA