“By 1967, the Beatles’ wealth had grown exponentially due to sold-out concerts and record royalties. Yet British income tax laws prescribed that any income greater than £2,000 would be taxed at higher rates in proportion to the total amount of income. In an attempt to liberate the Beatles from their tax burden, the band’s accountant Harry Pinsker advised that setting up a new company would help offset their tax liability.
Pinsker served as the Beatles’ accountant as soon as they signed Brian Epstein on as their manager in 1962. For years Pinsker utilized his expertise to conserve the band’s assets and, more importantly, to protect the boys from their profligacy. The evasive tax maneuver Pinsker suggested in 1967 had the Beatles reinvest their earnings in a business; this way, instead of being subjected to income tax, their earnings were filtered through a business and thus only subject to corporation tax, which was much lower. Using this strategy, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr could even reclaim their personal expenses by disguising them as company expenses. When asked about his role in the creation of Apple Corps years later, Pinsker simply stated that the company was just a way to help four “scruffy boys who didn’t want to pay tax.”
Under Pinsker’s counsel, Epstein laid the foundations of a new Beatles company in April 1967. Originally named The Beatles & Company, the new enterprise was designed to be governed by each of the Beatles and Epstein. In theory, The Beatles & Company was poised to serve its purpose and save the band’s income from British taxes. However, the sudden death of Epstein on August 27, 1967, quickly skewed any chance of the new Beatles company serving its original purpose.
[…]
By the time Epstein fulfilled his promise [to turn the Beatles into a worldwide phenomenon] and the Beatles had their first string of number one hits, they placed so much faith in Epstein that Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr signed off on whatever contracts he slid under their pens without even reading them. This trusting relationship eventually morphed into a dangerous dependence as the band’s career progressed. The boys’ tendency to sign first, read never, increasingly isolated them from the sensitive business aspects of their band. So when Pinsker proposed that the Beatles form a company to manage their finances and counteract their hefty income tax, Epstein took care of the details as usual. Epstein’s tragic overdose in the midst of plans for The Beatles & Company immediately postponed its opening and, on a larger scale, left the band without any business guidance. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr were now without the insulation that Epstein provided from the ravenous entertainment industry. Perhaps even more dangerous, the Fab Four had no one to say “no” to their self- proclaimed great ideas.
A few months after Epstein’s death, the Beatles revisited the idea of opening their own company, but this time no idea was a bad idea. The Beatles & Company was renamed Apple Corps, and the company’s fields of interest were significantly expanded beyond their original scope. Without Epstein to reign in the Beatles’ non-stop creativity, every new avenue they could think of was brought to life through Apple Corps, and the original intent of offsetting taxes slowly diminished. This led to the creation of divisions within Apple Corps that the Beatles had no practical experience in, including Apple Tailoring, Apple Retail, and Apple Electronics. The electronics division was by far the most expensive and simultaneously least profitable investment within Apple Corps. Alexis Mardas, or “Magic Alex” as Lennon nicknamed him, was placed in charge of inventions in Apple Electronics.
[…]
Clearly part of the appeal of investing in Apple Electronics was the optimism surrounding the growth of electronics and technology in general. But unfortunately for the Beatles’ money, advancements in these fields could only be brought about by someone competent enough to do so; Mardas certainly was not that someone. By the time his involvement with Apple Corps came to an end in 1969, his subpar inventions made no headway in the electronics market but still cost the Beatles over £300,000 (the modern day equivalent of approximately £3,000,000). Yet the financial losses at Apple Electronics proved only to be the tip of a very expensive iceberg.
First-hand accounts of former Apple Corps employees, including secretaries, accountants, and assistants, all construct a singular, clear picture of what Apple Corps managed to accomplish upon opening: nothing. The company’s inability to answer fundamental questions – who are we, what are we doing, and where is this all headed? – meant that its employees went into work every day directionless and failed to accomplish anything significant for the company. For instance, in the 2017 Apple Corps documentary The Beatles, Hippies, and Hell’s Angels by Ben Lewis, a former secretary of Apple Corps recalled seeing a man at work every single day that sat atop a filing cabinet doodling pictures of penises until it was time for all the employees to leave. Fortunately, whoever this Michelangelo was, his work ethic made him an outlier amongst the other Apple Corps employees, but what they did from day to day did not necessarily offer significant contributions either.
