John and Yoko's Taste of Scotland (1995)

 John and Yoko's Taste of Scotland

By John Dingwall

Scotland's Champion

November 22, 1995

    A Highland ex-poacher relived the night he caught a salmon for Beatle John Lennon. Joe couldn't believe it when his GP asked him to get the fish for the star. Lennon had been injured in a car crash in Sutherland, and was in hospital in Brora. 

    Joe, now 53, spent all night getting an 18-pound fish and took it into the town's Lawson Hospital. He revealed, "I couldn't tell John from Yoko because they were in bed asleep together and both had very long hair. I prodded Yoko, then realized it was John." Joe chatted to John, who joked he liked his salmon poached. 

    He added, "I made sure John paid me five bob a pound for it; it was probably only worth about half of that. "

    Joe told his story about his 1969 meeting with the star as a new wave of Beatlemania swept the country, inspired by a TV documentary and new record. But fans of the band had a hard time getting a hold of their new Anthology album released yesterday. Early shoppers fumed as Scottish stores did not receive their copies until midday. Record company EMI had kept the album under tight security in a closed warehouse and only began distributing it in the early hours of yesterday.

Behind the Scenes at Say Say Say

 

I found this article in the Internet Archive, and I think it originated from Club Sandwich; however, the writer and source were cut from the article. 

    The original idea for the clip accompanying "Say Say Say" was Paul's. He was busy finishing off his Pipes of Peace album, and he had his Give My Regards to Broad Street film to complete, but wanted you all to see him and Michael in "Say Say Say", so it was pack the bags and off we went to Los Angeles for four days.

     The director was Bob Giraldi, who worked with Michael on his sensational " Beat It " video. The chosen location was a nice little town called Los Alamos, about 70 miles from L.A. We later learned that this was the town where the world's first atom bomb was exploded. My job is to scout out the locations and check that everything is okay. Fortunately, Trevor Jones was coming along. We've worked with Paul for some time. So, no just what is required.

     We were all staying in a little town called Yulton, which is famous for its pea soup, while Michael was staying down the road in Stavanger, which is famous for its pastries. Paul and Linda are safely installed in the place they'll be staying. And the next day, I'm due to drive Paul down to a meeting with Bob Garaldi to discuss the shooting. Paul takes one look at the hired car, though, and decides to drive me! It's a real space stage Corvette. The dashboard's all lit up with graphs, lights, and things to tell you how many miles per gallon you're doing at a certain speed. It certainly makes a pleasant change to be chauffeured by Paul McCartney!

     Los Alamos itself is an amazing place, a real old cowboy town straight out of the 1880s. You half expect John Wayne to walk down the main street. You'll remember the scene in the finished video when Paul goes into the hotel. Well, that's an incredible place too. The owner has kept it just like a hotel out of the 20s and 30s, and everything is right, even down to the magazines and toilet fittings! We've hired this warehouse where they've built the sets you see in the finished video, and Paul and Linda come down for costume fittings, and Paul learns all his dance steps from a choreographer called Jeff, who's great, really good, and really fast. So it's all over by four in the afternoon. Paul and Linda go back for a rest, and we all relax, the calm before the storm. 

    I go and have another look at one of the cowboy towns further down Highway 101. It's great, and the only thing that stops it from being exactly like something out of High Noon is the town's petrol station.

     October 4 is the first day of the shoot, and we're all up ridiculously early, something like 530 a.m. There's dozens of vintage cars on set when we arrive. They've all been perfectly restored for Hollywood films, and the only difference is that they're all fitted with automatic transmissions. Apparently, actors can't act and change gear at the same time. 

    The first shot is just Paul, Linda, and Michael looking over a truck. After being made up and in costume, Paul and Linda are on set when it's lights, camera, action," just like in the movies. It all goes well that first morning, except that one of the grips falls off a ladder and is a bit shaken, so we break for lunch early. He's okay though, just a slightly sprained wrist. The local girls have laid on this beautiful barbecue for lunch. It's a lovely hot day, and the trestle tables are all set up. So we sit down and eat, and say say say, what do you know? It's all meat, meat, meat. A 28-ounce steak is no big deal over here. 

