The Beatles

by Bob Spitz

  And, of course, from the outset he had been attracted to rough trade—tough, rugged young men of a lower class than his who were a threat to degrade and inflict harm on him. He’d seen guys like this all his life around the docks, fancied them from afar. Clad in cheap skintight leather suits, ruggedly built, marginally educated, foul-mouthed, completely disrespectful, and bashing away at their instruments—the Beatles revved his engine like nothing he’d experienced. “John, especially,” says Peter Brown, who was acquainted with Brian’s tastes and was also gay. “John wasn’t a pretty boy, he had a good look, and a general fuck-you attitude, which was a turn-on. Once Brian saw John, there was no turning away.” Bob Wooler would never forget the manner in which Brian presented himself to the band, “with all the pride of a peacock but the nervousness of a sparrow.” Eventually, Brian invited the Beatles to his office at the Whitechapel branch of NEMS “for a chat,” as he put it. For the record, he would “never know what made [him] say to this eccentric group of boys that [he] thought a further meeting might be helpful to them.” But whatever he might—or might not—have intended, the Beatles took him seriously.

  On December 3, 1961, Brian paced anxiously around the ground floor of NEMS. The store, closed every Wednesday afternoon for inventory, was dark and shuttered; unpacked cartons of records littered the aisles, and as Brian waded among them, poking the contents here and there, he made cursory marks on an order form clamped in a plastic clipboard.

  As the prearranged time drew near, then passed, he grew increasingly irritated. His face tightened into a scowl. A deep flush rose in his cheeks, and his lips pressed so tightly together that they almost disappeared inside his mouth. It began to look as if the Beatles were standing him up.

  As he would come to learn, the Beatles were always late—always. They rarely paid any attention to time, even in the case of a performance. Even on this day, they’d stopped off for a few pints of brown mix—mild and brown ales—at the Grapes, a pub on Mathew Street across from the Cavern.

  Bob Wooler picked up on Brian’s irritation immediately as he “rattled on the glass” to announce their arrival. The Beatles had asked Wooler to attend in order to “offer [them] a view of Epstein,” but why and for what purpose he could not even begin to guess. A moment later Wooler was to feel greater discomfort. John handled the introductions, and when he got to Wooler, he said, “This is me dad.” The usually loquacious Wooler was struck speechless as Brian extended a hand. “I thought, ‘Christ, I’m only ten years older than him!’ ” Wooler felt an urge to correct John’s bluff, but no explanation was necessary as Brian and the Beatles burst out laughing. And Wooler, baring his teeth at John, laughed loudest of all.

  Another awkward moment ensued when Brian realized that Paul wasn’t among them. He flashed anger at George’s explanation that Paul was in the midst of taking a bath, but it evaporated when John stepped in fast to express the band’s appreciation for the way NEMS was selling their record. “My Bonnie” proved to be the icebreaker, especially when Brian reported strong sales, along with his intention to order another hundred copies. “Apparently quite a number of people want it,” he said, flattering them.

  Normally, Brian was a persuasive salesman and took exactly the right approach in marketing appliances and records. Much of that he owed to his acting experience: the ability to deliver lines effectively and convince an audience of his credibility. Customers always gave him their full attention; he enjoyed a certain comfort level with them. But with the Beatles, he wasn’t so sure, and it showed. He was nervous in presenting his credentials, his timing was off. As Pete Best put it, “he was picking his words very carefully as to how he could sell himself to us,” dancing around the subject with no apparent purpose.

  Finally, he cut to the chase. “So, tell me,” Brian asked casually, “do you have a manager?” The question hung in the air for a moment before someone replied that, at this time, they did not. Brian nodded appreciably. “It seems to me that with everything going on, someone ought to be looking after you.” And that was all he said about it. He let it sink in, without proposing any arrangement or admitting his interest in the role. “He was noncommittal,” Wooler recalls, “but he gave every impression—and we rightfully concluded—that he was intrigued.” Nothing more was discussed, but Brian promised that he’d be in touch with them again soon and took Pete Best’s phone number as a contact.

