Don Langer likes to tell people that he grew up in Daytona Beach, spent his life travelling the world, and it left him just 80 miles away in Ocala. The days of swinging with Hawaiian Tropic girls and rubbing elbows with the world’s biggest celebrities and politicians are more than just fading memories, they are valuable jewels he clings to in fond recollection of a life lived to its fullest.
The memories entail a teenage lad in Daytona working odd jobs at beach resorts and eventually meeting with Ron Rice, the founder of a new suntan product called Tropic Tan. As a lifeguard, Langer would sell Rice’s products and soon discovered he had a knack for turning this clear oil into gold and would eventually partner with Rice and change the name to Hawaiian Tropic.
​
As the mastermind behind much of Hawaiian Tropic’s marketing genius, Langer was largely responsible for taking the product from a local and regional success to an international brand that revolutionized sun care in the 1970s. He guided the company through legal troubles involving the Hawaiian nomenclature and orchestrated production and distribution methodology that assured its success over the entire planet.
​
His was the life of riches and excesses that come with being a captain in an industry fueled by leisure time, sun, girls, and parties. But like every rise to riches, there was a lot of hard work along the way, and Langer is the first to say that most times there was more work than glamor. There were even clashes with Rice, who discounted Langer’s contributions and tried to keep him from his fair share when Hawaiian Tropic was sold.
​
Rice’s self-congratulatory book, “Great Times & Tan Lines” in 2022 is a vanity play that barely mentions Langer except to call him “greedy” – the book is full of Rice name-dropping and calling famous people “jerks” or sluts. Rice did not want to pay Langer his percentage at the time of Hawaiian Tropic’s sale, but a judge in the case sided with Langer.
​
For the past 20 years, Langer has called Ocala his home and he is settled down on a small horse farm with his wife, Sylvia, a horse woman who orchestrated the move to horse country. Langer, now in his mid-70s, sat down with The Ocalan to discuss his role with Hawaiian Tropic, his feelings about Ron Rice, and the Sir John Falstaff life he led for many years.
​
The Ocalan
How did you get involved with Ron Rice and his suntan lotions?
Don Langer
When I was a teenager, I worked as a lifeguard at the Marco Polo Hotel and I would sell suntan lotion to the guests. Ron Rice had his Tropic Tan and a guy named Paul Burke had a product called Deep Tan. We could buy their lotions for 50 cents and sell it for $2.50. We were just retail sellers.
​
Before Rice had Tropic Tan, he had another product called Sunz Screen and it had no sunscreen in it. Burke was outselling him 5 to 1, but when he came out with Tropic Tan, it was outselling Burke 2 to 1. When he came out with Hawaiian Tropic he crushed him, like 10 to 1.
The Ocalan
So, Rice would produce Tropic Tan then sell it to you and others, who would earn hefty margins at the pools?
Don Langer
Rice didn’t make the product in the beginning. He had some NASA scientists down there, Jim Terry and a French guy – they produced the lotion and Ron would fill the bottles. He never manufactured until the mid-70s, then he started mixing and making his own stuff.
The Ocalan
How did Tropic Tan then become Hawaiian Tropic?
Don Langer
One day, Rice comes to me and says he’s got a big problem – somebody’s already got the Tropic Tan name, and they won’t sell it to him. At that time, Tropic Tan is selling like hotcakes. Ron, in his infinite wisdom, put on the bottle “Honolulu, Hawaii” where the identity label was, so it made it look like it was made in Honolulu.
​
I had been to Hawaii and when I came back I told Ron there’s a product there called Tanya Hawaiian Sun Tan Lotion. So, why don’t you call ours Hawaiian Tropic? In ’69, he changed the name to Hawaiian Tropic. Now, the state of Hawaii had sued Tanya because it said ‘Hawaiian’ on it, and it wasn’t made in Hawaii – it was made in L.A. So, Tanya went out of business and they had billboards all over the place and had put on a national blitz in advertising ‘coconut oil from Hawaii.’ We never saw a bottle of it, but they had these ads on the radio. All of a sudden, there was Hawaiian Tropic and there was this coconut oil, so people heard the ad and thought they were buying the new product. They did all this advertising, but they never showed up with any product because they had the lawsuit.
The Ocalan
That was in 1970. But wouldn’t Hawaiian Tropic have had the same issue since it was being manufactured in Florida?
