Claudio

This was posted on Instagram from thedailybeatles --  It contradicts what Curt's brother, Ethan reported later. 

Curt Claudio was born Cesare Curtis Claudio in Alameda, California on August 28, 1948. He was a class of 1966 at Kennedy High School in Richmond, CA. His father Cesare Claudio Sr was born in Victoria, BC, Canada to newly immigrated parents from Italy, and soon moved to Seattle, WA., and eventually to San Francisco. Curt's father was a professional violinist and urged all four of his children to become professional musicians. Cesare played the cello at a very young age and went on to the Prix de Rome to study at the St. Cecilia Academy in Rome. Upon his return to the US, he earned a seat in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra where he played until he was drafted into the Army. At UC Berkeley, Cesare met fellow student, Martha Curtis, they had four sons, one of whom was Cesare Curtis Claudio “Curt”. This story ends sadly with the December 22, 1981 death of Curt Claudio. While it doesn’t say how he died, I imagine he never recovered from the Vietnam war. 
As you can see from his musical family history, it’s no doubt that in his state of mind he felt a connection to Lennon’s music. In memory of Curt Claudio 1948-1981. I hope this info helped those who were concerned about him.

Information from Curt's brother from the comments section:

Hi Fans, my name is Ernie Claudio. I am Curt’s older brother.
My email is ernieclaudio@hotmail.com
Curt was never in the military. He was a straight “A” student in high school and earned a scholarship to the University of California in Davis, California. Then he started using drugs and dropped out of school. He spent most of his life working on farms. We worked at Ford Motors in Milpitas, California until they closed the factory. Ford gave their employees $12,000 so could re-train for another job. I asked Curt,” What are you going to do with your $12,000?” Curt said, “I’m either going to buy a Harley or an ultra-light airplane.” He bought the ultra-light, and that’s what killed him. He was flying too low and too slow and the plane stalled. It happened in Fremont, California. The plane came down, bounced off a carport roof, and landed in a tree, six feet off the ground. The high impact caused his aorta to separate from the heart. Dead was instantaneous.

The Helicopter Girls

This blog first mentioned the helicopter girls in this post written by Tony Barrow.        I have always loved their passion and determination!  I can only bet that fans all around the Los Angeles area were saying, "Why didn't I think of that?"  when they heard of what these girls did. 

Well The Los Angeles Times caught up with three of the foursome and shared their story again 50 years after the fact. 

To Connect with the Beatles all the needed was imagination and a helicopter.

By Nita Lelyveld

If only, even for one day, you could blink yourself back in time — to when you felt freest, when you felt boldest, when the sheer power of youth made you certain you'd succeed.

More than half a century ago, as the Beatles took the world by storm, a group of teenage girls made a pact. They would find a way to meet their idols, face to face, when the band arrived in L.A.  Who cared that theirs was a dream shared by a million screaming, bawling fans? These girls didn't cry. They plotted and succeeded, pulling off a caper so audacious that Life magazine pinpointed it as the moment when "Beatlemania reached its apogee."  Who wouldn't want to try to relive that glory?

And so even though one of their crew, Sue Candiotti, said she couldn't make it, Paula (Glosser) McNair, 67, flew in from Salt Lake City, and Californians Kay (Zar) Crow, 66, and Michele "Mikki" Tummino, 67, made their way south, determined to recapture the thrill of their wild quest.

Crow remembers its start, lying in her bedroom in 1964, listening to her little gray Zenith transistor radio, hearing "I wanna hold your hand..." In seconds, the Hamilton High 15-year-old was dialing a friend on her turquoise Princess phone, convinced that the world as she knew it was shifting.

When news broke that the Beatles would play the Hollywood Bowl that August, young Kay turned detective. To be ready to track down the Beatles, she decided, she'd practice finding other bands first.
She'd heard that another new British group, the Rolling Stones, was coming to town. Out came the Yellow Pages, starting with "A" for "Ambassador." "Long distance calling for Brian Jones," she said in a bad British accent, and struck gold when the Beverly Hilton operator told her that Jones hadn't checked in yet.  When she and a friend arrived to stake out the lobby, they stared down two other girls: Mikki, still in braces, and Paula.