  The prospect of a well-connected manager fascinated the Beatles, who were impressed by the come-on of money and power. “Certainly there were several things in his favor,” Pete Best recalled, citing the irresistible booty: suit, shiny shoes, watch, briefcase, big office, car. This guy had what they wanted for themselves—along with the voice to keep them in line. That voice, simple as it may seem, was his biggest asset. Brian spoke with what Scousers called “a BBC accent,” the grand, mannered command of language that lads from the Beatles’ end of the social spectrum mistook for high education and breeding. John described it in wide-eyed detail to Cynthia, who recalled how “they were delighted that a proper businessman was actually interested in taking them on.” John told his girlfriend that he felt “the man from NEMS,” as he called Brian, had limitless influence. Above everything else, as Cynthia noted, John thought “[Brian] had class.”

  Indeed, to these city kids of modest aims and British ceilings, Brian Epstein had it all. He was so widely traveled and cultured, so sophisticated in dress and taste, that he seemed more worldly than all the others who previously had gotten involved with the Beatles’ business affairs. That image made all the difference to Paul, who, of all the Beatles, aspired most to such pretensions. Paul, says Dot Rhone, “was more ambitious than John, and he got caught up in the picture of success Brian painted.” From the start, as she watched Paul cozy up to Brian, “Paul wanted badly to impress him,” Dot says. “Eventually, he hoped, it would give him an advantage over John.”

  To decide how to proceed, each of the Beatles appealed to his parents for advice. Most, like Mona Best, concluded that “Brian Epstein could be good” for them in the long run, although Jim McCartney, while certainly impressed by Brian’s credentials, cautioned Paul specifically against the wiles of “a Jewboy.” Only Aunt Mimi refused to give her blessing. She had nothing against Brian personally. His charm was considerable and his manners beyond reproach. Her only concern, however, was John’s welfare. Brian might present an appealing strategy for the Beatles, but Mimi was convinced that a rich man like him had nothing at stake. “The novelty” would eventually wear off, she presumed, and he’d be “finished with them in two months and gone on to something else.” But on October 9 John had turned twenty-one, placing him legally outside the clutches of his aunt’s guardianship. Not that it would have made any difference. John wouldn’t have let Mimi interfere with this opportunity. His mind was already made up; he knew what he was going to do. So did the rest of the Beatles. This was the chance they’d been waiting for—the chance to move beyond cellars and jive halls into the spotlight. And without any hesitation, they jumped at it.

  [II]

  For Brian Epstein, the offer was a gigantic leap of faith. Since their meeting at NEMS, he’d made some inquiries about the Beatles and the answers he’d gotten were not exactly confidence builders. The first person he went to see was Bob Wooler, who danced around questions about their reliability. “They were as unruly a bunch as I’d ever come across,” Wooler says, “and I doubted Brian Epstein could tame them.” Wooler refused to knock the Beatles, but he wouldn’t vouch for them, either, and his silence on the matter must have been deafening.

  Allan Williams, to no one’s surprise, wasn’t any more reassuring. As far as management went, he considered the Beatles free agents but dismissed them as “thieves” and “a right load of layabouts” for stiffing him and swore angrily when it came to their honor. “I wouldn’t touch ’em with a fucking barge pole,” he cautioned Brian.

  A fucking barge pole. The words rang hollow in Brian’s ears as he ran the pr
oposition past Peter Brown, a blunt, slightly arrogant young man who, like Brian, could also be self-impressed and haughty. Peter could be relied on to give it to him straight. More important, he knew how to handle Brian. From their first meeting, at a birthday party for a mutual acquaintance, “there was an immediate bond of liking similar things.” Both men adored going to the theater, listening to classical music and modern jazz, savoring long, chatty meals, and bargain hunting for antiques. Both ran record shops (Brown managed the counter in Lewis’s Department Store). Both had perfect taste in clothes. Both affected an elegance and style that placed them above others in their circle. Years later Brown would enjoy the same compatible relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber, who bore a striking resemblance to Brian. But, essentially, both men were lonely, desperately lonely, which ran counter to their sociable natures.

