Life With the Beatles (part 5) -- Just One More Show? (1964)

 

Life With the Beatles

Just One More Show?

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 29, 1964

    Hoping to ride on the crest of the fantastic Beatles wave, the boss of the Miami Beach associated hotels chain, Mr. Morris Landsburg, came along with a juicy last-minute offer. A proposition that the boys should give one more show at the Deauville Hotel in Miami, where they were staying. "Just one performance", he urged, "to give another chance of seeing the Beatles to some of the 1000s who had been unable to obtain free tickets for the Ed Sullivan Show." 

     And for that one extra chance, Mr. Landsburg said he would pay them £3000 or 50% of the box office receipts, whichever was the greater. It sounded good, but the boys' manager, Brian Epstein, the 29-year-old behind-the-scenes genius,  who was making our Beatles rich, turned down the offer.

     He told Mr. Landsburg, gently, "They really need rest now, more than money." Disappointed, but still a staunch Beatles fan, wealthy Morris Landsburg, who was a prominent owner and breeder of racehorses, consoled himself by choosing a name for a foal which was born to his fine mare Papoose, during the previous Sunday's Ed Sullivan TV show. He called the colt "Beatles" and said, "I only hope he earns the same kind of money as those boys do."

     During our last week in Miami Beach, concert offers showered in on the Liverpool quartet from all over America. Handsome young Brian Epstein refused them all in the most courteous and charming fashion, but nonetheless firmly for that. One interesting trait about Brian was that he would never discuss money matters or the earnings of the boys with anyone outside the inner circle. Newspapers were making the most gaudy guesses at what the Beatles would eventually take out of the United States from their tour, the royalties on their records, and on the marketing of Beatles products such as wigs, shirts, slacks, pajamas, wallpaper, and the rest. But Brian kept mum.

     A few financial facts emerged, however, despite his reticence. Nikki Byrne, president of the New York company called Seltaeb, Beatles spell backwards, which is licensed by Brian Epstein's Liverpool firm, NEMS Ltd, to control the sales of Beatles wear in America, told me that he estimated they would sell about $50 million worth, more than £16,000,000 of Beatles articles this year. Capitol Records announced that The Beatles had earned more than £80,000 in royalties on their staggering sales of nearly 3 million albums and single discs during the month of January alone. February figures, they declare, would exceed that because of the huge profit given by the Beatles' American tour. 

    Don't forget that Paul McCartney and John Lennon are the composers of most of the hits, including the 3,000,000-plus top seller, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," come in for a tidy bonus on top, as the songwriters. Their extra cash could be £ 10,000 each.

     My own estimate of the last two months, Beatles wages, American wages of the Beatles, not reckoning sales of Beatle products is likely to be nearer than most. For is based on information from sound sources. I put down royalties as £180,000, another £ 10,000 for three television shows, £ 4,000 for the Carnegie Hall concerts, and £ 5,000 for the wonderful night in Washington, making a grand total of nearly £ 200,000. Not bad for eight weeks' income.

     Yet the boys treat the mention of money with complete indifference. George Harrison shrugs his shoulders when the matter is brought up. "Well, we can now afford a few more ciggies and suits, I suppose," he grins. Paul says, "What's money? We never see any. All they give us is spens." For the uninitiated, "spens". Is Liverpool for spending money. 

    The reporter asked what they thought of the Prime Minister's comment that they were his secret weapon for foreign trade and one of Britain's biggest dollar earners. Ringo exclaimed, "What's all this about us earning dollars for Britain? Are we supposed to share them out or something? "

    When I gave John Lennon the tip off that "I Want to Hold Your Hand " was certain to top 3 million sales, all he did was screw up his face, as if working out a difficult sum, and shout across to Paul. "Hey, what's free million fardings faddah?"

