He married Gerry Stowell after
World War II and they had three children – Richard, Robert and Rustin Weaver.
Dennis Weaver was a vegetarian since 1958 and student of yoga and meditation
since the 1960s and a devoted follower of Paramahansa Yogananda, the Indian
guru who established the Self Realization Fellowship in the US.
The "Earth Ship", the
personal home he commissioned architect Michael Reynolds to design and build in
Ridgway, Colorado during the late 1980s, incorporated recycled materials in its
construction and featured advanced eco-technologies.
In July 2003, Weaver lost a
daughter-in-law, Lynne Ann Weaver (who was married to his son, Robby Weaver),
in Santa Monica, California, when a car driven at high speed plowed through
shoppers at an outdoor bazaar. She was one of ten people killed in the
incident.
He was renowned as an
environmentalist, promoting eating lower on the food chain, use of alternative
fuels such as hydrogen, and wind power, through an educational organization he
founded, The Institute of Ecolonomics. Ecolonomics is a neologism formed by
combining "ecology" and "economics".
He was also involved with John
Denver's WindStar Foundation and he founded an organization called L.I.F.E.
(Love is Feeding Everyone) which provided food for 150,000 needy people a week
in Los Angeles.
Weaver was also active in
liberal political causes. He used his celebrity status in instrumental roles as
a fundraiser and organizer for George McGovern's campaign for president in
1972.]
In 2004, he led a fleet of
alternative fuel vehicles across America in order to raise awareness about
America's dependence on oil.
Weaver was consistently
involved with the annual Genesis Awards, which were created by The Ark Trust to
honor those in the media who bring attention to the plight and suffering of
animals.
There will come a time … when
civilized people will look back in horror on our generation and the ones that
preceded it: the idea that we should eat other living things running around on
four legs, that we should raise them just for the purpose of killing them! The
people of the future will say “meat-eaters!” in disgust and regard us in the
same way we regard cannibals and cannibalism – Dennis Weaver
