Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 30, 1994                   TAG: 9411300061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF WILSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

EX-YIPPIE JERRY RUBIN DIES

Yippie-turned-yuppie Jerry Rubin was a merry master of political theater: He mocked a judge by wearing a judicial robe to court, appeared before a congressional committee in Revolutionary War costume and showed up at protests shirtless, wearing an Uncle Sam hat and toting a toy M-16.

Rubin died at age 56 Monday, two weeks after he was hit by a car while crossing a street. He never regained consciousness after the accident.

His former wife, Mimi Leonard Fleischman, acknowledged that his death came with a final act of nonconformity - jaywalking.

``He was a great life force, full of spunk, courage and wit,'' said state Sen. Tom Hayden, a co-defendant in the Chicago Seven trial.

The son of a Cincinnati truck driver turned union official, Rubin was catapulted to fame during the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s. Along with Abbie Hoffman, Paul Krassner and other radicals, Rubin founded the Youth International Party, or Yippie movement, dedicated to disrupting ``the system.''

In 1969 he was one of eight defendants tried on charges of conspiring to incite rioting during the 1968 Democration convention in Chicago.

Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, after being bound and gagged in the courtroom, was tried separately, so the defendants became known as the Chicago Seven. Rubin and four others were convicted, but the convictions were overturned on appeal.

During a House Un-American Activities Committee investigation into the anti-war movement, Rubin showed up in a Revolutionary War costume, with three-cornered hat.

``He was a kind of Paul Revere calling attention to the war in Vietnam. ... It was a cultural civil war,'' Krassner said from New York.

After the Chicago Seven trial, Rubin wrote a book of political autobiography called ``Do It! Scenarios of the Revolution,'' which became a bestseller.

During the 1970s, the bearded Yippie radical evolved into a tailored, clean-shaven young urban professional, writing the book ``Growing (Up) at 37'' in 1976.

In the '80s he became known for organizing ``networking'' parties that attracted thousands of people to the Palladium nightclub in New York on Tuesday nights. During that period he confronted Hoffman, his former sidekick and a lifelong radical, in a series of ``Yuppie vs. Yippie'' debates held around the country.

When he died, Rubin was organizing gang leaders into distributing the health drink he marketed through his Life Extension International health foods business. He had moved to Los Angeles in 1991.

Rubin was perhaps best known for his outrageous behavior at the Chicago Seven trial, during which the defendants baited U.S. District Judge Julius Hoffman.

Prosecutor Thomas Foran recalled Rubin shouting and being in an LSD-induced state during the trial.

``He once told me he used LSD 300 times,'' Foran said. ``He pretty much conquered that and became a very productive person. ... Once I met him on an airplane coming back from Washington, D.C. He was trying to get me to invest in one of his companies.''