      For the last few days in Miami, the boys made the most of the glorious sunshine. They swam, went out water skiing and fishing, or just lazed around a swimming pool at the home of a few newfound friends. "This water skiing lark is fabulous, George," Paul enthused to me. "I've done a bit of it on holiday in Greece last year, so I was a way ahead of these peasants at it," he added, waving a lordly hand in the direction of the other three. "He's good", admitted George Harrison, "but he isn't all that good, even if he can do it one handed like, he still falls over as often as us."

     They were guests one day aboard a 93-foot yacht owned by a millionaire furniture maker whom they met. The object was to bob around the Gulf Stream for a few hours in the sun and maybe catch some fish, even a shark or two. It had all been kept very hush hush by their publicity man who insisted that the boys required peace and quiet to pursue their pleasures untrammeled by such beings as cameramen and reporters. 

    What he didn't know, and neither did the Beatles, was that the boat's owner had also invited aboard for the trip a Miami news reporter and photographer as his guests. Things went fine for a while. John prepared corned beef "sarnies" -- Liverpool for sandwiches -- for his wife, Cynthia, and himself in the galley, while George and Paul lounged on deck with cans of iced beer and coke.

     Nobody thought for some time to inquire into the identity of the two strangers aboard. When they did, the lads set up shouts of "Aha! Still always on board about you lovers!" and other odd nautical sounds. The publicity man got angry and demanded that the boat be turned around and head for shore, so that the newsmen could be dumped off, and that's what happened, despite the protestations of the pair that they had been asked to board by the owner.

     Incidents on similar lines occurred frequently throughout the whole tour as enterprising news or camera hawks tried to break through the tight security ring around the Beatles to obtain exclusive pictures or stories. I was on a different footing from the others, having come all the way from the boys' home city of Liverpool, and I was able to see them pretty well, and when I wished.

     But there were lots of angry scenes involving some of my press colleagues.  But if the newspaper people tried every ruse they knew to get close to the boys, just imagine the tricks that the hundreds of faithful fans, aged 12 and 13, at the Deauville hotel every daylight hour hoping for a glimpse of their idols. Scores of eagle-eyed police were on Beatle duty inside and outside the hotel and basement lobby, lounges on every corridor on the sandy beach, by fire escapes, and in the kitchens. You'd think that with such on guard, it would be impossible for any unauthorized visitor to get through to the Beatles. Yet some of these youngsters did it.

     A police sergeant told me, "This job is giving me white hairs, but I gotta hand it to our Florida kids. They sure are clever. It's taking us all our time to catch them. One boy fooled us this morning," He chuckled. "He borrowed a telegraph messenger's uniform from a pal, and with the hotel tray in his hand, he walked along to the 12th floor corridor to the Beatles' suite, pretending he had a cable for them. Another boy got through dressed as a waiter, and we've had a couple of cases where girls wearing maids' uniforms were able to get by the guards." Even so, these are the rare exceptions. Hundreds of kids have tried, but only a few have succeeded outside the hotel. "They've even staged fake fights to draw off the guards for a few moments and let their pals in the door," he added, I'd like to go on record as saying that the Miami Beach Police, who were saddled with this difficult and sometimes near heartbreaking job of Beatle duty, did it with tact, kindness and above all wonderful understanding. They were a great bunch.

Life With the Beatles (Part 4) How the West was Won (1964)

 

Life with the Beatles

How the West was Won

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 28, 1964

    Before our cheerful troubadours, The Beatles, left New York by plane on the 1,000 mile hop to Miami Beach on the Sunshine State of Florida, 1,000s of pictures had already been published of them and millions of words written or spoken about them from one end of the United States to the other. Out of all this publicity, there emerged one interesting fact: the scoffing and sneering came without exception from commentators and columnists who had never actually met the Beatles, those who had frankly confessed, "You start off expecting to hate their guts, and you finish up loving them."