A typical day at Apple Corps began with chardonnay and cigarettes being served to secretaries and “Apple scruffs” by girls who would wait in reception at Apple Corps to get even a glimpse of the Beatles. When it came time for lunch, enough drugs would go around to ensure that everybody in the office was at least glassy eyed. As if drugs and alcohol being used during the workday was not bad enough, Apple Corps paid for the alcohol, which meant that Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr were personally paying the massive £600 liquor bill each month. On top of these party favors, employees spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on almost a monthly basis decorating their offices and the building with extravagant, overly ornate furniture. Even Neil Aspinall, the Beatles’ former road manager turned head of Apple Corps, thought it was entertaining to go overboard furnishing the boys’ offices and purchased four enormous “gold hand-tooled, leather top” chairs for them. But the unnecessary expenditures did not stop at just alcohol and furniture; unauthorized flights from London to Paris and America, coupled with international phone calls dialed by non-employees that just wandered into the building, all contributed to the chaos of Apple. The phone calls got so out of control at one point that Apple Corps was billed £4,000 for a single month. These mammoth costs were left unchecked for months. As a result, the company was hemorrhaging money from every angle possible, and because its profits were essentially non-existent, these costs were paid month after month by the Beatles, with no profits from the company to compensate them. By September 1968, things were so chaotic at Apple Corps that its chief financial advisor resigned, stating in his resignation letter that his departure was due to the “slipshod manner in which the company was being managed.” Soon after, the company’s second and only remaining accountant also put in his notice, writing: “your personal finances are in a mess. Apple is a mess.””
–“When the Beatles Played Businessmen: The Story of Apple Records.” Welcome to The Beatles, by Jason Arquette (2018)
[John] was always in the manager’s thoughts. Paul put it this way: “I’m sure Brian was in love with John. We were all in love with John, but Brian was gay so that added an edge.“
The Beatles during rehearsals for Another Beatles Christmas Show, December 1964. With them are producer Peter Yolland and promoter Joe Collins.
In 1986 Joe Collins published a memoir, A Touch of Collins. Below is a portion of the book where Collins recalls his memories of the Beatles and Brian Epstein:
“When The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, secured a recording contract with EMI in 1962, he sent a telegram to the band in Hamburg, Germany: ‘Congratulations boys. EMI request recording session. Please rehearse new material.’ The Beatles replied to the telegram with postcards. Paul McCartney wrote, ‘Please wire GBP 10,000 advance royalties.’ John Lennon scribbled, ‘When are we going to be millionaires?’ But George Harrison made the following request: ‘Please order four new guitars.’ While his band mates visualized piles of money, Harrison could think only about guitars.” - Andy Babiuk, Harrison by the editors of Rolling Stone (2002) (x)
‘Man Who Runs the Beatles’ by Adrian Rawlins (The Australian Jewish News - June 19, 1964)
It was through this interview that Brian Epstein met photographer Robert Whitaker. Writer and poet Adrian Rawlins, who interviewed Epstein for the piece, enlisted his friend Whitaker to take photographs. Epstein was impressed with the results and offered Whitaker the position of staff photographer at NEMS.
MAN WHO RUNS THE BEATLES
AFTER one of the biggest welcomes in their careers, the Beatles on their arrival at their Melbourne hotel, were confronted by a hysterical crowd of 20,000 fans.
John, Paul, George and Ringo stood on the balcony, surrounded by security officers, pressmen, radio and television newsmen and the inevitable D.J.s.
Apparently it was one of the latter, himself caught in the mob hysteria, who remarked that the group were greeting their fans “like dictators addressing a mob rally.”
On this cue, the boys swung into an improvised routine and gave mock Nazi salutes.
A photograph of this incident appeared in a Melbourne daily last Monday.
Phone calls, with comments on the incident, have been received at the “Jewish News” and also at the Southern Cross.
I spoke with the Beatles’ Jewish Manager, Brian Epstein, on Monday morning. He is a quietly spoken and urbane man, though does not seem to be unduly sophisticated.
He was mildly shocked and to some degree incredulous that anyone should take the incident to heart.
“It was,’’ he said, “simply an off the cuff joke.”
Epstein, 29, comes of a well to do Liverpool family. He attended “a great number of schools” because he was a “very poor scholar” and at 22 spent a year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He didn’t think much of that, so left.
“I was interested in a great number of things,” he says, “interior decorating, display, a number of things really.” But finally he went into the family electrical business. And it was there as manager of the radio and records division that he first heard the name of the Beatles.
