top of page
Title Page
Title page

THE
DIVINE
RASCAL

The True Story of the Man Who "Turned On" the World with LSD and Why He Was Erased from History
created by:
Jeanne Heaton &
Vanessa Hollingshead
Logline
ship .jpg
 LOGLINE:

In 1959, when a down-and-out British writer, desperate to reinvent himself, arrives in New York City and 'trips' on LSD for the first time, his experience is so profound that he launches a mission to 'turn-on' the world with it.

Introduction
INTRODUCTION:

THE DIVINE RASCAL is a dramatic, darkly humorous TV series based on the life of my father, Michael Hollingshead. Inspired by his memoir, The Man Who Turned on the World, the show tells the untold story of how he introduced renowned Harvard psychology professor Dr. Timothy Leary to LSDand how together they created the most powerful counterculture revolution of our time.

Image-4_edited.jpg
Untitled%20design%20(27)_edited.jpg
Untitled design_edited.png
Michael hollingshead
Dr. Timothy
Leary

 IP: 
"The Man Who Turned On The World"
by Michael Hollingshead
Published 1973

©All Rights Reserved

Who Is He
  WHO IS HE?

With a glass of scotch in one hand and 5000 hits of LSD in a mayonnaise jar in the other, no one is more mysterious and unfathomable than the Divine Rascal, Michael Hollingshead.

A genius, a Zelig, a trickster, a guru, a conman, a writer, an alcoholic, a junky, a father and the man without whom Timothy Leary and the 1960s psychedelic revolution never would have existed, Michael is all these things and more.

Michael%2520%2526%2520globe_edited_edite
What is LSD?
WHAT'S LSD?
rs=w_1950px,h_1200px.jfif
WEEK TO WEEK:

We follow the journey of our brilliant, broken, boozing revolutionary, armed with the original batch of pure LSDa force as explosive as the atom bomb itself.

Screenshot 2020-12-04 191505.jpg

Desperate for recognition and brimming with new purpose, he shares his mysterious hallucinogen with the charming Harvard psychology professor, Dr. Timothy Learya rebellious maverick in his own rightand his loyal and doting assistant, Dr. Richard Alperta budding spiritualist with immense generational wealth.

apiytwobp__94627.jpg
A-991957-1541470198-2357.jpeg.jpg

With these unlikely allies, Hollingshead's LSD revolution might now be possible.

lords of rev hi quality.jpg

United by ambition, the trio conducts LSD experiments on Harvard grad students that redefine the entire field of psychology and ignite a revolution across America.

 

But when egos clash and power struggles erupt, they draw the unwanted attention of the U.S. government. 

inside-the-cia.jpeg

Gaining notoriety, the CIA decries their movement as an attack on American values and places Hollinghead at the top of their watchlist.

FxFAQr2aAAIKjdd.png

The CIA's secret LSD torture program

Cornered and desperate, how much is one man willing to sacrifice to save his glorious revolution?

Vanessa, his daughter

Week to Week
Why Me?
Untitled design (8)_edited.jpg
WHY ME?
"My dad did so much LSD, psilocybin, blue-blotter, and purple haze, that we used to go on family trips together without ever leaving home. When I was five, he left a tray of acid-laced sugar cubes on the kitchen table. I ate them all.
I don't have childhood memories; I have flashbacks."
 

But now what if, in those flashbacks, your inept father was also an advocate for drug use? And what if he advocated for it in a way that changed the world for the better? And what if the father of the revolution couldn't be a father to you?

The complex relationships my father had with LSD, the remarkable people he "turned on" with it, and the impact they had on an entire generation have never been dramatized in a television series until now."

Vanessa Hollingshead

Screenshot Vanessa w cat and dog - mekas - me  - 2_edited.jpg
SERIES OVERVIEW

Part One

New York in the '60s

statue libert 4_edited_edited.jpg

Fleeing England's oppressive classism and haunted by personal demons, Hollingshead lands in the vibrant chaos of New York City.

 

He heads for the bohemian heart of the West Village and easily manipulates his way into the inner circle of the iconic Beatnik writers.

Cafe Happenings.jpg

The Poetry Gods of Angst

Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac & Hollingshead

the beats.jpg

​When he meets the civil rights activist and femme fatale jazz pianist, Sophie, their erotic love affair leads to an unexpected pregnancy.

sophie hat.jpg

Sophie

NATALIE .png

Natalie Portman

As months pass, Hollingshead battles debilitating writer's block and drowns himself in alcohol. Nearing collapse, the legendary author Aldous Huxley steps in and tells him about an unknown psychochemical that promises salvation, if only he can get his hands on it.

Series Overview
Part One
The Inciting Incident
Untitled design.gif

"I moved to the rooftop and all is chaos. Kaleidoscopic images surge powerfully in on me and I am seized by an overwhelming fear of going insane. My body is strange... Numb... Lifeless... Am I dying? I step to the rooftop's edge into some other land of unlikeliness when a sudden bolt of lightning splits me through. The primordial ooze from a childhood crushed by the tyranny of a monstrous and violent alcoholic father grabs me by the throat and throws me over the edge. Then, as if woven on wings of stardust, a heavenly realm delivers me to a place where the "I" of "Me" no longer exists, and I am reborn. I am free. I am One with the Universe, one with the Creator, one with God.