    It's at lunch that the first of a series of amazing coincidences occurs. The lady who owns the ranch where we're filming is called Rita, and comes from Yorkshire. She says that this bit of California is just like Yorkshire, except for the lizards and tarantulas. After lunch, Paul, Linda, and Michael went out to meet a bunch of local school kids who'd come down with their headmaster. They all signed autographs and chatted to the kids and made everybody very happy.

     After lunch, we moved on up to the orphanage to film a scene. Paul and Linda's daughter Heather is in this scene, and she looks lovely.  She runs across the lawn to meet Paul and Linda, who come up the hill with a big bag full of money for the kids. In the background, Michael's doing a spectacular dance routine on top of the fence.

     There's a break in filming, and Trevor's gone off to help Linda sort some things out when Paul asks me for a cup of tea. Now, normally it's no trouble, but when you're virtually in the middle of the desert, it poses a problem. I run to get some hot water, and wind up making the tea on a stone. It was a right rough old cup of tea, so I had to reboil the water to make a proper cup, which is something the Americans still haven't mastered.

     The location is really out of the way, so when filming's finished for the day, I take Paul and Linda's truck back while they hitch a ride back in Michael Jackson's "wagon", a Rolls Royce. 

    The next day, we're back filming in Los Alamos, in the Union Hotel. Paul's being filmed having a game of pool with this really tough-looking character, who is really the film's director, Bob Garaldi. We then move outside to film an important shot of Paul, Linda, and Michael driving down the main street in this truck. Obviously, they attract quite a crowd who were held back on one side of the street. Everybody was busy getting the set up when Trevor noticed that the crowd was reflected in the hotel window, which was lucky, as he managed to prevent the shot from being filmed, saving an expensive retake. 

    They all moved upstairs to film a shot in one of the rooms. Linda is lying on the bed playing a guitar while Paul is shaving. They're busy filming away when Paul dabs his shaving brush on Michael's cheek, which was completely unrehearsed. But Michael's reaction was so great they kept it in the finished film.

     Early on, I got Paul and Linda some lovely omelets from the cafe next door to the hotel, and got chatting to an old guy there. He was about 77 and looked exactly like Buffalo Bill. He has spent his entire life in Los Alamos, apart from one period during the war when he was stationed abroad in Liverpool- amazing! While they're filming inside, I got chatting to one of the security guards who's writing a history about the town. Apparently, it used to be a real hideout for all the old outlaws in the days of the Wild West. It was where the original aliases Smith and Jones used to hide after robbing stagecoaches and stuff. The guard agreed that he had another chapter to write in his book-- the day that Paul and Linda McCartney and Michael Jackson came to Los Alamos. 

    The scenery around here is unbelievable-real cowboy country, horses, cattle, and the most incredible sunsets. The last shot of the day was Paul, Linda, and Michael bowling down the road in the van toward the sunset. The sun was in the perfect position, just setting on the back of the hills. This great big red ball. The sunsets really are amazing, with the orange sky and the background which goes all black. It looks marvelous, and we were lucky to get that shot that day because the locals told us they had been getting a lot of rain lately.

     The last day of shooting, the scene in the warehouse studio where the Mac and Jack show really gets underway with Paul and Michael dancing around in checked suits. The Fred Astaire routine with the top hat goes a bit wrong when Paul's top hat keeps sticking to his head. Anyway, it gets all sorted out, and Paul goes into costume as a magician with his magic cauldron. 

    Before the day's shooting is over, Paul obliges with a couple of television interviews, and he and Linda go out and meet another party of schoolchildren and sign a few more autographs. As Paul and Linda are getting changed, I go down to their car to find it covered in messages scrawled by the fans in the dust. A quick wash and brush up, and it's as good as new. 