A girl came in and asked for a record by the group. There wasn’t one but the group itself was appearing a mere hundred yards up the road. That was in August 1961.
WANTED TO GO
He heard and liked them, though he found them “dead scruffy and untidy”. He set about changing the image. He succeeded and the rest is history.
During our chat, the screams and calls of expectant fans floated up to the 12th floor front window like a piteous sea of diseased sound, rising to a peak of despairing imploration then receding to nothing.
Brian Epstein, in a discreet navy and white check shirt with tasteful monograph over his heart, slender slacks and shoes of soft black Italian leather, spoke on, unheeding, adjusted his tie with perfectly manicured nails.
He had, as I entered, instructed the telephonist to screen calls as “all sorts of people" had been getting through to him, including fans.
“The fans should be obvious,“ he had said.
Referring to the much published Israeli incident, Epstein said that he had made arrangements for the group to appear there in September this year.
When the announcement that the group would not be allowed to perform there was made, he closed negotiations. The Israeli promotors were aghast.
Epstein wanted to wait till an official retraction of this statement which had not been official, was made. None came and so the group will not appear in Israel, much as he and the boys themselves would like it to.
Though in February of this year he said in America that he had thoughts of bringing the group back to America “in August or September”.
The Beatles are not the only iron in Mr. Epstein’s well controlled fire. At present his “stable’’ includes 8 other pop acts, including Gerry and the Pacemakers.
As one of the Beatles’ most serious critics has pointed out, the vitality of the Mersey sound should dominate the hit charts for quite some time.
Mr. Epstein should then have more big names if, and when, the Beatles fade away.
Brian Epstein, though he now lives most of the time in London, is still a member of the family shule, Greenbank Drive Hebrew Congregation.
His father, Harry, has just joined the Board of Management and, says a proud son, “God willing, he should be President in 8 years’ time.”
‘I hadn’t had anything to do with pop management - management of pop artists - before that day that I went down to the Cavern Club and heard the Beatles play. And this was quite a new world really for me. I was amazed by this, sort of, dark, smoky, dank atmosphere, this beat music playing away. And the Beatles were then, just four lads on that rather dimly lit stage, somewhat ill-clad, and their presentation, well, left a little to be desired as far as I was concerned, cos I’d been interested in the theatre and acting for a long time, but amongst all that, something tremendous came over, and I was immediately struck by their music, their beat, and their sense of humour, actually, on stage. And even afterwards when I met them, I was struck again by their personal charm, and it was there, that really, it all started. It took about eight months to get to the stage where we had a recording contract and we were having the first record issued. And from there, to the present, well, where their last record sold half a million copies within ten days of issue. Actually their first record did very well - it sold a hundred thousand copies. That was Love Me Do.’
George Harrison’s handwritten lyrics for ‘Art of Dying’
‘Art Of Dying’ is believed to have been written by George Harrison in 1966, but was not recorded until 1970.
Harrison’s original handwritten lyrics reveal mentions of Brian Epstein. In the final version, released on Harrison’s 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass, ‘Mr Epstein’ was reborn as ‘Sister Mary.’
Brian EpsteinandAlma CogangreetGene Pitney backstage before his concert at the ABC Theatre, Harrow. (November 11, 1964)
‘Alma was a very finely attuned, mystical person and she thought Brian was too. Alma went to his home many times and was bemused by his collection of hundreds of suits. They spoke often on the phone; Brian valued Alma’s thoughts on many things.’
- Sandra Caron [Alma’s sister] (The Man Who Made the Beatles by Ray Coleman)
Beatles manager Brian Epstein faces up to the pop think-in, a new technique in pop journalism
JUKE BOX JURY: I love playing it because it’s a television show that I can do. I seldom watch it and I don’t think it’s a good programme. It’s quite meaningless. I probably won’t be doing it again because they won’t be asking me after that, will they?
JOHN: Lennon. Great mind, great person. One of the best people I’ve ever met. He’s an interesting character to watch develop.
RED WINE: I like to drink red wine and nothing else alchoholwise, but this doesn’t seem to work out.
SEMI-DETACHED HOUSES: If I say something nasty I’ll get little letters because I said something nasty about semi-detached houses before. But I’d rather have a hut on its own.
GEORGE:Harrison. I always think of George as a friend. Somewhat inconsistent person. Can be difficult. Never has been with me. Great personal charm, but this goes for any Beatle. Any faults the Beatles are supposed to have are never apparent individually. Any faults they have probably only come when they are together as a group. When there is too much talent in one room.