  Brown, in particular, was consumed by loneliness that came from living a lie. At first, after leaving the air force, he found a reasonably credible niche in the company of a new set of straight—and mostly Jewish—Liverpool friends. “Presumably I looked as if I were a perfectly normal heterosexual guy—which I wasn’t,” Brown says in retrospect, “and I did nothing, such as it were, to dispel that useful notion.” When he met Brian Epstein, in 1960, Brown recognized someone much like himself, “a very unhappy man” who sought to mask the depression he suffered with a fresh coat of “social aplomb.”

  In Brown, Brian had found a friend who shared not only his vital interests but his enthusiasm for record sales. Peter’s work at Lewis’s had not gone unnoticed. The department store, directly opposite Brian’s Great Charlotte Street shop, was NEMS’ closest competitor, in large part because of Brown’s nose for sniffing out potential hits. As Brian undoubtedly knew, it would be better for business if Peter worked for NEMS, so he dangled a tempting offer that promised Brown a management position at twice his current salary. When Brian kicked in a commission on top of salary, Peter Brown gave Lewis’s two weeks’ notice. “Money was the deciding factor,” he says, “but there was another important consideration. I sensed that Brian and I were going to have some fun.”

  A few weeks before Christmas in 1961, Brian invited Peter to dinner at the Corn Market, a splendid seafood restaurant near the Pier Head. The two men had been working furiously in preparation for the approaching holiday and, as a result, had spent little leisure time in each other’s company. They finished aperitifs in silence. “He just sat there,” Brown remembers. “I could tell he was working up to something important.” Finally he said, “You know that group, the Beatles? I’m going to sign them to be their manager.”

  Brown was speechless but managed to blurt out a single word. “Why?” he gasped. In an effort to enlighten Brown, they passed on dessert in order to make the evening show at the Cavern. Peter had never been there before and was aghast at the sight of the place. “It was incredibly foul,” he recalls, “just a horrid little place. And I didn’t think the Beatles were anything special. No matter how brightly Brian painted it, I certainly had no enthusiasm whatsoever for what he intended to do.”

  Rex Makin came to almost the same conclusion. Brian had gone to see the lawyer for advice. Maintaining that “he’d discovered a gold mine in the Beatles,” he wanted a management contract drawn “so it was absolutely unbreakable.” But a business contract seemed like a waste of his time, and Makin, a smug, scornful man, dismissed Brian. “Get yourself a standard contract in any stationery store. Bring it to me and I’ll have a look at it,” he suggested, figuring it was “the last he’d hear of this nonsense from Brian Epstein.” In fact, Brian—in all his inexperience—did precisely what Makin recommended: a generic form contract, bought at a stationery shop, became the basis for his future partnership.

  Peter Brown and now Rex Makin—two men whose opinions Brian trusted—had greeted his intention to manage the Beatles with barely restrained skepticism. And Harry and Queenie were also bewildered. “Harry was indignant, just furious. He’d put so much faith in Brian, and now—this! Another harebrained scheme. The bottom line was that the family would suffer, and NEMS along with it.” Brian’s attempt to calm his father proved futile. Flustered, he assured Harry that “the Beatles would be bigger than Elvis Presley.” But if Queenie wasn’t any more optimistic, neither would she take a dim view of Brian’s “project.” She treated it like the musing of a gifted genius, one of his “artistic things.” Where was the harm in it? she chided Harry. Besides, she knew how stubborn Brian was. No one could talk him out of something once he was fixated on it.

  Fortunately, there was no skepticism whatsoever on the Beatles’ part. Each of them felt that if a breakthrough were to come, it would take someone with money and power to boost them to another level of success. Their next meeting with Brian Epstein sealed the deal. With the band’s endorsement and probably at Bob Wooler’s urging, John informed him that the Beatles were ready to accept his offer. Various accounts record John as either saying, “Okay, you’re on… we’re in business,” or tossing off, “Right, then, Brian—manage us.” But while reports may vary, nothing was lost in the translation. By the end of 1961, riding the crest of local popularity, the Beatles, with Brian Epstein in their corner, were ready to take on all comers.