Don Langer
Rice never told me he had a trademark problem until later and I never realized the identity stuff on the bottle how important it was back then, so I was stupid and just knew it was phony. I was going out to Hawaii (as a distributor) so there would be product on the market and Rice knew right away there was a possible conflict – never told me, just sent me out there and I got going full blast. I was up about $30,000-$40,000 and they took it all off the shelves. It took me about four months to get it back on the shelves.
​​
The Ocalan
At that point you were the distributor in Hawaii, but how did you become partners in Hawaiian Tropic?
Don Langer
In ’72, I went back to Hawaii and started Tanning Research Laboratories, Honolulu, Hawaii, which is what he had on the bottle. It didn’t exist – I started it. So, he and I were then partners.
​
He was such a cheap bastard and so small-minded, and this thing was so big he had no chance of navigating the reality of what was going to hit. When I started, there weren’t big box stores other than Kmart. That type of distribution, nobody realized the power in that. If you went to Eckerd Drugs and you sold them a big display of Hawaiian Tropic and they’ve got 400 stores, you just made a $50,000 sale. In ’72, we were just starting.
​
Anyway, after the state of Hawaii took all my product off the shelf, I set up a factory and started filling Hawaiian Tropic there and that lasted until about 1986 or 1987. I made a special formula that went into the product, a mixture of coconut oil and plumeria flowers. Then, the packaging rules changed, and you didn’t need to be in Hawaii any more as long as you had an address there. I said to Ron that I would just be the distributor, but still get the product at raw cost. For me, that meant I didn’t need any people for filling or warehouse space. I ended up having less work and making the same amount of money and not having to manufacture any more. I maintained that distributorship all the way to 2010.
The Ocalan
So, you went from a teenage lifeguard on Daytona Beach selling local suntan lotions to starting a factory in Hawaii that manufactured Hawaiian Tropic, of which you were now a partner, all in just a couple years. You guys became rich immediately.
Don Langer
Hawaiian Tropic was an overnight success. As fast as you could put it out, people were there to buy a dozen or two dozen – it was unbelievable. The first complete year I was in the business, I was filling and distributing the product. We did about 6 or 700,000 dollars. In those days, I made a bottle of suntan lotion for about 20 cents and sold it in stores for about $1.75.
The Ocalan
Your factory made Hawaiian Tropic a legal product in Hawaii and you’re killing it there as well as in Australia and Japan. Seems life was good for both you and Ron – how did things go south?
Don Langer
He hated it when I became the big partner. When I became just the distributor and was going to get the product at raw cost, we fought over what raw cost was and he wanted to attach interest, so we had a big lawsuit, and I won.
​
Rice had to get the product in Hawaii, but he didn’t know how – I had to do it. Rice didn’t know anything; I had to set up all the corporations for him. Ron would come over to Hawaii and he was always blown away that we could do so much in controlling a market.
​
In the end, I set it all up and he says, “I’m the king of Hawaiian Tropic” and he popped out of the genie box – “I’m not married anymore; I’m available. I’m so cool, and we don’t know who Langer is.” In ’76, Rice decides he’s gonna get divorced. Well, the Ron Rice I knew from that day on was not the same guy – he wanted to be a playboy. Basically, at that point he walked away from running the business – all he wanted to do was the Miss Hawaiian Tropic beauty pageants and that became a big business, made a ton of money. But even those weren’t his idea; I started the first bikini contest in Honolulu and told him about it and he went crazy about it.
Once he got divorced, he was an animal, and we immediately weren’t friends anymore.
The Ocalan
The bikini contests and the pageants were a big deal for Hawaiian Tropic’s marketing and that was your idea. When did you first realize the power of this type of marketing?
Don Langer
When I was working at the hotels in the late ‘60s, they had go-go girls and a place called The Bat Cave in Daytona. These two good-looking girls came down and asked to stay at the pool during the day – they knew I was young and dumb. I said I would set my concession up and they would sell it and I’d give them a dollar for every bottle. These two hot chicks come down with these little bikinis on and I come down the first day and asked “how’d y’all do?” They pulled out the money and had sold about $280, all the product.
​
There’s no doubt those girls could sell five times what I could sell. We didn’t have Hawaiian Tropic back then, but they were my first suntan lotion girls.
The Ocalan
But the riff with Rice was more than just personal, wasn’t it? You and Ron faced each other in court many times.
