Maui’s own Shep Gordon often stands on the sidelines, managing famous clients from chefs to rock stars. Some here know him as a lead partner in Mala Wailea and MiGRANT restaurants and as Alice Cooper’s longtime manager.

Now, he’s stepping onto the big screen to star in “SuperMensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon.” Mike Myers directs the film, which will premiere on Maui on June 4 at Grand Wailea’s Seaside Cinema Music Cafe & Lounge, opening the Maui Film Festival at Wailea. Preceding it will be a Maverick Award tribute to Gordon at the new, oceanfront venue.

The documentary is getting rave reviews as it screens at film festivals on the Mainland and in Canada.

” ‘SuperMensch’ is very much a celebration,” praises David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter. “Gordon comes across as a refreshingly candid man who feels no compulsion to varnish the truth.”

Gordon is currently on the circuit with Myers, promoting the film.

“It’s very strange being in front of the camera instead of behind it,” he emails. “I’ve been away 10 weeks now. ‘SuperMensch’ has screened at SWSX in Austin, Texas; Tribeca in New York; Miami Film Festival; San Francisco Film Festival; Sun Valley and many others. Had dinner with Governor (Andrew) Cuomo last week in New York. He was great.”

A businessman, Gordon easily socializes with every strata of society, from the Dalai Lama to Sharon Stone.

“There is so much more to ‘SuperMensch’ than simply sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, which is what makes Mike Myers’ directorial debut so involving, satisfying and even moving,” pens critic Kevin Jagernauth in the Playlist.

Yet aging baby boomers will get a chuckle from the many smoke-filled and psychedelic blasts from the past, and feel the poignancy when the excesses take their tolls.

He gets punched by Janis Joplin at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968, with footage in the film of Gordon with Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

Amid plumes of marijuana smoke, Hendrix asks, “Are you Jewish? You should be a manager.” Hendrix also suggests Gordon use the letter “v” in creating a business name, because it looks like a peace symbol. Thus, Alive Enterprises was born.

The film chronicles Alive’s first and longest-served client, Cooper, in parent-shocking concerts and promotional stunts that involved chickens, panties, snakes, fake blood and guillotines.

“Shep Gordon has been my manager for 43 years now. If I hadn’t met Shep, my career might have been over in two or three years,” Cooper says in the movie.

“Mensch” is Yiddish for “a person of integrity and honor,” and Myers demonstrates that Gordon is one of the good guys of rock management.

“Unlike the music and film industry, which is generally known to be swarming with —holes, what made Shep special was his reputation for being exceedingly fair and kind, powered by his own very real belief in karma,” said Jagernauth. “And, his desire to make sure his talent got everything they were owed.”

That’s because Gordon lived by three rules: “Get the money,” “remember to get the money,” and “never forget to always remember to get the money.”

Besides helping Cooper rise to international rock star status, he’s managed Canadian songbird Anne Murray and soul crooner Teddy Pendergrass (both appear in the film) along with Groucho Marx, Raquel Welch, Ben Vereen, Blondie, Manhattan Transfer, Yvonne Elliman, Luther Vandross, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Kenny Loggins, Gipsy Kings, the Pointer Sisters and many more. Alive acts have sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.

His rock connections remain current. At his most recent New Year’s Eve benefit at Wailea Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Bob Rock, Sammy Hagar, Weird Al Yankovic and Pat Simmons of the Doobie Brothers all performed, and Tom Arnold was emcee. Many praise Gordon in the film. Arnold is listed as a star.

He’s also friends with and business associates of A-list of Hollywood, as well as the creme de la creme of celebrity chefs.

“I was surprised at the wide variety of people that agreed to be in the film,” says Myers, who first met Gordon during “Wayne’s World.

“From Michael Douglas to Emeril Lagasse to Anne Murray to Sylvester Stallone to Willie Nelson to Rinchen Dharlo (the Dalai Lama’s American emissary and president of the Tibet Fund). They all wanted to ‘testify’ on Shep’s behalf. Shep is beloved. I never really understood fully the notion of what it is to be ‘beloved’ until I made this film,” says Myers, who more recently spent two months hanging out at Gordon’s Maui home. “He fed me. He took care of me like I was a baby chick fallen out of the nest.”

In the mid 1970s, Gordon ventured into movies with Ridley Scott’s “The Duellists,” winning the Best Debut Film award at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. Alive Films also produced and distributed the Academy Award-winning “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” Academy Award-nominated “Betty Blue,” “Marlene” and “El Norte,” Lindsay Anderson’s “The Whales of August,” and John Carpenter’s “Village of the Damned,” as well as 40 other titles, according to a news release. William Hurt, who won an Oscar for “Kiss,” has been a guest at Gordon’s home.

“I’ve met more famous people through Shep Gordon than any of my famous friends combined,” says Hagar in the movie. “If the walls could talk at Shep’s house on Maui, they would never shut up.”

Indeed, one time Hagar was guest of honor at a party there. Gordon was promoting Hagar’s Cabo Wabo tequila, and a blowup bottle the size of a Macy’s parade balloon was tethered to the ground as VIPs celebrated.

Gordon also transcended the rock and the culinary worlds with Nelson, when they partnered on Willie’s Whiskey.

“If somebody asked me, ‘Emeril, who invented the celebrity chef?’ ” asks Lagasse in the movie. “I would say, ‘Hands down, Shep Gordon.’ “

In 1992, Gordon founded Alive Culinary Resources, revolutionizing the food industry. Besides orchestrating the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement, which put Hawaii on the world food map, he’s had a client roster that’s a who’s who of the culinary elite, including legendary French chef Roger Verge, Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Charlie Trotter, Lagasse, Dean Fearing, Nobu Matsuhisa, Todd English, Charlie Palmer, Paul Prudhomme, Daniel Boulud and 100 more of today’s most famous chefs.

Lagasse savored a MiGRANT feast earlier this year, when Bravo Channel’s “Top Chef” finale filmed on the island, and Fearing will present a celebrity chef luncheon along with David Arthur Vineyards on June 15 at the Kapalua Wine & Food Festival.

“Though the chef as star is part of the culture now, it took Shep’s imagination, and his moral outrage at how the chefs were being treated, to monetize the culinary arts into the multibillion-dollar industry it is today,” says Myers.

Gordon’s first restaurant was Carlos and Charlie’s in Los Angeles, and he became a partner in the restaurants as the franchise expanded. He founded Maui Tacos with Mark Ellman, sold it, and it’s now a global franchise. He also opened Planet Hollywood in Lahaina in 1994 (where Fleetwood’s on Front Street is now located) with partners Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Stallone. In the late 1980s, Alive partnered with Robert De Niro to open TribecaGrill in New York City; and he currently is a partner in Jean-Georges’ Spice Market there.

Gordon has won numerous industry awards, including being named one of the “100 most influential people in America” in Rolling Stone magazine.

“Born and raised in Brooklyn, the land of the ‘mensch,’ I know one when I see one and Shep has been one to me personally, the Maui Film Festival ohana and as Mike Meyers’ documentary makes clear, to the world as well,” says Barry Rivers, founder and co-director of the Maui Film Festival. “We are thrilled to present both the Hawaii premiere of ‘SuperMensch’ and the 2014 Maverick Award to him.”

According to Rivers, “the Maverick Award honors an individual who has the courage of their convictions, a willingness to speak their mind, and the backbone to withstand the heat from those who take issue with their vigorous expression of our collective constitutional right to the freedom of artistic and political expression.”

Past honorees have included Pierce Brosnan, Bill Maher and Nelson.

* Carla Tracy can be reached at carlatracy@mauinews.com.