John C. Lilly Jr.

Lilly Jr., John C. Ethno-cinematographer 1937-2007 John C Lilly Jr., a filmmaker and writer, died November 17 in Zacatecas, Mexico. He was 70 years old. Born in St. Paul on June 2, 1937, the son of Dr. John C. Lilly and Mary Crouch Lilly, he spent summers at the farm of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Lilly, in Mendota. He was a member of the first class of the Colorado Rocky Mountain School in 1952. He attended college at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and did some of his first work in filmmaking and animation with his brother, Charles. in Hollywood, California. Mr. Lilly, an ethno-cinematographer, was an authority on the Huichol Indian culture of Central Mexico, and was invited into their communities to experience and record their traditions and way of life. Work that he did with his wife, Colette is in the permanent collection of the The Museo Arte Contemporaneo Huichol in Zacatecas. He served on the Board of Directors of Conservacion Humana, an organization that maintains one of the most complete archives of field notes, documents, papers, photographs, audio tapes and films that exist on Huichol culture. Lilly had a lifelong interest in railroads and published extensively in Mexico and the United States on the subject of light rail transportation. He was hired by the Sierra Club in the 1980s to lecture on the subject of preserving the rail line from Glenwood Springs to Aspen, Colorado. Lilly is survived by his wife, Colette Lilly of Zacatecas, his mother, Mary Lilly, of Carbondale, Colorado, and his uncle, David M Lilly of St. Paul. He is preceded in death by his father, Dr. John C. Lilly and his brother, Charles Lilly.