LOVE: A good word in pop songs.
POP WRITERS: Rather intelligent, as journalists go. The dearth of pop knowledge is quite incredible amongst non-musical journalists.
CLIVE EPSTEIN: I’d like him to come into the entertainment business.
RINGO: Ringo’s coming into the group was one of the Beatles’ most brilliant doings. It was something they wanted and that I carried out. It was for so many reasons a quite brilliant move.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Difficult because I went to a few. If I had a son I don’t know whether I would send him to one or not.
PAUL:Probably the most changed Beatle. He’s mellowed in character and thought. A fascinating character and a very loyal person. Doesn’t like changes very much. He, probably more than the others, finds it more difficult to accept that he is playing to a cross section of the public and not just to teenagers, or sub-teenagers, whom he feels are the Beatles’ audience.
R.A.D.A:Didn’t like it. Don’t believe in acting schools. I believe in acting experience.
SUCCESS: I’m told I’m successful but I really don’t believe it.
FAILURE:I’d much rather be conscious of my failures than successes. What good do compliments do?
LARRY PARNES: Fascinating! I often wondered if I’d go the same way, but knowing him as I do now, I know I won’t because we’re two very different people.
OLD AGE: Don’t mind. I like getting older because I know more about things.
MONEY: Still scarce.
PALAIS BANDS: Hush. Silence.
ELKAN ALLAN: He wouldn’t be the producer I would choose to direct a spectacular for me. A lucky man I think.
LIARS:Almost everyone.
GOSSIP COLUMNS: The greatest. I love them.
CHRISTMAS:I quite like Christmas. I don’t mind the trappings.
MUSIC PUBLISHERS: Very boring people. They’ve forgotten what a good song is.
BEATLES’ NEXT FILM: No comment yet. Still shrouded in secrecy. There are no announced plans. There will be a new single record in April or May.
SMOKING:I’m not frightened of it.
DRINKING: I haven’t touched spirits for three weeks. It’s a new sensation! I may keep off for a long time.
FREEMASONRY:Not for me.
THE NAME ‘EPPY’: I quite like it but I don’t like it being used to my face. I don’t mind the Beatles using it. I know they do.
BLUNT NORTHERNERS: Splendid, but they’re a bit conscious of their interesting bluntness.
ANTI-SEMITISM:I’m not so conscious of it. Jews who are conscious of it should remember if they had green hair people would stop and stare and sneer and snigger. Particularly if they were famous. I don’t think people in this country particularly dislike people with long noses.
KEN DODD: I admire him. Where does he go from here? The challenge is whether he could make it out of this country.
MILLIONAIRES: Usually disappointing.
BLACKPOOL:Quite like Blackpool, but I shouldn’t want to do a season there personally.
SEEKERS: Don’t know much about them. I met one the other night - quite pleasant.
TRADITIONAL FOLK MUSIC: On the whole I find it boring.
BEING DISLIKED: I suppose I’m conscious of it. It can’t be helped.
ANDREW OLDHAM: An incredible person. He was with us for six months. I had no idea he had creative ability. It taught me not to under-estimate people.
WEST END THEATRES: A sad business, But I’m not disillusioned with my first year’s activities. It’s not going to be of tremendous interest to me until I can bring into the theatre a broader section of the public.
RUMOURED CLOSING OF THE CAVERN: This shouldn’t be so, but it’s nonsense to make it into some sort of charity. It has had a lot of help from people like the Beatles. If it’s not successful now, nobody’s going to cry over it being closed.
LABOUR PARTY: I’m a socialist at heart.
SUMMER SEASONS: They are good for an artist. Can be depressing.
WIGS:Splendid.
BUTLINS:I’d like to go there. Better than a semi-detached house.
DOGS:Terrified of dogs. Almost put me off people.
MARRIAGE: I’d like the state of marriage five days a week.
P.J. Proby: I should have managed him.
————————————————————————–
*RE: Brian’s comments about semi-detached houses: They probably stem from a piece published in Melody Maker’s January 23, 1965 issue - an article where Ringo Starr recalled travelling with Brian and George Harrison to Hampstead, to a party hosted by the magazine:
‘Driving from Knightsbridge to Hampstead in Brian’s new car was good fun. It’s a great car - all those electrically-unwinding windows, central heating and the roof that I prevented Brian from opening on a freezing night!
