This article came form the February 1967 issue of Teen Life magazine. It from a column in the magazine known as "Teens take over." These teens, Peggy and Kathy write about when they made a piece of artwork for the Beatles during the 1966 North American tour and Peggy got to go backstage and meet the Beatles in their dress room. And Kathy.....poor Kathy.....she had to go to her sister's wedding rehearsal! Oh how terrible! She missed out on meeting the Beatles for a wedding rehearsal! I bet she never let her sister live that one down, especially if the marriage didn't last! Kathy really should have blown off the rehearsal (her sister would have gotten over it eventually) and met the Fab 4 with her friend. I bet she would have if she had known that the Beatles would never tour again.
Getting to the Beatles
By Pegg Scheinman and Kathy Callison (Seattle, Washington)
Written for Teen Life magazine Feb. 1967
To meet the Beatles is impossible – or is it? Many fans have tried and failed, but we were
determined to succeed! We decided we wanted to give them something of
beauty rather than a spectacular display of emotion. Peggy had learned how to make stained-glass
windows at camp in California, so we thought it would be an original idea to
give the Beatles an abstract portrait of themselves in stained glass with
Seattle’s Space Needle restaurant in the background.
We started the project on August 18, 1966 – a week before
the Beatles were due in town for their concerts at the Coliseum. The first night we spent hours searching out
pictures of them in fan magazines and drawing our impressions of their
faces. We put the last touches on the
Space Needle sketch and fell into bed.
The next day we went to our neighborhood hardware store and bought
a single piece of clear glass –15” by 33”.
Then we bought strips of lead and several tubes of glue. We placed the glass on top on our drawing and
glued the lead strips on the glass to follow the lines of the drawing. After the laborious task of scraping off
excess glue the day after, we began to stain the glass with assorted colors of special
stain. We used twelve different coloring
including purple, brown, orange, green and yellow.
The next stage was getting a frame for the picture. We went to the man who makes frames for some
of the most famous artists in the Northwest and he agreed to make a frame of
gold molding.
Our gift was completed – now HOW were we going to get it to
the Beatles? We talked with Egan Rank,
who handled the Beatles for Northwest releasing, and he agreed to have our
picture delivered to the boys along with a note from us asking if we could meet
them. I (Kathy) went along to the 3 pm performance,
and Peggy attended the 8pm show because I had to attend my sister’s wedding
rehearsal. We then talked to Mr.
Rank. He told us that the Beatles were
very impressed with our window but it would be impossible to meet them.
On hear this news, I (Peggy) was even more determined that I was going to
meet them, and began to concoct a plot to meet the quartet. I got to the Coliseum an hour before the show
and tried to open several basement doors which appeared to lead to a maze of
corridors beneath the Coliseum -- but as I am not a skilled UNCLE agent, I couldn’t
break the locks. I continued circling
the place and talking to policemen.
A quarter of an hour before the second show, now a little
desperate, I went over to a police sergeant.
Luckily he said that he had seen my photograph in the local paper and
realized we had gone to a lot of work to try to meet the Beatles. He told me to wait a minute, disappeared
backstage and came back and said, “Follow me.”
I could hardly believe it!
He led me to a corridor outside their dressing room, and
told me I could snap a few pictures as they went by to the stage. But a few minutes later Paul McCartney came
into the waiting area, shook hands with me and posed for several pictures! And as if that weren’t exciting enough, their
road manager invited me to come into the boys’ dressing room while they were
taping radio broadcasts! And there I sat
with all of them for forty minutes! They
were all very nice to me and let me take as many pictures as I wanted.
I was amazed how small in stature the Beatles were. They also looked very pale and thin. I asked Paul if they were bored. “No,” he said, “but we are all very tired.”
All too soon the time was up and I had to leave as the boys
were getting ready for the next show. I
went out front to see the performance, which was wonderful, and on my way out a
policeman I had talked to earlier came up and asked me if I’d seen the Beatles.
He didn’t believe me when I said I
had. Then I showed him the pictures I’d
taken with my Polaroid camera and he was really surprised. So was my mom! My only regret is that Kathy was unable to
share the victory of our project. She
worked so hard with me. Oh well, perhaps
next time….
And there's the late, great Kenny Everett in the background of the pic, with ciggie next to John.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great story!!! Good for her!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have to say, you made me laugh, Sara, when you speculated that perhaps Kathy's sister's marriage might not have worked out, ha!!!
Thanks for typing this up and sharing it with us!!