    On dropping them off, Linda asks us for dinner, which was lovely. Trevor and I eventually get back to our hotel and relax with the crew for a few drinks-a welcome change from all the pressures of filming.

    On our last day, Paul drives the Corvette to Los Angeles, which he did at 100 miles an hour! Because of that, we got to the airport really early and went to eat at a Mexican restaurant nearby. It's no good hanging around an airport with Paul and Linda; they are always recognized, and things start to get crazy. On our way in, I go with them to the duty-free shop, where they buy some T-shirts and presents for their family, and onto the aircraft and off it went. 

    Trevor and I had a few drinks at the airport bar, and caught our plane on time. We slept most of the way back, and by the time we woke up, we were back in dear old Blighty. Los Alamos already seemed like a dream. At least every time I see the video of "Say Say Say", I'm able to recall those four action-packed days.

Brain Damage Control (2009)

 Brain Damage Control

By Paul Krassner

High Times

2009

    When Phil Spector was sentenced 19 to life in prison for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson, I had a flashback to 1971 at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse.

     I was a guest of John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the celebration of Yoko's show, This is Not Here. The Videofrex, a counterculture video commune, was there to shoot a documentary titled, You're Not Here, Yoko 

    Nancy Kane recalls, "We were all going up for the opening, which would be jammed because John Lennon and Ringo Starr were going to be there too. And it was true.  In the crush of people, there went Ringo. He was being swept past us into the main gallery. There he goes, "Hi, Ringo!", he was gone, but we could play our video as much as we wanted to. There he goes, "Hi Ringo". There he goes again, "Hi Ringo."

     It was, in fact, Ringo's birthday, [sic] and I found myself sitting on the floor in a large room where a group of friends and associates sang "Happy Birthday" to him, and then "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" with each individual singing a chorus. The Women's Liberation Movement was flourishing at the time, and I sang, " She's Got the Whole World in Her Hands."

     Later, I was about to enter another large room with John and Yoko. It was quite crowded. As I walked through the door, Phil Spector stood up at the far side of the room, pointed at me, and shouted,  "You killed. Lenny Bruce!"  I was stunned. Lenny and I had been close friends, and I was the editor of his autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.  

    Rather than ratchet up the sour vibe that  Specter had just created, I immediately turned around and left the room. John and Yoko ran after me, apologizing profusely for Spector's insane outburst.  A A couple of years later, at the A &M recording studio, he pointed a gun at Lennon, chasing him through the corridors. 

    That incident at the museum wasn't the only occasion I've been falsely accused. I was also accused of being an accessory to an attempted assassination of Andy Warhol by Valerie Solanas, author of The SCUM Manifesto (SCUM =  the Society for Cutting Up Men).

     Warhol cohort Paul Morrissey said in a 1996 interview with actor Taylor Mead that in the spring of 1968, "Solanas approached underground newspaper publisher Paul Krassner for money, saying, "I want to shoot Olympian press honcho Maurice Grandis." He gave her $50, enough for a .32 automatic pistol."

     Actually, she asked me to lend her $50 for food, which I did, sympathizing with the anguish of a poor pamphleteer. But that was on Friday. On Monday, I took my four-year-old daughter, Holly, out for lunch. On the way, we bumped into Valerie just a block from Warhol's loft. We talked a little. Then Holly and I went to Brownies, a vegetarian restaurant.

     Minutes later, we were seated at a table, and Valerie walked in. "Do you mind if I join you?" She asked. " Yeah, I do mind, actually, but only because I don't get a chance to see my daughter that often." "Okay, I understand," she said and left. 

    Five hours later, she shot Warhol, seeking revenge out of the paranoid belief that he had ruined her literary career. Valerie could have bought the gun with that $50, but if I had known that her intention was to kill Warhol, I might have been able to talk her out of it. Then again, she could have shot me and Holly right there in that restaurant. What do you mean? I can't join you for lunch. Bang, bang. That easy. That's horrible. That's absurd.