By then Paula was asking people to declare their loyalty to the Beatles by signing their names on pages of notebook paper, which she taped end to end into an ever-thickening scroll.  It's how, she said, she spent much of her time at Woodrow Wilson High in El Sereno. "I even went to my algebra teacher, who told me: 'I wish you put as much attention into your schoolwork.'"  That evening, Kay met Brian Jones and offered to take him sightseeing. The next day, she left school early to do so, after a friend sent a telegram: "Your uncle Brian Jones is in the hospital."

More sleuthing and sightseeing with bands followed. When the Beatles arrived, Kay quickly sussed out that they were staying in Bel-Air.

She and a friend were at a Beverly Hills bus stop when Paula pulled up in her father's 1959 DeSoto with four other girls and asked Kay if she knew how to find the band. Paula had the car. Kay had the info. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Get in!" Paula told her.

Outside the gated house, the car was allowed to stay parked as long as it was running. The girls had to give up their stakeout a few times to refuel — gas for the car, Ben Franks French fries and Cokes for themselves.

The next morning, when the band was due to leave for LAX, a limousine pulled out. But Paula suspected it was a decoy. Soon the gates opened for a beige Lincoln Continental.

When the Continental's driver ran red lights, so did newly licensed Paula, following straight onto the 405 Freeway. She got close enough to the Continental in the next lane over for Mikki, body half out the back window, to make contact, waving Paula's scroll.As sirens wailed, George Harrison rolled down his window and accepted the tribute. Police pulled the DeSoto over. But the officer, who chewed Paula out for going 85 mph, only issued a $7 ticket for following too close.

 

 

When the Beatles returned to Los Angeles in 1965, the girls still were intent on meeting the moptops face-to-face. They had read that the Beatles would be staying in Benedict Canyon. They drove its twisty street for days. But when they finally found the spot, security guards turned them away.

So again Kay turned to the Yellow Pages, for helicopter rentals — and found pilot Russell O'Quinn, who agreed to take them over the house for $50 an hour. The girls alerted the media, and on Aug. 25 flashbulbs popped as, one at a time, they took off from the roof of the Federal Building — where O'Quinn had permission to land — in the two-seat copter.

The girls had sent the band a telegram, saying they'd take a wave as a sign that they could visit later that day. After several passes and still no sightings, the Beatles waved from the pool. On her turn, Mikki lunged forward as if to leap in, but O'Quinn grabbed her belt.

When the helicopter landed for good, the girls again drove to the house. Again, they were rebuffed. So Kay called DJ Sam Riddle and made one final plea on air.  She got a call from Capitol Records, inviting the girls to the Beatles upcoming press conference.

On Aug. 29, at the Capitol Records building, they squeezed their way to the front row.
Out came the band, Harrison right in front of Kay. She told him that they were the helicopter girls. He asked, "Is your father rich or something?" John Lennon signed a book for Paula. The girls took it all in wide-eyed.

On Friday, those same eyes filled with tears again and again as they met at Camarillo Airport to pose for photos in front of a similar helicopter. So much had happened to them — children, grandchildren, arthritis, cancer.

O'Quinn, now 87, made the trip from Tehachapi — and got a big hug from an older, wiser Tummino who thanked the pilot for saving her life. Her family stood nearby, taking photos.

"She's always been a ball of energy," said granddaughter Grace Silva, 19. "She's the one who's influenced my imagination.… She taught me that anything's possible if you just put your mind to it."

50 years later

This photo is just too awesome for me not to share it, especially since I posted the original last month.   So awesome that these ladies were able to re-create their photo from 1965.   

My favorite Sullivan fan

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.

What ever happened to Anne Collingham?

