Aubrey Hampton, co-founder of Gorilla Theatre, dies

Aubrey Hampton, founder and patron of Tampa's Gorilla Theatre, died Monday after a short illness, according to the theater's managing director. He was 75.

Hampton also was founder of Aubrey Organics, among the world's largest manufacturers of natural hair and skin products.

In 1990, he and his late wife, Susan Hussey, founded the Gorilla Theatre in Tampa's Drew Park area not far from his company offices which opened in 1974. He also maintained a home and offices in New York.

The Gorilla Theatre was named in honor of endangered primates and as a metaphor for plays, also battling to stay relevant, Hampton told The Tribune in a 2005 interview. The Hamptons were conservationists and animal rights advocates.

"Hampton and his wife had a huge and wide reaching influence on the artistic life of our city; producing his own works and a full season of exciting and thought-provoking plays," says theater director Bridget Bean.

The Hamptons also created the Young Dramatists Project more than 10 years ago to support budding playwrights. His wife, a playwright and actress, died of cancer in 2009.

Raised in New Albany, Ind., Hampton was the son of farmer and a kitchen chemist who made all of her own cosmetics. As a teenager he performed a ventriloquism act in carnivals and clubs in the South. He told the Tribune in a 1997 interview that he was known as "The Boy Born With Two Vocal Cords."

Eventually, he earned a degree in organic chemistry at New York University and became involved in developing a line of cosmetics. He founded Aubrey Organics in 1967 with two products he formulated in his own kitchen – Relax-R-Bath and GPB Hair Conditioner. Since then his multimillion dollar corporation has developed more than 200 hair, skin and body care products.

Bean says he was "an original and eclectic thinker" who refused to be categorized.

He leaves a grown son, Mitchell, who lives in Boston, and an 8-year-old son, Trevor, who lives in Tampa. People are invited to post comments and pictures on the Gorilla Theatre group's Facebook page.