Rosemary Woodruff Leary, a St. Louis native, was best known during her life as the wife of Harvard psychologist-turned-LSD evangelist Timothy Leary. A new book highlights her distinct role in a psychedelic movement that her husband tried to lead.
In Susannah Cahalan’s “The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary," the reader follows Rosemary from her childhood in St. Louis through the chaotic events of her marriage to Leary in the latter half of the 1960s.
“Leary was really shaping the way people were experiencing these drugs, and Rosemary was helping him do that,” Cahalan said. “She was helping create the image that he appeared [as] ... white linen, bare feet, open-button shirts. She was helping him write some of his quippy slogans. She was editing his work. These were huge, monumental pieces of literary criticism, literary media — his face, his words — they were shaping a whole generation, and Rosemary was very much involved with that.”
Ultimately, Timothy Leary’s attempts to inspire a drug-based awakening in America ran into numerous obstacles. His ideas reached mainstream pop culture and became associated with the Beatles but floundered in the wake of arrests, a prison escape and the revelation that he had turned informant for the FBI.
The couple separated in 1971 while still living as fugitives. Rosemary returned to America and lived under an assumed identity until 1994. She died in 2002.
“What's so fascinating about her as a character is that she lived many lives, even before becoming a name by being associated with Timothy Leary,” Cahalan said. “By the time she came back above ground in 1994 — and then [Timothy] Leary passes away in 1996 — she does become, again, a face of the movement. … She became one of the key figures in preserving the Leary archive and finding a home for it.
"She herself did continue writing her own book, though in her lifetime, no one wanted to publish it.” Cahalan noted, “It was a quiet end to such a cinematic life.”
To hear the full conversation about Rosemary and Timothy Leary with author Susannah Cahalan, listen to “St. Louis on the Air” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. The production intern is Darrious Varner. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