Remembering a few days in the life of John Lennon (1980)

 

The young Beatles posed for this picture with press agent Jerry Pam during the filming of "Help!" on Balmoral Island in Nassau, Bahamas.  From left, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and John Lennon.  The shot was made by Life photographer Henry Grossman

Remembering a Few Days in the Life of John Lennon

By Jerry Pam

Vareity

December 12, 1980

    My first meeting with the Beatles took place in Nassau on their second film, which at that time was called Eight Arms to Hold You. When I arrived, Shenson said that he would do the introductions. 

    John Lennon, my first Beatles, started to sing a new song he had composed in honor of the occasion. It was entitled, "What is a Jerry Pam?" The group refused to believe a fellow Englishman could have such a moniker.

     I really thought that I would now be famous, which is not what a good press agent should be. But alas, the song was never published. Perhaps someone, an archivist, will rescue me from obscurity.

     George Harrison and Paul McCartney then came over, and were charming and asked loads of questions about Hollywood and their idol, Elvis Presley. Two years later, Colonel Parker would come to the rented house where the Beatles were staying in Benedict Canyon during one of the two concerts here, and invite the famed four to meet Elvis. This started a one-hour discussion as to what location should be used for this rock summit. After much wrangling, Paul ended the stalemate by saying, "While we are in the States, we go to his house, and when he comes to England, he can come to ours." And so it was. 

    The shooting of Help! on the Balmoral Island in the Bahamas was smooth but tense. Henry Grossman of Life magazine came in, and the group wouldn't pose at all.  But Shenson and I established, after collective evidence, that Grossman was John F Kennedy's favorite lenser, and the stills were accomplished.

     The night before the company departed the Bahamas, a dinner party was given by the Beatles. And I sat with Lennon and Derek Taylor, who at one time was their PR representative. Taylor was taping for La radio station KRLA. During the party, Lennon told me that he was writing a second book, A Spaniard in the Works, and hoped that somebody would publish it. He seemed to protect himself with a sincere innocence of his clout, while another part of him knew or sensed how to use that clout adroitly

    I next saw the Beatles in Los Angeles prior to the Hollywood Bowl concert that was organized by Bob Eubanks. A press conference at the Capitol tower building was almost aborted. The group was to be transported by an armored truck, and as it arrived in the parking lot, a sea of fans came down on the truck like a tsunami, very nearly tipping it over.

     Security was always a problem. And although I tried to convince the group's manager, Brian Epstein, to separate the group, he was adamant that they traveled together.

     With the concert at Dodger Stadium, we thought we had a foolproof plan. The stage was set up on the pitcher's mound with a tent alongside, ostensibly to act as a dummy dressing room. Inside, there was a car to transport the Beatles to the center field gates and out of the stadium. But the car went to the wrong gate, and before it could back up, 1000s of fans were in its way. The driver had the sense to drive to the player's dugout, and the Beatles were escorted to safety. But there was a problem. Someone had stolen the keys to the car. Three hours later, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were secreted out of the stadium in an ambulance. 

    There were many stories relating to the group's stay in Hollywood. Some are even true. Since the four were virtually prisoners in the rented house, the studios provided them with current picks and projection equipment. One night, they requested Cat Ballou. The next day, Lennon, usually positive, surprised me with some very negative reaction to the film. He was annoyed by the laugh track on the film every time something funny occurred. The studio, it seemed, had sent down a print with an experimental laugh track to be used in drive-ins. When I reported Lennon's reaction, the laugh tracks were dumped without further testing. Lennon spoke accurately for his generation.

     Lennon was always amused at reviews in which certain deep symbolisms were read into or out of his work in A Hard Day's Night, the basic and unfailing laugh line concurred Wilford Bramble being referred to as a "clean old man". Certain reviewers felt the line was used to show that the Beatles were clean despite their long hair. Others referred to their antics as similar to the Marx Brothers and made long analyses of Marxists (brothers, that is) derivations. None of the Beatles had ever even seen a Marx Brothers film.