     One word used more than any other by the American teenagers to describe the boys was "different". The newsmen and women frequently used it too. They seemed unable to grasp that John, Paul, Ringo and George are just four darn nice Liverpool lads with a wonderful sense of native wit and a complete disregard for pomp and circumstances. Their appeal was by no means limited to the young of America. Under a big heading, "Adults like them too," The New York Journal -American published a long section of Reader's letters from all men and women praising the boys like these:  a grandmother living in the Bronx. "I don't blame teenagers for acting the way they do. The Beatles have done a wonderful thing for people of all ages. They have made us feel like laughing again."  A woman from Rosedale, New Jersey: "I don't think it's fair for adults to be so critical of the Beatles. After all, we had our stars who sent us off the beam years ago. Let's let the Beatles entertain us all. And I might add that there's a lot of adults who think these fellows are okay."

     You couldn't turn on a radio or television without hearing Beatles records or seeing newsreel shots of the boys. Practically every standard explanation in the book was offered by psychologists and psychiatrists for Beatlemania. They seriously told us in newspaper articles and interviews that the effect the boys had on American youth were symbols of adolescent revolt against parental authority status that comes from belonging to a group, in this case, of other Beatlemaniacs.

     Sex-- both from the driving nature of the Beatles music and the way they perform it, and from their choirboy like appeal to the mother instinct. Success -- by persons who are seen as fellow teenagers and as underdogs from the wrong side of the tracks who have made good and the frenetically felt urgency for having a good time and living life fast in an uncertain world.

     "How,"asked the New York Times could four mop head Neo-Edwardian attired Liverpudlian accented guitar playing, drum beating little boys come  from across the ocean, come here and attract the immense amount of attention?  They did it by stomping and hollering at songs and a musical idiom that is distinctly American. As the typical Beatles fan is female in early teens," said the Times "And she will say this because they're so cute and so different", but cute or not, the Beatles certainly pose some mighty tough questions for the police forces in the places they visited. 

    Miami was no exception, although it had the examples of chaos in New York and Washington in which it could have patterned its defense measures against the invasions of teenagers, two Miami radio stations with disc jockeys programmed aimed solely at the youngsters, kept up a constant barrage of plugging for Beatle records day before our arrival and for the 48 hours immediately beforehand, the kids were urged by the jockeys to get to the airport and give the Beatles a real Florida welcome. 

    With schools finishing at 3pm and the Beatles plane not due until an hour or so later, there was time for some 8000 girls,  and a few 100 boys, to get there on their own or found parents car. In Florida, by the way, driving licenses can be obtained at the ripe old age of 14, and many of the school kids have automobiles. Something like 2,000 cars more than normal were jammed on the airport parking lots as the young folks poured in. And when those 2,000 extra cars all started trying to get out together two hours later, Miami became bogged down in the biggest traffic jam in its history.

     Again, I took the precaution of flying down an hour earlier than the plane carrying the boys. So again, I was able to get a fan's eye view of things. Every vantage point around the tarmac was packed with youngsters long before the Beatles arrival. Many of them  were carrying huge yellow and black banners proclaiming, "Beatles, we love you." They swarmed in droves all over the place. In every corridor and on every concourse, hundreds of them were lying in wait around the baggage room, where arriving passengers go to collect their luggage.

     A girl of 16 who seemed to be a cheerleader, confided to me, "We've got every exit covered, and whichever one the Beatles use the gang there will let out such a yell that we shall all get the message and get down there." One Deputy Sheriff told me, "We got 500 men on special Beatles duty today. We don't aim to have trouble like those New York cops. Everything's going on nice and quiet ." Hours later, with every road in and out of the airport block solid and an unbroken five mile line of crawling or stationary automobiles, I saw that Sheriff again. He was a worried man, and he shook his head sadly, as he said, "Never saw anything like this in my whole life. What's got into these kids of ours? What have the Beatles got that makes 1,000s of Florida youngsters act like crazies? I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself."

