Australian entertainment promoter, agent and publicist Harry M Miller has died at the age of 84. The maverick stage producer changed the face of musical theatre in Australia by bringing Hair to Australia in 1969 and producing musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease and The Rocky Horror Show.

“It is with enormous sadness that we share that the visionary agent and theatrical producer Harry M Miller died peacefully in Sydney on Wednesday 4 July,” his daughter and CEO of the Harry M Miller Group, Lauren Miller, said in a statement. “By his side were his long term partner Simmone Logue, daughters Justine, Brook and Lauren and their mother Wendy.”

Miller was born in New Zealand in 1934 and moved to Australia in 1963. He brought acts out to Australia from the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys to Judy Garland, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, but it was the rock opera Hair in 1969, directed by Jim Sharman and designed by Brian Thomson – which launched the career of a young Marcia Hines, as well as Reg Livermore and John Waters  – that cemented his reputation.