     On one occasion, four teenagers hired a helicopter to fly over the rented Benedict Canyon house, on the off chance that they would see one of the Beatles. I invited the four teens to a press conference after finding out that they had saved for six months to rent the helicopter. John liked the idea and immediately complied with some of my press requests he had previously refused.

Starr Trek (1980)

Photo from this trip (Nancy Andrews collection)

 

Starr Trek

By Susin Shipiro

Sunday News Magazine

September 7, 1980

    Ringo Starr has finished a movie in Mexico called Caveman. He has been there before in Blindman, a spaghetti western. "In every scene, I went from hello to madness. I raped a girl, stabbed her father, shot people left and right," he says of Blindman. In Caveman, he grunts a lot. His cave lady turns out to be Barbara Bach, whom he is marrying.

     I can't say I'm overly thrilled about the match, since my introduction to him was via his former fiancée, an Alabamian named Nancy Andrews, alias my oldest friend. 

    Four months after I met Ringo, I rendezvoused with him and Nancy in Mexico, where he neither grunted nor killed anybody, but he did save my life---kind of. We were puttering around Cozumel when news of a solar eclipse came over the radio. Ringo decided to see the Mayan ruins that lay on the other side of the Yucatan, and four of us climbed into a rented Jeep with maracas and wonky drums with balls attached to strings that bonk against the hollow skins when you shake your wrists. Ringo was playing the things while driving. He is a better drummer than driver. He had already been banned in Monte Carlo for his "daring do" behind the wheel. 

    The paved road gave out 30 miles from the hotel. The Solar Eclipse was warming up. The sky was fuchsia as we chugged along the bumps. "A long way from Liverpool", said Ringo, with his usual firm grasp on the obvious. We passed two men setting up a tripod on the roadside to shoot the Eclipse. "Pardon me", said Ringo, "Are you the Mayan ruins?" The men stare into the Jeep, see this guy wearing racing shades and a lady's tank top on his head, secured with a button that reads, "Watch out for the booga rooga." some caveman.

     A few minutes later, we pass a cow and a bull by a sharp curve. "Are you the Mayan ruins?" Ringo asks which way to Itza. Then the Jeep stalls. After a little coddling, it starts up, then it rolls over and dies. 

    We inspect the beach and the solar descent. Ringo finds a cracked doll's head, a tin can, shells, and seaweed. The night is filled with strange noises far away, grunts. We start to walk back to the main road. The path is strewn with branches and unidentified objects. Bat circle, we hear the steady pound of cows' hoofs in the brush. "Let's sing," Ringo suggests, "or else, cry, whatever."

     After about four hours, we spy a flicker of light. It is the two men with their tripod! They have set up a candlelit plank across two tree stumps, swiping a fresh coconut off a nearby palm, hacked it open with a mini machete, and placed a bottle of tequila at our disposal. They joined us on the star trek, but it was Ringo on automatic pilot who got us through the underbrush and prickly overheads. Eventually, we find the main road. Ringo, doing a knock-me-down tango with inexhaustible energy, fetches a cab, which takes us back to the hotel gratis. 

    A famous face is a famous face. "I knew we'd make it," Ringo says the following afternoon. "I'm going to live till I'm 87." I heard a flash at that moment, a flash of lightning, a rumble of thunder, Mexico's first rain in three months. We pile into a new Jeep, pockets packed with pesos to celebrate our emergence from the jungle intact. There are survivors and survivors, but there is only one Ringo Starr and once upon a time in Mexico, he saved my life --kind of.

Tape is Silent as in Wings

 Tape is Silent as in Wings

No Writer Listed

Newcastle Evening Chronicle

September 18, 1975

    Radio Newcastle reporter Ian Penman thought he had got the scoop of a lifetime when he persuaded ex-Beatle Paul McCartney to be interviewed. He rushed the tape back to the studio, but when he played it back, all he got was the sound of silence.

     "McCartney had been playfully fiddling around with the tape recorder and must have accidentally pressed the rewind button." Radio Newcastle disc jockey Dick Godfrey said today.