I can remember George in the back of the car muttering some funny things and saying he’d written his second song; Brian trying in vain to get Luxembourg on his car radio; and nobody quite sure which way to go for Hampstead.
Don’t ask me how, but we got there. Funny - George said something about the houses round there looking pretty good, and I distinctly remember Brian saying to him: “But how COULD you? They’re semi-detached!”’
The Beatles during rehearsals for Another Beatles Christmas Show, December 1964. With them are producer Peter Yolland and promoter Joe Collins.
In 1986 Joe Collins published a memoir, A Touch of Collins. Below is a portion of the book where Collins recalls his memories of the Beatles and Brian Epstein:
By the early ‘sixties rock 'n’ roll was a regular part of my business. The hit parades were as familiar to me as the multiplication tables, and I always kept an eye on the bottom end of the charts to see who was coming up and could be booked at a reasonable fee before he or she broke really big.
In February 1963 a promotions executive at The People telephoned me.
‘Can you find us an attraction for our summer ball? Something for young people?’
I recommended a new pop group from Liverpool called the Beatles, and said I’d try to book them.
When I tracked down the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, at his family’s furniture store in Liverpool, he was happy for his boys to perform at the newspaper ball. We agreed on a fee of £500.
Three months later, when the Beatles had their second No.1 hit, ‘From Me to You’, the man from The People phoned again. ‘This Beatles group you’re getting for us, I’m afraid they won’t be suitable after all for our ball. There’ll be such a rush for tickets we won’t be able to cope, and there could be trouble outside with their fans. Can you possibly manage to cancel our arrangement?’
When I told Brian Epstein of the cancellation, he did not disguise his relief. Since our earlier agreement the £500 fee I had negotiated had become ludicrously low payment for a Beatles cabaret.
However, this was not the end of my association with Brian Epstein and his Beatles.
Later that same year Stan Fishman, who booked live attractions for the Rank cinema circuit, came on to me. ‘Brian Epstein wants to do a Beatles Christmas show, but he has no idea how to go about a full stage production. Can you help him?’
I could, with pleasure! I booked the Beatles Christmas Show into the Astoria, Finsbury Park in North London for two weeks, commencing on Christmas Eve 1963.
I organized the scenery, hired some tabs (backdrop curtains), engaged a producer, Peter Yolland, and a compere, the Australian entertainer Rolf Harris. I reckoned that Harris, as a former schoolteacher, would be able to handle a rowdy teenage audience.
The other acts were provided by Brian Epstein. Apart from the bill-topping Beatles, there was a group from Bedfordshire, the Barron Knights, while the rest came from Brian’s stable of Liverpool talent, names he had launched that very year: Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas (who had already had three top hits), the Fourmost, Tommy Quickly and Cilla Black, Brian’s latest discovery.
Cilla, a toothy, 20-year-old redhead, had recently given up her regular job as a typist. In the 'sixties the rock audiences did not care much for girl singers, but it was customary to include just one female vocalist on a bill, if only to get some variety into the programme. For her act at Finsbury Park, I remember Cilla coming on stage in a pink mini-skirted dress to sing a lesser-known Lennon-McCartney song she had recorded, ‘Love of the Loved.’
When I looked at the printed programme for that Christmas show, I noted the credit I had been given: ‘Brian Epstein wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the invaluable assistance of Joe Collins in the presentation.’ I was actually co-producer.
As the show was intended to be ‘special’, not just a plain pop bill, Peter Yolland decided that the Beatles should perform a few sketches.
The night the show opened I wandered into the auditorium to witness George Harrison, dressed as a Victorian maiden, being tied to a railway line by John Lennon, in the role of Sir Jasper, the wicked landlord. Then Paul McCartney entered as the heroic signalman who rescues ‘her’.
The experience, appropriate to the plot, was like watching a silent film. The boys’ dialogue, if they were speaking lines at all, was drowned by the screeching audience. That was the first and only performance of the Beatles as stage actors.
That night at Finsbury Park, I met the Fab Four in person. I went backstage to introduce myself. ‘How’s the dressing room?’ I asked, sticking my head round the door of the shabby cell they were sharing.
‘All right,’ said drummer Ringo Starr, who always looked glum even when he was happy.
‘Is there anything you need?’ I asked politely.
‘Yes, there is!’ said Ringo promptly. ‘Can you find us some flex for our electric kettle? We want to brew up some tea.’
