The Beatles are Still Around (1971)

 The Beatles are Still Around

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The Papua New Guinea Post Courier

October 15, 1971

    The pop fans know he's in town because the local paper published a picture of him grinning behind a pair of sunglasses. Yet Ringo Starr sits unmolested in the crowded hotel lounge. He is a hard man to recognize these days. His skin is deep tanned, almost swarthy. His drooping beard is luxuriant and black as night, and his fistful of rings are in the hotel safe, while his fingers lose their white markings. He wants to become a serious actor, not just a gimmick guest star, and to this end, he has signed on for a film role that will startle his fans. 

    In Blindman, being filmed in broiling desert conditions at Almira, southern Spain, he is a Mexican bandit, a vicious killer, and a rapist. None of the old Ringo lovability and charm is allowed to show through.

     "I am evil from start to finish," he says. When we arrived on the location, film director Ferdinandi Baldi kept him waiting five hours for a five-minute shot. "He arrived strutting because he was afraid," said Ferdinandi. "I said to him, 'Listen, my children know you as a Beatle, but to me you are just a guy who has come from London to play the villain.' Ringo arrived a Beatle, but already I can see he will go away an actor.

     Ringo is accepting Baldi's tough conditioning because the film represents an important step in his ambition to be somebody other than a quartet of the corporate body known as the Beatles. "Before we parted, we never really knew which of us it was who was causing this incredible thing called Beatlemania," he said, "but now we know we each made our contribution because we are each making it as individuals.

     "Now my musical creativity is gaining momentum. I am gradually becoming more skilled. Life is full and interesting again. I am writing the title song for Blindman, I am learning to be an actor, and I have helped design some furniture and kinetic art that has a West End exhibition in the autumn. Still, I would not want any of this to wipe out the memory of the Beatles. I could not so lightly disregard all our years together. I still talk to the other three, and I would not rule out that one day we might play together again. I don't want to start any rumors because there are no plans at the moment. Just say the feeling is based on my natural optimism."

     I left Ringo taking a call from George Harrison, who was phoning from Los Angeles. "Having objectives in life-that's the secret of happiness," said Ringo. 

    In the meantime, AAP says Beatle John Lennon has launched a musical attack on Paul McCartney, his one-time partner in producing some of the world's greatest pop tunes. Lennon's latest LP, Imagine John Lennon, released in London, recently sets a song a broadside at McCartney for having broken up the Beatle partnership. The track on Lennon's LP is called "How Do You Sleep," and although it does not name McCartney, the lyrics obviously point to him as the target of his taunting. It starts with a reference to Sgt. Pepper one of the Beatles' most successful albums.

    According to Lennon, "The album took you (McCartney) by surprise" . At the time, McCartney was believed to have thought the music went too far. Other lines in the song goes, "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead. The one mistake you made was in your head."

     George Harrison was aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth II after spending three months recording in America. He said the Beatles might play together again before Christmas, and had been asked to do a special show for charity.