     Penman had been reviewing the wildly successful concert by McCartney's group Wings at Newcastle City Hall last night. It was to have gone out on Godfrey's Bedrock Program on Monday, 

    Penman refused to take no for an answer when the ex-Beatle's aides banned interviews after the Show. "He toured the Newcastle hotels, and he found McCartney," Godfrey said today. "Paul gave him an excellent interview, but it all came to nothing."

     Penman has put down notes from the interview from memory and will read them out on the Bedrock Program on Monday.

On a Magical Tour with the Beatles (1979)

Photo of George taken by Kenny Everett 

Photo of George taken by Kenny Everett

Kenny Everett and George Harrison in L.A. in 1966

 On a Magical Tour With the Beatles

By Kenny Everett

Daily Mirror

September 19, 1979

    The Beatles were my idols. Not only were they from Liverpool, but they talked like me. I adored their music, and I wallowed in the Mersey Beat wave back in the 60s, when they were at the height of their world success,

     I was an up-and-coming DJ, working for pirate radio. So imagine the thrill it was one morning when I received a phone call asking me if I wanted to tour America with the Beatles in 1966. There I was, in my tiny bed sitter, thinking that I'd better buy another pack of corn flakes, when Alan Keen, the boss of Radio London, rang me and asked me just that. It was heart attack time!

     I think that was just about the highest peak in my life. It all happened because someone had thrown a jelly baby at Ringo Starr while the Beatles were performing somewhere. Ringo picked it up and ate it. And the next day, there were stories and the papers saying that Ringo loves jelly babies.

     So Bassetts, the sweet people, suddenly thought, "Ping! Let's have a disc jockey touring America, reporting back each day on the Beatles for a special Bassetts radio show."

     I was dreadful at doing interviews, and I never knew what to ask. It was almost great, I say almost because I never really got close to the Beatles. I was frightened of speaking to them, in case I annoyed them, or they thought I was stupid.

     One night in a hotel bedroom when I was trying to do an interview with The Fabulous Four, I was stuttering and stammering, and John Lennon said, very candidly, "You're not very good at this. Are you?" I felt like crying. 

    Paul McCartney was smashing because he took me off into a bathroom and did a great interview with me. He told me exactly what questions to ask him, and then gave enough very polished answers to last me a week. After that, I always tried to get him off on his own. 

    The worst moment of that American tour was when I was nearly killed with The Beatles by the fans. The boys were doing a gig in Pittsburgh [sic], and they had a caravan parked in the middle of a field. 1000s of fans were on the outside of the field, but one guy broke through the police cordon. Six or seven policemen immediately chased him. There was suddenly a gap in the police ranks, and we watched in horror as 1000s of screaming kids broke through and started running toward us. All they wanted was a piece of John Lennon's leg or half of Paul McCartney's hair. 

    We all piled into the caravan and locked the door. I'm convinced that if that crowd had got to us, we'd have been ripped to pieces. The police finally managed to force the crowds back.

     My one regret is that I was too young to know the Beatles really well. I did eventually become quite friendly with them, though one day, years later, I suddenly received a very expensive dressing gown from John Lennon and Yoko. I never did know what I've done to deserve that.

Baby I'll drive you in my car

Honestly, I have always questioned the truth behind this story because I have never heard anyone say that they saw Ringo at the dinner or any other claim of it happening besides the officer who says he took Ringo for a late-night drive.  It is a great story that could have happened very well, right?

This story was published in the Indianapolis Star newspaper on September 2, 1984. 

We Loved Them Yeah Yeah Yeah (part 2)

Written by Bonnie Britton

More than 25,000 people, most of them teenage girls, paid to watch the Beatles at the fairgrounds. Jack Marks, at the time, an 11-year veteran Indiana State Police Trooper, got paid to watch the Beatles.

 He called drummer Ringo Starr "just a poor kid a long way from home". His assessment of the other Beatles is less kind. "They were more demanding. Paul McCartney and John Lennon seemed smart-alecky."

