Cincinnati press

From the collection of Sara Schmidt

From the collection of Sara Schmidt

photo by :  Glenn Hartong

What's Future For Beatles?  Count Money.
By David Bracey
The Cincinnati Enquirer August 28, 1964

What will they do when the wave of Beatlemania subsides?  Beatles John Lennon had the answer Thursday in a Cincinnati press conference.

"Count the money."

The four British singers sat it out in sweltering heat in a private room in Cincinnati Gardens while newspaper, radio and television men fired questions.

The Beatles -- Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Lennon, were cheerful and co-operative.  The conference, set up by publicity man, Dino Santangeio, was well organized; a contrast to the bedlam-like scene in Denver, Colorado the night before.

The Beatles answered questions on almost everything, sometime wittily, often seriously and occasionally in a manner that cut cocky questioners down to size.  Never, though did a Beatle crack border on malice.

When a television reporters asked what excuse they had for their collar-length hair, Lennon began:  "Well, it just grows out y'er head..."  McCartney cut in "We don't need an excuse.  You need an excuse."

A newspaperman from Dayton, who said the four ought to be able to handle a crowd of 30,000 without police protection, was told by Lennon, "Well, maybe you could. You're fatter than we are."

Somebody asked the boys what they thought of Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater.  McCartney, baby-faced member of the group and their most ready speaker, admitted that he did not know too much about the American political scene.  But he said he thought  "Mr. Johnson was a better man."

As for British politics, he said he did not know too much about that, either.  Teen-agers stand up and scream piercingly and painfully when the Beatles appear.  Why?  They were asked.

McCartney said none of them knew, but he had heard teenagers pay to go to their shows just to scream.  "A lot of them don't even want to listen," he said, "because they have got the records."

A reporter asked what they thought of the psychiatrist who drew an analogy between the hysteria generated by their beat and the speeches of the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Lennon said abruptly "Tell him to shut up.  He's off his head," (mad).

A questioner asked McCartney what he thought of columnist Walter Winchell.   McCartney answered bluntly:  "He said I'm married and I'm not."

"Maybe he wants to marry you,"  Harrison suggested.

Ringo Starr, the group's large-nosed drummer, was asked why he does not sing Ringo, who gave a rare public rendition the night before in Denver, commented, "I can see you haven't bought our lp's."

The four answered a question admitting that the show that comes after the show is sometimes the one to see.  They said they whopped it up until 4 or 5 in the morning depending on how much sleep they need.

What would they have done had they not become Beatles?

"We would have just been bad entertainers," Harrison said.  They all have had only one ambition, to be in show business.

Ringo said he could not see anything to replace their magical power other than a new generation of teenagers with different tastes.