Appearing as Larry Osborne

From the Columbia Pressbook:

When Larry Osborne and his girl, Pat Cross, are expelled from college for publishing an off-campus underground paper, philosophy professor Jonathan Barnett resigns in protest. On the Joe Pyne TV show, Barnett advocates the use of LSD and he becomes a hero to the hippies of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district. Elliot, an opportunistic hippie, sees a chance to create a cult around Barnett and thereby profit from the resultant "happenings." Pat and Larry quarrel over her use of LSD and the girl moves in with Barnett. She becomes pregnant and attempts suicide when Barnett tells her to have an abortion. Larry saves Pat, and sets out to destroy Barnett at one of his "happenings." When another hippie pacifies the crowd, Elliot sees a new "messiah" he can promote and attaches himself to the newcomer. Lang realizes he has made Barnett a hippie martyr.

Additional information from the pressbook:

James MacArthur's role in The Love-Ins, explosive new hippie drama, that of a student underground editor in a turned-on generation, parallels to a degree his own personal history.

As a teenager, young MacArthur found himself a fiery non-conformist, as was to be expected from the son of newspaperman Charles MacArthur, collaborator with Ben Hecht of the famed stage play, The Front Page, and actress Helen Hayes. However, as Jimmy grew older, his way of thinking swung into more conservative channels, only finally to reverse itself again and come back to where it is now, middle of the road.

Because of his earlier non-conformant thinking, Jimmy could understand the hippie viewpoint and was able readily to communicate with them. He hardly ever agreed with the 50 or so hippies brought to Los Angeles for the film, but their discussions never were the violent ones that usually erupted when the hippies got into a dialog with any one not "in" with their beliefs.
Too, MacArthur's love of music, especially his guitar, also proved "common ground" for the hippies and himself. He understood their "beat," and could play it, and they could "read" his music.

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