James Rado, co-creator of pioneering musical

James Rado, cocreator of the groundbreaking hippie musical Hair, which celebrated protest, cannabis and free love and paved the way for the sound of rock on Broadway, has died. He was 90.

Rado died on Tuesday night in New York City of cardio respiratory arrest, according to friend and publicist Merle Frimark.

Hair, which has a story and lyrics by Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot, was the first rock musical on

Broadway, the first Broadway show to feature full nudity and the first to feature a same-sex kiss.

Hair made possible other rock musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar and Rent.

Like Hamilton, it was one of only a handful of Broadway shows in the past few decades to find its songs on the pop charts.

The so-called “American tribal love-rock musical” had its world premiere at the Public Theatre in New York City’s East Village in 1967 and transferred the following year to Broadway, where the musical ran for more than 1,800 performances.

Rado played Claude. Clive Barnes, theatre critic for The New York Times, called the show “the first Broadway musical in some time to have the authentic voice of today rather than the day before yesterday”.

The New York Post said it had “unintentional charm”, contagious high spirits and a “young zestfulness” that “make it difficult to resist”.

Variety, however, called it “loony”.

It lost the Tony in 1969 to the more traditional 1776 but won a Grammy Award.

The 2009 revival won the best revival Tony.

The show was revived on Broadway in 1977 and again in 2009. It was made into a movie directed by Milos Forman in 1979.

Rado was born in Venice, California, and raised in Rochester, New York, and Washington, DC. After serving two years in the US Navy, he moved to New York and studied acting.

Rado was part of the ensemble of the Broadway play Marathon ’33 in 1963 and played Richard Lionheart in The Lion In Winter in 1966 opposite Christopher Walken.

He met Ragni when he was cast in the offBroadway musical Hang Down Your Head And Die.

The two were interested in birthing a new kind of show and focused on the hippie scene. They wrote the script while sharing an apartment in New Jersey.

He is survived by his brother Ted, sister-in-law Kay, nieces, great-nieces and a great-nephew.

James Rado.