If you ever go through old Beatle Book Monthly Magazines or Beatles fan club newsletters, you will see the name "Anne Collingham" often in them.   From the photos and articles written at the time, you would have assumed that Anne was a Beatle fan who worked with Freda Kelly at the Beatles fan club headquarters.   So where is Miss Collingham today?

Well....come to find out there never was a real person named Anne Collingham.   It was made up by Tony Barrow in 1963 to help keep things simple at the fan club.   A variety of girls who worked at the fan club were used as "Anne Collingham" for photos at the time.      

Tony Barrow wrote about this in the May 1983 issue of the Beatle Book Monthly.

Paul, John, George and Ringo pose with Anne Collingham and Bettina Rose during a visit to the London headquarters of their fan club.   That is what the original caption said, however the truth is that Paul, John George and Ringo pose with  Val Sumpter and  Maureen Donaldson

I decided in June 1963 that the Club should have a Nation Secretary based in London at our Monmouth Street address.  Until then, fans in the South had kept in touch through Bettina Rose in Surrey whilst Freda had looked after the top half of Britain from her NEMS office base in Liverpool.

The name of the new National Secretary was given as Anne Collingham.  In fact, no such person ever existed.  the "Collingham" part came form part of my secretary's home address in Earls Court, and Anne was my wife's middle name.

It wasn't done in order to deceive the fans.  It was intended to be helpful.  clearly as the membership grew a full time office staff of clerks and helpers would be needed.  there was little to be gained from confusing members by letter them receive replies from an assortment of people, especially as staff were coming and going all the time.  So the simplest answer seemed to be to have "Anne Collingham" as the regular signature on all individual reply letters, on newsletters and on all the Club's printed stationery.

there was another massive advantage.  The press office and the Fan Club shared a single telephone number, COVent Garden 2332.  as the publicity side of things became busier we were not only handling the Beatles but all the other NEMS acts ranging from Billy J. Kramer to Cilla Black.  The telephone lines were being used more and more heavily.  Therefore it was convenient to know at once if a caller wanted the press office or the Fan Club.  If the caller asked or Anne Collingham, it was passed straight through to the right room to be handled quickly.

Personal callers at 13 Monmouth Street always found themselves talking to "come of Anne Collingham's assistants."  Ms. Collingham herself seemed to eb permanently unavailable to meet her visiting members!

The Fan club grew so fast that we took an extra floor of office space above the press office's suite of rooms.  Here at least half a dozen full time workers coped with the mountains of mail.  These peopel included Michael Crowther-Smith, tony Catchpole, Yvonne Sainsbury, Monica Stringer and Macy Cockram.  By the end of 1963, Bettina Rose, the Surrey-based South of England Secretary, had been put on the full-time NEMS payroll and was working at at Monmouth Street as the colleague of "Anne Collingham."  The two signed themselves as "Joint National Secretaries of the Official Beatles Fan Club."   Bettina's physical appearance at Monmouth Street meant that at least one of the Club's chiefs was on hand to meet visitors in person.

I have said that Brian Epstein  refused to sell souvenir stuff via the club.  He did make a single exception to that wise rule but he only did so to help a relative who ran a firm called Weldons of Peckham in Rye Lane, London SE15.  Weldons produced a two-tone Beatles badge embroidered in gold and red.  This they stitched onto a black polo neck sweater made of 100% Botany wool.  It was a quality product and it was the only item ever to be sold directly through the facilities of the Official Fan Club.  The mail order price at Christmas 1963 was 1.15.00 which included postage and packing.  Fan Club worker, Mary Cockram, a pretty little brunette with an outgoing personality, was used to model the Beatles Sweater, but the caption beneath the photograph read, "Anne Collingham wears the Official Sweater in the picture above."

What ever happened to: Debbie Fyall?