‘If you get us a lead for our kettle, we’ll give you some earplugs,’ George Harrison cajoled. ‘You’ll need 'em if you go out front!’ That I knew already.
Only one thing blighted our run at Finsbury Park. After the Beatles and other Liverpool groups had monopolized the top chart positions for nearly a year, a London group, the Dave Clark Five, suddenly became a threat. Their shattering, thumping ‘Glad All Over’ ousted the Beatles from No.1. The newspapers treated this item as a major sensation. ‘DAVE CLARK FIVE CRUSHES THE BEATLES!’ shrieked one of the headlines.
‘Well, we can’t be top 52 weeks of the year, can we?’ retorted Paul McCartney.
Still, despite those frantic, yelling girls in their Finsbury Park audience assuring the Beatles how much they were loved, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr were green enough in show business to be upset about that gimmicky newspaper story.
On 14 January 1964, a few days after our show closed, the Beatles’ new record ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ became their first disc to reach No.1 in America, and by the end of the year they were as popular in the US as they were in Britain.
Young Cilla Black, too, the sole girl on the Finsbury Park bill, was proving too that she had a future.
During our Christmas-show partnership, Brian Epstein had invited me to dinner at his new London penthouse in William Mews, behind Harrods in Knightsbridge.
I noted, with some surprise, that Brian’s taste in furnishings was very arty. His choice of décor, with thick white carpeting and black leather settees, was not quite what I had expected from him after meeting his family from Liverpool, who were very down-to-earth despite their affluence.
Over our meal Brian talked about nothing else but his plans for Cilla Black.
‘She’s great… absolutely great,’ he kept assuring me.
While agreeing that Cilla had a warm personality, I could not agree with Brian that she was ‘great’.
He offered me evidence of her potential by playing a new recording of hers. I had already listened to enough music that day, but Brian was my host, so I put on an attentive expression as he switched on the record-player. The disc he played me was ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’, a moving ballad by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. I realized Brian’s enthusiasm might possibly be justified. He was right: it reached No.1.
At the end of 1964, to round off the second amazing year of Beatlemania, Brian suggested we should jointly produce another Beatles Christmas show, to run from 24 December to 16 January 1965 at a very big cinema, the Odeon, Hammersmith, in West London.
We engaged two comperes, Jimmy Savile and Ray Fell, and the support bill, again all musical acts, included the Manchester group Freddie and the Dreamers, Sounds Incorporated, the Mike Cotton Sound, and a blues-oriented band, the Yardbirds, who had a particularly talented guitarist, a 20-year-old lad from Ripley, Surrey called Eric Clapton. The obligatory girl on the bill was a bluesy singer, Elkie Brooks, a baker’s daughter from Manchester. Elkie, like Cilla the previous year, was someone whose star potential Brian spotted early in her career.
The printed programme of what we actually called Another Beatles Christmas Show is now a souvenir I treasure, for it was illustrated with drawings by John Lennon, taken from the Christmas edition of his book In His Own Write.
The Beatles, after almost two years of adulation, were now getting worn down by the fervour surrounding them. They wanted a bit of peace, and visitors to their dressing room at Hammersmith rarely found a warm welcome.
One evening, when I was with them backstage, a Scandinavian representative from their record company EMI came in to be introduced to his bestselling product. He sat for a while in awe-stricken silence, watching them tune their guitars. Then he tried to start a conversation.
‘Tell me,’ he asked brightly, ‘what is the best thing about being a Beatle?’
John Lennon looked up at the man, his face registering no expression at all.
‘Best thing about being a Beatle?’ he repeated slowly. ‘Well, I guess it has to be that we meet EMI sales reps from all over the world.’
I cannot claim that I was one of the people to whom the Beatles wanted to chat, though as the show’s co-producer I would always make my routine call at their Odeon dressing-room.
‘How’s it going, boys?’
‘Fine, thank you,’ they would answer politely. That was the end of the dialogue. They’d simply stare at me for a moment or two, then continue talking to each other, usually about their music.
‘How do you get on with the boys?’ Brian Epstein asked me eagerly after one of my brief visits to the Beatles’ sanctum.
I laughed. ‘So far as I’m concerned they’re dumb… so dumb they’re making millions!’