     What had happened was this: because of the possible danger of physical damage to the boys if they tried to get into the airport buildings in the usual way, arrangements had been made by the radio telephone with their aircraft to have them met outside on the tarmac by a limousine and whipped away through a distant exit, leaving their baggage and instruments to be picked up by other members of their party. But the teenage crowds were unaware of this ruse, so they began looking for them. In the mad rush that followed, something like £700 worth of damage was caused to furnishings, glass doors, chairs and windows. 

    Miami Beach Chief Jesse Barkett told me later, "It was fortunate for us that there weren't many troublemakers among the kids, or we would never have been able to contain them."

     This time of the year, Miami Beach is having its high season. Every hotel is crowded with wealthy refugees from the snows of the North who spend a vast sum, up to £1000 a week for a suite to soak up the Florida sun. And despite the obvious fact that the great majority of their quest for tickets for the Beatles appearance on TV had come from their young fans far and wide, the people responsible for  disturbing the precious briefs, took good care that most of them went to the guest staying at the one or others of the hotels. The result was that when the big night arrived, we had about 4,000 middle aged or elderly people in the audience, and only the odd 400 or so teenagers brought in to introduce the screams.

     I was inside, and I cannot say what the television show was really like to the 60,000,000, audience outside who watched it, although subsequent reports gave it very good remarks. But from on the spot, it lacked the fervorish excitement that youngsters always bring with them. On these occasions, they also switched off the amplifiers inside the room to prevent audience sounds coming over too loud and spoiling the sound quality for the television viewers. 

    The technician explains this meant that we could see the boys singing, but couldn't hear them at all. Well, Ringo Starr was upset about the setup when I spoke to him afterwards, "It was dismal, plain, dismal," he said. "Why did they fill the place with old fogies like that and keep out the chicks?" He fumed, "We never got through to them. They were dead, right, dead." And he was absolutely right. The only squeals came from a bunch of kids around me in the back rows of seats when they found out that I was English, from Liverpool, traveling with The Beatles, and that my name was George Harrison. They nearly mobbed me for my autograph. They flatly refused to believe that I could have so many tie ups with George Beatle Harrison and not be related. 

    Next day, the hotel and Miami Beach tourist authorities apologized for the ticket business. More than 1,000 ticket holders had been unable to get through the long queues inside and outside the Deauville before the doors were closed at the start of the transmission. There wasn't an empty seat in the Napoleon Room, so we must have had a lot of gate Crashers. 

    This was the last business engagement for The Beatles in America. From then on, they were free to enjoy the rest of the sunshine, provided the crowds, reporters and the cameraman could be dodged. It took some doing. By now, the boys were big news, and every move they made brought headlines. Thus we had Paul McCartney's four day friendship with film starlet Jim Jill Haworth become boosted into a romance, although those of us in the know were aware that a little lass named Jane Asher back in England, rated as Paul's real heartthrob. Even delightful platinum blonde Cynthia Lennon, the wife of John, came in for attention from fans and newspaper men, despite all her efforts to keep way out of the limelight. Their nightlife was subdued and circumspect, limited to occasional club visits with their friendly policemen Sergeant Buddy Dresner as guide. No breath of scandal touched them and that appeared to cause Miami great surprise.

Paul creeps up

 

Maître d' with George and Paul

 

Lots of love for Ringo in Miami

 

Out in the ocean

 

Happy Ringo in the water

 

Lighting Up

 

Enjoying the beach

Fishing with Paul

Sgt. Buddy saves the day

Happy days with John and Cyn

Double exposure

Photos taken by Ringo Starr

The top photo is one that Ringo shared that he said was on a slide that was damaged.  However, I found the same photograph in the magazine that published Ringo's photos in 1964.    The top photo is reversed because Paul always wore his ID bracelet on his left arm.

Chilling in Miami

Photo by Ringo Starr 

Beach running with the Beatles

Beach Play

If you didn't know better, you'd think this was a random vacation photo.   You would never guess that hundreds of photographers and pressmen were all around that beach.... 

I love the people in the background.   That one lady behind the Beatles doesn't seem to care that she is standing next to greatness.