This evening on the CBS Evening News there was a story about my favorite fan on the Sullivan show. I always think of her as the "shock" girl. She comes on right after the camera pans to Ringo towards the end of "I wanna hold your hand." She is wearing glasses and is so excited and then calm down a bit and then sort of jumps a little as if someone had just shocked her. And while I have been trying to figure out who she was for years, I am glad that CBS found her.
You can watch their video here. This is the transcript of the article. (I want to keep it here for later years when it is gone from the CBS page)
Ed Sullivan, 50 years ago this Sunday --
it was a really big show.
Fifty thousand people requested
tickets to see The Beatles that night, but there were only 728 seats in CBS
Studio 50 – which is known today as the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Andrea Tebbets was 13 years old that night
in 1964, and she scored the hottest ticket in town.
"I remember just the thrill of
hearing them start to sing," she said.
She had come from Connecticut with her
mother to hear The Beatles American debut at The Ed Sullivan Show. Her
grandfather, an advertising executive, had gotten them the tickets.
In the theater, now home to David Letterman,
they saw a section of open seats in the balcony.
"And the usher said 'No, you
can't sit there. That's for the screamers,'" Tebbets said.
"And my mom to her enduring
credit said, 'Oh, that's alright,'" she said.
That night, Tebbets wouldn't just be
part of the audience. She'd be part of a broadcast seen by more than 73 million
people.
As the Beatles sang "I Wanna Hold
Your Hand," the camera slowly swooped in over the band toward Ringo and
then ..."There I am!" Tebbets said.
"I was chewing gum," she
said. "I had the little ladybug earrings. I'd just had my ears pierced. And
that's it."
She looked happy to be at the show.
"I was," she said. "I
was beside myself. I really was."
"It was, I guess, my 15 seconds of
fame. And also my 15 seconds of popularity in junior high school. Because I was
about as uncool as you could get," she said. "Mostly known in school
for being clumsy and a Girl Scout and the secretary of the science club, and then
here I was on national television."
As a fan, she'd collected Beatles'
magazines and cards. At an exhibition opening this week at the Library of
Performing Arts in New York, some of the souvenirs on display in a typical teenager's
bedroom were actually hers.
"Oh, a museum piece, me," she
said.
That 13-year-old girl grew up to be a
tax attorney with the U.S. Justice Department.
"Part of the whole Beatles'
phenomenon was people like me," she said. "It was the fans. It was the
screamers."
Those who thought it all was just noise were wrong. It was the sound of the future.
My favorite girls from the Sullivan broadcasts is the girl that is laughing in disbelief, I think after the buildup on the "aahhs" in "Twist and Shout". Also love the girl in the hat, almost falling backwards into her friends, I think that's also from the first (but broadcast third) appearance.
But this girl is definitely memorable and I'm so excited to read about her account!!! Thanks for archiving it here!
Thank you , for posting this! She has long been my favorite fan from ANY Beatles concert. I've always wondered what happened to her, and now I know.
ReplyDeleteme too she had an absolute look of ecstasy on her face I loved her!
DeleteMy favorite girls from the Sullivan broadcasts is the girl that is laughing in disbelief, I think after the buildup on the "aahhs" in "Twist and Shout". Also love the girl in the hat, almost falling backwards into her friends, I think that's also from the first (but broadcast third) appearance.
ReplyDeleteBut this girl is definitely memorable and I'm so excited to read about her account!!! Thanks for archiving it here!
I was 8 and saw that girl on TV and thought she was so cool and really into them! I was awed myself and never stopped getting goose bumps!
ReplyDeleteAlways have a momentary crush on the blonde woman digging the music!
ReplyDelete