Actually, from my point of view, the Beatles were a headache. I liked their records and even I, then a man of 62, was humming ‘She Loves You’. But I found it impossible to enjoy their stage performance. I couldn’t stand the way the audience screamed, making such an hysterical noise all the way through the show it was impossible to hear any of the music. The burly security guys worked as hard as any of the performers: they had to fight back at a rush of shrieking girls, apparently intent on storming the stage and tearing their idols to pieces.
Outside in the street before and after the show youngsters would be surging around the building hoping to waylay the Beatles as they left the theatre. The police trying to control these crowds were kicked, bitten and had their helmets knocked off in the frenzy.
Apart from the fact that my head was literally aching through the noise, I had a figurative headache, trying to spirit the Fab Four in and out of the theatre without anyone getting injured in the crush.
Like army officers planning a war operation, each day the theatre manager and I would meet with police representatives to devise some new Beatles escape campaign for the evening. We could never use the same method twice for the fans caught on too quickly.
However, at the end of that short Hammersmith Odeon season my head soon got right again, for I had been well rewarded. my personal fee for the two weeks’ work was £4,000, made up of my 20 per cent share of the profits and the sale of brochure programmes. In the 'sixties such earnings were a sizeable sum, especially as the Odeon profits were offset against a loss on another show I co-presented with Brian that season, Gerry’s Christmas Cracker, which played Scottish and provincial dates. I was surprised this show did not make a profit, for it starred the Liverpool group Gerry and the Pacemakers, Epstein discoveries who in 1963 had No. 1 hits with each of their first three records. (Gerry Marsden, happily, made a charts comeback in 1985 with a new recording of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.)
The Rank Organisation was very pleased with my contributions to its coffers, and at the Rank circuit’s annual lunch following the 1964-5 Beatles season I was thanked officially by the company’s boss, John Davis, for having brought it the Finsbury Park and Hammersmith shows, the most successful stage attractions ever in the firm’s long history.
My association with the Beatles is a warm memory, not just because they provided a profitable venture, nor because they made a big personal impression on me: as I have said, I had no real communication with them. I was happy to have been involved because Brian Epstein was one of the most pleasant men with whom I ever did business. I found him charming, modest and completely straightforward in his dealings. I considered him a top-class businessman, and a gentleman.
Unlike some other managers and agents, he never regarded any of his artists as a mere commodity, to be signed up and hired out just to make money for himself. Brian was concerned personally for the welfare and future of each singer and musician he took on. In all my long career I have never met any manager so enthusiastic about his artistes. When we were together he talked of nothing else. He was thrilled that his boys were putting British pop music on the international map. It should not be forgotten that Brian, as a newcomer to show business, had tramped around the London record companies and music publishers literally pleading for a hearing for his Liverpool artists. He deserves much credit for turning British pop music into a high-earning export.
Books owned by Brian Epstein: Youngblood Hawke by Herman Wouk (1962, first UK edition)
Synopsis: ‘Aspiring writer Arthur Youngblood Hawke moves from Hovey, Kentucky, to New York City with nothing but a manuscript and a dream: to make it as a novelist. When, impossibly, his manuscript is sold - and becomes an overnight success - Hawke finds himself instantly famous and wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He gives himself over to the high life, enjoying everything fame, fortune and New York City can offer. But Hawke, like so many dreamers before him, will discover that fame and fortune are dangerous friends.’
‘Brian never discussed his sexuality with me, but I should add a proviso here. He did tell me once that he was in a limousine in New York with a TV in it: that was nothing to New Yorkers, but it was quite something for us. He said, “I saw you on television in this limo,” and I groaned as I hate anyone to talk about my appearances. I had featured in a documentary film in Liverpool called The Rockin’ City and it was terrible, I didn’t like it at all. I don’t know how long he was in the car, but he said, “They also showed The Leather Boys.” That was a British film made in 1964 with Rita Tushingham and Colin Campbell. Colin Campbell befriends a merchant seaman who had fallen in love with him and right at the end there’s a dénouement. He goes into the pub full of queens, and he walks out in a state of disillusionment. There are no fisticuffs, no beating up of the people in the pub which is what John Wayne would do. It was a marvellous sad ending, which reminded me of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetiqué. Brian brought this up, he didn’t know that I had seen the film and I thought, “That’s the nearest you’ve ever got to talk with me about homosexuality.”’
- Bob Wooler (The Best of Fellas - The Story of Bob Wooler by Spencer Leigh)
ABOVE: Dudley Sutton and Colin Campbell in The Leather Boys