Don Langer
We went through a lawsuit in Japan; we went through a lawsuit in Australia. I think there were as many as nine or 10 legal actions. The final one was he owed me 10 percent of the sale of Hawaiian Tropic to Engergizer. They held the money out and said you have to show us the contract. I didn’t have it, but I had all the stuff that said 10 percent here and 10 percent there. I didn’t have the proper documentation, but I had enough. When they ruled in our favor, Ron gave me a few million (dollars) and I could have gotten a lot more, but that was all I needed, and I feel at peace.
The Ocalan
You made a lot of money off Hawaiian Tropic and it put you in a totally different world from what you grew up in Daytona Beach. What was that life like, being young, rich and in an industry that revolved around beaches and bikinis?
Don Langer
I started travelling in the ‘70s. When I lived in Honolulu, every trip I took was minimum five hours. If it was Friday, I’d say “Why don’t I take a trip? I’d go to Tahiti for a week. I had distributors all over the Pacific and would travel first class on 747s.
​
I bought a 62-foot Whiticar, made in Stuart, and I took that boat down to the islands. I took it to Bimini, Turks and Caicos, the Dominican Republic. I was going to do the entire Caribbean, going from island to island, and I was at that point where I’d already done everything horrible to my body. Then 9/11 came and I was in Antigua, and all the Americans were hated – when that happened, they were actually applauding. I came back and was in Hilton Head, where I met Sylvia.
​
I got to know the aboriginals in Australia, went fishing with them and played rugby with them – that was one of the cool trips I took.
​​
The Ocalan
In your position and travels, you must have met and known many interesting and famous people. Who was most interesting?
Don Langer
I was in Japan and had lunch with one of the wealthiest people in the world at that time – Yuji Tsutsumi. He was the younger son of that family that owned the railroads, the grocery stores, Seibu department stores, the Prince Hotel chain. The father had been Douglas MacArthur’s right-hand man in Manila when he came back and they gave him everything to run in Japan.
​
He was a cool guy and you wouldn’t even know he was Japanese because he spoke such perfect English. There’s a crew of five behind me while I’m eating and five behind him. If I put my fork down, one guy replaces the fork; I set my drink down and another gets me a new drink. It was wild.
​
He looked over at me and said, “Kind of funny, isn’t it? I can’t get rid of them.”
The Ocalan
You said you had done horrible things to your body. Any experiences on that end you’d like to share?
Don Langer
I was in Manila and I was smoking a joint in the morning in my room and it stunk. I went down to the lobby all stoned – everywhere I went, I was stoned, but not when conducting business. I picked up the paper and read about a man from Manhattan Beach, California, who had been arrested at the airport for drug paraphernalia. In the Philippines, they’re serious about drug crimes; you get your head cut off. So I immediately went back to my room where I had about 12 joints and could tell someone had been in the room. I went to the toilet, tore those things up and was flushing them while they were pushing to get in the door. You could smell the pot.
​
They said they were housekeeping, but I never opened the door. When I went back out, they were gone. That was a close call.
Another thing, when I was 12 years old, I failed algebra and had to go to summer school and the surf shop was between my house and the school, and I’d stop there. They would have a big thing of acetone and the first thing we’d do is stick our hands in the acetone and we’d get high on it. I had no idea – I just knew I went home feeling good.
The Ocalan
What about growing up in Daytona? What was life like for you then?
Don Langer
Daytona was an unbelievable place to grow up. When I was 7 or 8, we would rent those rafts made out of canvas – you could shoot a bullet and it wouldn’t go through it – and we would surf on that. I was always going to the beach and playing in the water; I still can’t get enough of it.
​
I was a paper boy when I was 12, made money and bought a surfboard. I used to take my board and put it on the handle bars of my bike, but when you’d go over the bridge and the wind blows, it was hard. So, I would leave my board on the beach and bury it by the lifeguard station. When I skipped school, or after school, that’s what I would do.
The Ocalan
Because of your father, you were able to experience NASCAR up close.
Don Langer
My dad was a mechanic and he became the manager for Smokey Yunick, the most famous racecar mechanic of all time. My dad’s race team won the last race on the beach in Daytona in 1958 when I was in the second grade.
​
Our race driver was a famous Daytona guy named Fireball Roberts, so I was in my glory then.
​
They moved the races to the International Speedway and I spent a ton of time there and we could get all kinds of jobs there. One of my jobs was as a checker – every time a motorcycle would come around, I would write the time down.
The Ocalan
World traveller, de facto creator of the Hawaiian Tropic girl, catalyst for a multi-million dollar brand, and now an Ocalan.
Don Langer
From beach to barn, that’s what I say.