Cyrus I. Harvey | Vibrant entrepreneur, 85

Cyrus I. Harvey, 85, a quirky entrepreneur who created two significant brands in disparate fields - Janus Films, a distributor of movies by international directors; and Crabtree & Evelyn, the purveyor of aromatic soaps and botanicals - died of a stroke Thursday in Dayville, Conn. He lived in Woodstock, Conn.

Mr. Harvey was a man of vibrant, extravagant enthusiasms - he was an opera lover, a fanatical gardener, and a devoted caretaker of Welsh corgis, generations of which he owned over more than 50 years - and some of his fervid interests evolved into businesses.

Janus Films, founded in 1956, grew from his part ownership of the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., which he and a partner, actor Bryant Haliday, had transformed from a live-theater venue to a movie house that showed the art films Mr. Harvey had grown to love as a Fulbright scholar in Paris.

The Brattle Theatre still stands, a symbol of Harvard intellectual hip. In the 1960s, Mr. Harvey expanded that notion by developing an arcade constructed beneath it. There, a series of boutiques dispensed toys, clothes, kitchen implements, and other items that were reflective of the antiwar culture of the time and place.

One of the boutiques sold exotic soaps, and when Mr. Harvey and his wife, Rebecca, whom he married in 1967, moved to Woodstock, Conn., in the early 1970s, partly to expand their gardening interests, the idea of the soap store came with them.

Crabtree & Evelyn grew to become a retail chain that sells fragrances, foods, and toiletries as luxury items. By the time they sold the company in 1996, Rebecca Harvey said, there were 160 stores in the United States alone. - N.Y. Times News Service