Debbie Fyall might be one of the most well-known girls in Beatles photos and I bet none of you knew her name. Debbie is the little girl who John is holding in the New York city photos from when the Beatles came to America in 1964. If you recall, it is only Ringo, Paul and John in the photos because George was back in the hotel with strep throat. We all have a lot of photos of the three Beatles with Debbie, and if you are like me you may have wondered, "who is that little girl and how did she get so lucky to get picked up by John?" Well I found an article about her in the Daily News from 2004. Here is what it says:

The little 5-year-old hoisted above three of the Beatles was downright petrified.
With a quivering lip, Debbie Fyall scanned the crowd of photographers in Central Park for her daddy.
"I was a little scared because I couldn't see my parents," said Debbie, as she recalled that moment 40 years ago when she met John, Paul and Ringo during the Beatles' maiden trip to America (George Harrison was at the hotel with the flu).
"I saw the sea of camera lenses in front of me. Then I looked over and saw my father, who said, 'It's okay, I'm here.' "
Debbie, now 45, was tracked down this week by the Daily News when Capitol Records and Apple Corps Ltd. announced a search for her and other New Yorkers pictured during the Beatles' first U.S. visit, in 1964.
Harry Benson, the photographer who lifted her to John Lennon's shoulder, confirmed Debbie Fyall, now Debbie Waugh, was indeed that little girl.
A framed photo that captured what Debbie calls her "10 seconds of fame" hangs prominently in the kitchen of the home she shares with her husband and 8-year-old daughter in Alexandria, Va.
For Waugh, meeting the Beatles was a matter of knowing the right person. Her father, Andrew Fyall, was a London Daily Express reporter following the Beatles.
"I remember my parents in the morning saying, 'Get dressed. We're going to see the Beatles.' And I didn't really know what that meant," said Waugh, now a part-time teacher at a horticulture center.
"I remember John Lennon asking me my name and how old I was. He hoisted me up onto his shoulders. I was the only kid around at that point."
Waugh, who'll miss the gala tomorrow because of a travel conflict, said she became "a great fan" of the Beatles.
"It's always been a big part of my life. It's been a great conversation piece," she said of the picture. "People often do a double-take when they see it and say, 'Is that really you?'"

Meet Miss Michigan 1964

I recently received an email from Marina Pombar, who was Miss Michigan 1964 and had the amazing experience of meeting the Beatles during their Detroit press conference. Several photos were taken that day (one of which Marina shared with this blog) of her with the boys. Here is what she says about that day,

It was a moment where I represented Michigan and I did not think the people would react as they did!! I was more in tune with the Motown sound. I was surprised by the jelly beans,the screams, noise, and all of a sudden taken away by the police.The police protected all of us. We were taken away in different cars.I did not get a chance to talk to them after the event.

Marina currently is a sculptress who lives in Mexico City. She still has the photo that she shared with us hanging on the wall and often looks at in in ah! To check out her artwork, please see her webpage. Thank you Marina for sharing your photograph and memories of when you met the Beatles.

What ever happened to: Diana Vero

I am starting a new feature for "Meet the Beatles....For Real" called "Whatever happened to..." (the title came from a line in the song Free as a Bird). This feature is a "where are they now" of some of our favorite Beatle fans that have been featured in this blog over the years. I am going to try my best to track down some of them and have them answer a few basic questions. So...if you or one of your friends has had a photo with a Beatle on this blog, and you wouldn't mind being a part of the "What ever happened to" section, then please email me!! I think many readers are curious what ever became of some of the fans we have seen in these photos.

The first person in this new feature actually contacted me, and that person is Diana Vero. You may remember that Diana was the 19 year old secretary to Brian Epstein who traveled with the Beatles during their first North American tour in the summer of 1964. In 1965 Diana moved to Los Angeles to work for Derek Taylor. That job did not work out, but she ended up staying in the United States. She currently lives in Texas.

She recalls her time with the Beatles fondly and has a photo of herself with the guys that is better than the ones I have posted. Her children have taken it to school for show and tell and it always impresses their teachers! (I bet!!) In 2o04 Diana spoke at a Beatles convention in Tennessee. The photo of her in the pink jacket is from that convention.