Being Touched by Ringo Starr - Instant Fame
By James (Ringo) Bacon
August 25, 1964
Belfast News Letter
Some people will tell you that the Beatles are Britain's revenge for the war of 1812. I don't buy that. They're okay in my book.
Until this week, I was just another Hollywood writer. True, I was a confidant of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Eddie Fisher, and others who have generated mob hysteria. Then I met the Beatles and talked with them. More importantly, they touched me. Ringo Starr laid his hand on my shoulder.
Man, it made me an instant celebrity. Ringo, with that sad sheepdog look, did it. He's no Rock Hudson when it comes to looks, but he's got something that girls crave.
My encounter with Ringo and the other Beatles took place at the airport. A mob of teenage girls saw it.
When the Beatles got on their plane, I walked up the ramp to the lobby; I was mobbed by the girls. One screaming, "Ringo touched him!" The girl touched my arm and shrieked as if she put her finger in an open light socket. Soon, girls, by the score, touched me. All went through the same shrieking ritual.
One girl noticed some notes in my hand. They included Ringo's answers to questions about a reported romance with actress and singer Anne Margaret. "That's a lot of rooobbish," answered Ringo in his Liverpool accent. Some television man asked Ringo how he had found America. "We went to Greenland and made a left turn," answered Ringo. It was all there in my notes and more. "You mean, you recorded what Ringo said?" asked the girl, pleadingly. I gave her the notes. She couldn't have been happier with the mink coat. But not for long. About 20 girls pounced on her and tore the notes to shreds. Each girl seemed happy with a little scrap of paper.
I figured that was the end of my minor fame. It wasn't. I stopped by a set party of 20th Century Fox for the Sound of Music company. I was a little late, but I apologize because of the Beatles.
British singer Julie Andrews and British actor Christopher Plummer, the stars, asked me what I thought of their countrymen. "Sensational," I answered.
Then, the child stars of the film surrounded me with the same ritual, the quick touch, the quick drawback, and the electric shriek. One young actor's mother even touched me.
I went home. One of the local girls had seen me on a television newsreel. She came to the house with a half dozen of her girlfriends. The same touch, the same striek, the same questions.
Then Paul Harvey, the broadcaster, quoted a line I had used about the Beatles, that they are the only performers in history of show business who make a million dollars a year for letting the audience entertain them. That brought phone calls, hundreds of them, all from girls who voices, put them in the 8 to 14 group. "Does Ringo really look that sad?" "Is Paul McCartney really that cute?" "Is John Lennon really married?" "Is George Harrison funny?" I shrieked the same answer to all questions. Yeah yeah yeah.
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