I am God." 

Image LSD-5_edited.jpg

While experiencing euphoria, Sophie is frightened and alone, giving birth to Vanessa. 

 

Still tripping, he rushes to her side. Promising a fresh start, he abandons his tired aim of writing the next great novel and replaces it with a bold new one: to turn on the world with LSD. But how?

Part Two
Harvard.jpg

Part Two

Hard left to Harvard University.

Off the word of Huxley and armed with 5000 hits of LSD, Hollingshead tracks down Professor Learya brilliant Harvard mind and roguish drug advocate.

leary on pillow - Copy.jpg

Awed by Hollingshead's conviction, Leary takes his drug and becomes the first convert to Hollingshead's mission.

Leary & Hollingshead.jpg

Leary & Hollingshead

Forging an unbreakable bond, they recruit Leary's assistant, Dr. Richard Alpert.

The trio proselytize LSD, becoming pariahs and rockstars in equal measure. 

Timothy_Leary-Richard_Alpert-Ram_Dass-Ralph_Metzner.jpg

What follows is a torrent of sex, drugs and scientific discovery.

Screenshot 2024-11-09 153352.png

A threat to traditional values, they're expelled and branded radicals.

Part Three
Hitchcock_Estate_GettyImages-79203004 -

Part Three

Which brings us to Millbrook Mansion, a dilapidated 64-room baroque castle in upstate New York.

Millbrook mansion-6 - Copy.png

With Alpert’s wealth and Hollingshead and Leary’s rising celebrity, the mansion erupts into a combination of research lab and madhouse. Experiments with LSD can now carry on with reckless abandon.

tripping at millbrook.jpg

Celebrities, artists, mystics, and revolutionaries travel from around the world just to have Hollingshead guide their tripsinspiring The Beatles to go from "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to "I Am the Walrus." 

McClure, Dylan & Ginsberg

Lennon & McCartney

artist-andy-warhol-and-edie-sedgwick-who-wears-a-black-news-photo-1649096798.jpg

Andy Warhol &

Edie Sedgwick

cary-grant-1024x577_edited_edited_edited
burroughs.jpg

William Burroughs

jfk lsd.jpg
c28d09b67c5c56f760a9235657438127--peter-blake-peter-otoole.jpg
stones.jpg

The Rolling Stones

lsd md_edited.png
dali_edited_edited.png

Salvador Dali

But these are halcyon days, and they don’t last.

 

Hollingshead and Leary’s ideologies begin to clash and jealousy kicks in over who is the real Godfather of LSD.  

Hollingshead's relationship with Sophie begins to crack as well. When their 5-year-old little girl eats a tray of LSD-laced sugar cubes and nearly dies, Sophie reaches a breaking point.

Screenshot Vanessa w thumb in mouth meka

Meanwhile, the net around Millbrook tightens.

257287061-Millbrook_is_raided_by_Liddy__Poughkeepsie_Journal_Poughkeepsie_New_York__18_Apr
Leary in handcuffs.jpg
The Antagonists
Untitled design (36).jpg
THE ANTAGONISTS
gi.gif
titlem.png

On a parallel track, Sydney Gottlieb, a sadistic bureaucrat leading the CIA's chilling MK-Ultra program, weaponizes LSD against those that he and the U.S. government deem disposable.

ac9ecbad97e0f17e4b9395e04ed40f02.jpg
up the nose cia.jpg

As Hollingshead and Leary's 'Make Love, Not War' rebellion takes America's youth by storm, Gottleib deploys the ruthless FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy to shut Millbrook down.

g-gordon-liddy-bettmann.jpg
cia-clip.png

Hollingshead's world unravels as he faces the stark reality of losing his freedom and everything he holds dear. He must choose: save himself or sacrifice it all for his revolution.

Why Now?
rs=w_1534 (2)_edited.jpg
WHY NOW?  

"To fathom hell or soar angelic, take a pinch of psychedelic" 

image-asset.png

With psychedelic-therapy centers opening all over the world, LSD is back in the zeitgeist and hipper than ever before.

41vyCV9N2CL.jpg
microdosing book.jpg
psychedelic-medicine-9781620556979_hr.jpg

In 2010, scientists picked up researching psychedelics exactly where our main charactersHollingshead, Leary, and Alpertleft off 60 years agobefore the US government shut them down.

SCIBY5715__63619.jpg

Dr. Timothy Leary

michael%202%20with%20hair_edited.jpg

Michael Hollingshead

Dr. Richard Alpert, Ram Dass

Today, psychiatrists are experimenting with LSD to treat depression, PTSD, Alzheimer's, cancer, alcoholism, and drug addiction. What was once considered a dangerous drug is now a promising mental health therapy.