  Stuart wasn’t expected to return from Hamburg before the summer; he had talked about spending the winter in Germany, reassuring his family that art school—in this case, a German art school—was foremost on his agenda. But as the holiday season drew near, homesickness soured his creative juices and forced an interruption to his studies that only a Liverpool visit was certain to cure. There were also his feelings for Astrid to consider. In anticipation of their eventual marriage, she was eager—and growing impatient—to meet Stuart’s family. A trip home for the holidays would serve both purposes.

  Perhaps no one looked forward to it as much as John and George. Both Beatles had kept up a fairly steady correspondence with Stuart and noticed a bewildering emotional change in his most recent letters. The tone he used in them was not one that the friends were used to hearing when they’d hung out together in Hamburg. They ran on for ten or fifteen handwritten pages at a clip, loose, blustering, hypersensitive affairs, in which he’d begun to ramble incoherently. Music journalist Ray Coleman, who was given a rare look at the letters, wrote it off to “a restlessness about life,” but the agitation mortared between the lines revealed a consuming madness. It set off a lot of signals in Liverpool, and not just to his Beatle mates, who knew Stuart best. His letters home were “clearly distressed—bizarre and disturbed,” recalled his sister Pauline. “By now, [my mother] took the view that it was [related to] drugs, lifestyle—being up all night painting.” That, and being abroad: Millie remained vehemently opposed to her son’s engagement to Astrid, and anything she could use to reinforce its harmful effect was additional ammunition.

  The appearance of both Stuart and Astrid, however, caught everyone unawares. No sooner had the couple arrived in Liverpool than attitudes began to reverse course without warning. Most responsible for this change of heart was Astrid Kirchherr, who surprised everyone by remaking her arty image. Although her bohemian reputation preceded her, the sight of this naturally beautiful and elegant young woman wasn’t at all what anyone expected. Gone were the black turtleneck sweaters, slinky leather pants, and pointy-toed slippers that identified her exi mind-set. In their place was a round-necked cashmere tunic over a beautifully tailored skirt, opaque stockings, and calfskin Italian pumps that provided a subtle lift of grandeur. “We were quite stunned by her,” Pauline Sutcliffe remembered. “She was like nothing we had ever seen before—ever.” Astrid arrived at the Sutcliffes’ house in Aigburth with only a single long-stemmed orchid in her hand, which she presented with great ceremony to a speechless Millie. “You can’t imagine the impact that had on my mother,” Pauline said. “We didn’t see orchids every day in Liverpool.” And Stuart’s father “was utterly enamored [of] her.”

  In Liverpool, people turned and stared at Astrid as
they had stared at her in Hamburg, and for the time being her appearance distracted all eyes from Stuart. But it wasn’t that long before he drew stares, too—although not under the same glowing conditions. “Stuart looked absolutely god-awful,” Bill Harry recalls. “It was almost scary seeing what had become of him. He was pale and withered and complained about headaches, severe headaches that would almost cripple him.”

  The Sutcliffe family knew all about the headaches. Stuart had written to them from Hamburg that he’d been afflicted with migraines and flashes of extreme pain. They came without warning and could disappear in an instant or linger for several hours. Jarred by this news, his mother demanded he see a doctor but was told that “there was no supporting evidence that anything was wrong with him.”*

  Despite his grave appearance now, all Stuart wanted to talk about was his art, which he had resumed with new fervor. A grant had come through from the German government that reduced his English stipend to chump change, and he was elated about his development under mentor Eduardo Paolozzi, the Scottish abstractionist who held a chair at the Meisterschule. It was Paolozzi, in fact, who had derided Stuart’s commitment and issued the ultimatum: music or art—“but not both.” And it was Paolozzi who rekindled Stuart’s most enduring passion once he dispensed with the Beatles.* Germany had been good to Stuart in so many different ways, and now, with Astrid to care for him, he was not only painting again but writing stories and poems.