 It was early in the morning of September 4, after the grandstand show, that we got them back to the Speedway motel. He recalled the security people relieved because we've gotten through with no problems, no riots, like in many places,

On the way to their rooms, the troopers look down at the pool from the second floor. "One of us says, 'There's old Ringo,' and somebody suggests,'Let's go throw him in the pool.' He convinced them not to toss Ringo in. (He couldn't swim, according to at least one fan magazine), and they joined the Beatle poolside when one of the troopers proposed taking a ride before going to bed. Ringo said, according to Marx, "I could go with you" and climbed into the back seat of the car.

 Their tour took on Speedway, Meridian Street, Monument Circle, and the governor's mansion. "I mean, what could you see at night?"

 Ringo was hungry, so Marks suggested that they go to his house in Noblesville, rouse Marks's wife from bed, and have her fix breakfast. Marks had forgotten, however, that their Morgan horses were going to be shown at the State Fair. When they arrived, a light was on in the barn.  

With a little prompting, Ringo told Doyne Marks, who was grooming the animals, "Get in the house, make us some breakfast." She wasn't too impressed, Marks said and told Ringo that she was busy and he would have to get his own breakfast.

 Instead, they fixed coffee at home, then went to the former Ben's Island Restaurant north of Carmel. Several diners recognized the Beatle and asked for autographs. "I told them, 'Let him eat in peace, and he'll give autographs later.' When we were finished, he signed autographs, shook hands, and kissed some kids."

 Ringo's absence from the Speedway Motel hadn't gone unnoticed. "When their manager woke up, Ringo was missing, and when we came back, Sheriff Major Alva Funk went into orbit. The deputy on duty told him Ringo left with some troopers and a car."  In retrospect, Mark said he could understand that Ringo was a" high-priced piece of property" and that their early morning escapade caused some justified concern. 

"He was just a young kid, 23, and they'd fly into a city, get locked in a room, do a show, and get back on a plane. He was just thankful to get out."

Marks, who drove one of the three Oldsmobile limousines that carried John Paul, George, and Ringo to the airport, said the Beatles manager came out to their plane just before takeoff with the message that Ringo asked to see him. "He just wanted to say 'thanks' for a good time, that he was treated well and appreciated it." Marks said.

 Although he probably spent more time with Ringo than anybody in Indianapolis, Marks failed to get an autograph or take pictures. The Marks children were instructed not to tell their friends about the Beatle visit. "I think it was a year before our daughter told her best friend," he said. Even in conservative Indiana," he added, "we had visions of people digging up the driveway if they found out he'd been here."

 They do, however, still possess a coffee mug, now broken, that Ringo drank from that morning, the chair in which he sat, and half a package of cigarettes the Beatle left behind.

To this day, Marks remains pertinently unflapped by the historic assignment. After all, he says there were other celebrity encounters, and Tennessee Ernie Ford, who also appeared at the fair that year, even gave him a record album.

The little glasses thief

 

Patric Gange that she stole Ringo's glasses as a baby and still has them.   I don't quite understand how a baby can steal glasses.   They take my glasses off me all the time, but I always get them back.  But here is her story as she tells it in her book and is told in People magazine. 

In her book, Gagne writes that from an early age she didn’t experience “common social emotions like shame and empathy” the way other children did. “For the most part, I felt nothing. And I didn’t like the way that ‘nothing’ felt. So I did things to replace the nothingness with… something.”

According to Gagne, that “something” occasionally took the form of stealing.

“I started stealing before I could talk,” she writes. “At least, I think I did. I don’t remember the first time I took something, just that by the time I was six or seven I had an entire box full of things I’d stolen in my closet.”

Among those pilfered items, she writes, were Ringo’s specs — which she claims to still have today.

“Somewhere in the archives of People magazine there is a photo of Ringo Starr holding me as a toddler,” she explains. “We’re standing in his backyard — not far from my birthplace in Los Angeles, where my father was an executive in the music business — and I am literally stealing the glasses off his face.”