4317113-joaquin-phoenix-projection-du-fi

Joaquin Phoenix

_methode_sundaytimes_prod_web_bin_d9402954-01ef-11e9-aef4-fa8d5c1f7f40.jpg

Benedict Cumberbatch

DSb6RVxUMAEV6L5.jpg

Bill Skarsgård

Set against a nation fractured by Vietnam, Civil Rights, and the battle for equal rights, The Divine Rascal mirrors the deep divisions of racism and sexism in our nation today. 

The World
panel the world.jpg
THE WORLD:

LSD blasts its way onto the 1950s post-industrial "Norman Rockwell" scene. It shatters America's puritanical view of the world and opens the curtains of the mind.

rockwell saying grace.jpg
vietnam war.jpg
RR385_THUMB_MASTER_KERNER_child_hands_up_P0039_Redux_15379588_HiRes-videoSixteenByNine3000
women marmching.jpg
Main Characters
MAIN CHARACTERS
Michael Hollingshead

MICHAEL HOLLINGSHEAD - THE DIVINE RASCAL

Untitled design (1)_edited.jpg

Raised by a violent and raging alcoholic father in the unforgiving North of England, Michael harbors an insatiable need to be admired and adored. As a teenager, he unexpectedly finds solace at a reform school, until haunting flashbacks from his horrific childhood continue to torment him. With a massive chip on his shoulder, he uses his high IQ and razor-sharp wit to manipulate his way into any social circle, especially the upper class and academic elite. Yet beneath this magnetic facade lies a dangerous belief: if his father is disposable, so is everyone else. With Michael, you risk losing your mind, your money, or possibly both. He's the guy that everyone can’t wait to get to the party and the one they can’t wait to leave. Women, drugs, and booze fill his god-size hole until they don't and he sabotages everything, including the ones he loves the most. His greatest tragedy is that the enlightenment he so effortlessly guides hundreds of others to find he never finds for himself again. He spends the rest of his life chasing his first LSD trip to oblivion.

michael w globe.png
michael close up.png

Before LSD

Divine%20Rascal%20Michael%20-cello_edite

After LSD

Timothy Leary

DR TIMOTHY LEARY - THE HIGH PRIEST

The alpha-male antithesis to Hollingshead's flamboyant peacock, Tim is a psychology professor at Harvard who everyone wants to teach their class or take to bed. With his relentless womanizing and his promiscuity with men, his wife commits suicide, leaving him to raise their two kids on his own. Guilt-ridden, he throws himself harder into his work with one overwhelming need: to scientifically prove that, in twelve hours, psychedelic drugs can accomplish what it takes twelve years of psychotherapy to do. But with his need to be in the limelight and preaching to the youth of America to "turn on, tune in, and drop out," he goes from the "High Priest" of LSD to Nixon’s "Most Dangerous Man in America." When asked about how he feels about ruining an entire generation of 72 million people, he says, "Yeah, man, but only a hundred thousand thanked me for it."

michael w globe.png
Leary-7 - Copy.jpg

Before LSD

image_2021-02-01_171510.png
14635930279.jpg
R-1534679-1226685038.jpeg.jpg

After LSD

Richard Alpert

DR. RICHARD ALPERT - BABA RAM DASS

Dr. Alpert is Leary’s right-hand man until Hollingshead shows up.  A respected Harvard psychology professor, he brings an unrequited love for Leary along with a ton of money to pay for all of their projects, including Michael himself. Dick desperately wants to fit in, but how, when you’re a gay man in the ‘60s. His desire to win Leary's romantic love, at any cost, becomes his undoing. The first time he trips, instead of seeing God, he has a full-blown panic attack, and the chains of conformity are not removed for him. His search for permanent enlightenment takes him to India, where he transforms into the famous guru, Baba Ram Dass, and writes the famous best-seller, "Be Here Now."

michael w globe.png
michael w globe.png
A-991957-1541470198-2357.jpeg.jpg

Before LSD

23ramdass-1-superJumbo.jpg

After LSD

be here now cover.jpg
Sophie Hollingshead

SOPHIE HOLLINGSHEAD - JAZZ PIANIST & ACTIVIST

Sophie, the stunning femme fatale pianist of West Village's smoky jazz joints, is a fierce activist, who tirelessly defends her fellow Black musicians against racism and mob violence. When she meets Michael, their erotic love affair makes her feel more alive than ever before. But like a moth to a flame, it burns too bright. When she gets pregnant with Vanessa, the weight of motherhood, coupled with Michael's infidelity and his chronic writer's block, smothers her vibrant spirit. Unable to conform to the expectations of a housewife, she makes choices that irrevocably alter the entire course of her life.

natalie portman -2 _edited_edited.jpg
V%2520pic%252010%2520for%2520caption_edited_edited.jpg

Before Michael

sohie photo booth.jpeg

After Michael

Millbrook
Untitled%20design%20(19)_edited.jpg
Contact
bottom of page