Joanna Harcourt-Smith, the alluring subject of Errol Morris’ Showtime documentary My Psychedelic Love Story, became enthralled in the 1970s with the LSD guru Timothy Leary. It’s a sentiment the Oscar-winning filmmaker could understand.
“I had met Timothy Leary just before he died. I was amazed,” Morris says, with perhaps a touch of his dry humor, during a panel for his film at Deadline’s Contenders Documentary awards-season event. “Of all the people I have met over the years I’ve never known anyone who actually radiated light. He was luminescent.”
Harcourt-Smith and Leary became romantically attached in Europe where Leary fled to escape U.S. authorities. After Leary was nabbed and returned to America, she told Morris “she would have done anything—anything and everything—to get him out of prison.” Even flying naked in a helicopter over Leary’s prison to spirit him away to freedom, as Harcourt-Smith recounts in the film.
“I had met Timothy Leary just before he died. I was amazed,” Morris says, with perhaps a touch of his dry humor, during a panel for his film at Deadline’s Contenders Documentary awards-season event. “Of all the people I have met over the years I’ve never known anyone who actually radiated light. He was luminescent.”
Harcourt-Smith and Leary became romantically attached in Europe where Leary fled to escape U.S. authorities. After Leary was nabbed and returned to America, she told Morris “she would have done anything—anything and everything—to get him out of prison.” Even flying naked in a helicopter over Leary’s prison to spirit him away to freedom, as Harcourt-Smith recounts in the film.
- 1/10/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
While Joanna Harcourt-Smith, the subject of Errol Morris’s latest documentary, “My Psychedelic Love Story,” passed away in October from breast cancer, she was able to see the completed film before she passed. “I was privileged to show her the completed movie just before she died. She watched it, I’ve been told by her family, six or seven times the week of her death and she loved it,” Morris says in our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video above). But even though Harcourt-Smith is no longer with us, Morris still finds her story to be immensely captivating. “It’s a great story and the story continues and I’m still writing about it. It still has its hooks in me.”
“My Psychedelic Love Story,” which is currently available to watch through Showtime, showcases the story of Harcourt-Smith and, in particular, her relationship with Dr. Timothy Leary from 1972 to 1977. The...
“My Psychedelic Love Story,” which is currently available to watch through Showtime, showcases the story of Harcourt-Smith and, in particular, her relationship with Dr. Timothy Leary from 1972 to 1977. The...
- 1/4/2021
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
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