by Bob Spitz
Today, it would be hard to imagine any men of comparable age, much less rock ’n roll stars, submitting to such drivel. But the Beatles did—“quite willingly and without resentment,” says Yolland, who rehearsed the boys under the most congenial of circumstances. No one complained or balked at a procedure, not even George, in perpetual embarrassment over the woman’s getup he was forced to wear.
The Beatles’ spot—a nine-song mini-set—came near the end of the top-heavy two-hour show. Up first were the rest of the NEMS artists, performing medleys of their hits intermingled with Christmas songs, in a footloose, music-hall-style revue. Most of those who attended couldn’t have cared less about its technical flourishes. All the work that went into the staging meant nothing to the mostly female fans, whose only aim was to gaze upon their heartthrobs—gaze with tear-rimmed, tormented eyes, hands clutched arthritically at the sides of their faces, mouths twisted in anguished, blood-curdling screams that fluctuated in waves, as if induced by jolts from electric-shock paddles. Ex–Quarry Man Nigel Walley, now the golf pro at Wrotham Heath in Kent, also fought his way inside the Astoria to catch a glimpse of his old mates. For weeks afterward, Walley says, he was haunted by those scenes. “I used to wake up in the middle of the night, thinking I must have dreamed it all.”
Backstage, the police had their own nightmares to contend with. Getaways had been blueprinted and rehearsed with split-second precision. The size and layout of the Astoria, with its twenty-seven exits, left myriad options. (The police telephoned the producers ten minutes before the end of every show with the details for that night’s route.) Perhaps the greatest safeguard was the mandatory playing of “God Save the Queen” at the evening’s conclusion. During those two and a half minutes, the audience remained standing at attention, virtual captives, while the Beatles, escorted by an usher wielding a flashlight, fled through one of the cobwebbed underpassages.
“They’re not listening to anything,” John complained bitterly about the Beatles’ ecstatic audiences. “All they’re doing is going mad.” The futility of it gnawed at him. Somewhere along the way, the music had taken a backseat to the act, the act of being the Beatles. The success it brought, however, didn’t diminish John’s discontent, and he hated himself for encouraging it. Pete Shotton saw that the annoyance was taking its toll. John was feeling trapped in his new celebrity, playing a role that he didn’t relish; week by week, feeling more like a fraud, more like a phony. Says Shotton: “He very quickly realized that… he was getting cut off from the world—and that it was [only] going to get worse. He realized very early on that this was the penalty.”
But there were the perks as well.
Chapter 24 Once Upon a Time in America
[I]
As sunlight struck the silvery wings outside the starboard windows of Pan Am Flight 101, shooting splinters of light across the interior cabin, three of the Beatles huddled at a window to size up the view as the plane banked sharply over the eastern shore of Long Island. In the first-class compartment, John sat rigidly behind the others, holding Cynthia’s moist hand and staring at the back of the seat in front of him. He’d grown subdued during the last, final hour, his face closed over with something a traveling companion read as “doubt.” Initially, John had “been over the moon at the prospect” of the visit—paying homage in the land of his forefathers: Chuck, Elvis, and Buddy. But as the reality of it drew near, he became convinced of certain failure.
That morning a crowd of four thousand fans had swarmed Heathrow to see the boys off as Beatles music “boom[ed] out over the public address system.” It had been a heartening sight as they emerged on the airport tarmac, grinning and handsome in the new pleated mohair suits that Dougie Millings had made in London from a series of Paul’s sketches. Thanks to some last-minute choreography staged by Brian Epstein, they stopped in their tracks less than halfway to the plane, then turned and waved in unison, gazing up at the terraced observation deck draped with banners wishing them well and jammed with cheering, screaming teenagers hanging precariously over the rails. The Beatles laughed and shouted back at them, caught up in the spirit. It was impossible not to feel the excitement, their loyal fans solidly behind them, rooting for them, proud that the Beatles were taking it to the States. There was “nothing like it in the world,” according to Paul.
“In Liverpool, when you stood on the edge of the water you knew the next place was America,” John said much later, but the romance of the States had been with him since childhood. To that restless, rebellious Woolton boy “with a mess of ideas rattling around his head,” everything that spoke to him was out there, somewhere over the western horizon—in America. Brando, the Beat poets, rock ’n roll: he’d long since fallen under their spell. But with America now only minutes away, it may have been too much for John to deal with.
He took a deep breath, an uneasy look crossing his ruggedly handsome face, and glanced around at the cabin full of reporters, photographers, friends, and hangers-on who had attached themselves to the Beatles’ entourage: the ever-chummy Maureen Cleave of the Evening Standard, who’d emerged in recent weeks as the boys’ pet flack; Harry Benson, the pesky Daily Express photographer, a talented man although something of a nuisance, to whom Pan Am had reluctantly given permission to shoot pictures exclusively throughout the flight; George Harrison, the Liverpool Echo’s unlikely-named columnist, who for years had stubbornly refused to write a word about the Beatles; and Phil Spector, as high-strung as a Pomeranian, and as paranoid, who booked himself on the same flight as the Beatles because, as George recalled, “he thought we were winners and he wouldn’t crash.”
Brian, as smooth as a diplomat, had stashed the bulk of the entourage in the 707’s economy cabin, where the less genteel couldn’t badger the Beatles. George, especially, wanted to be left alone; he’d been fighting off some queasiness that the boys initially dismissed as butterflies but was developing rather progressively as a case of the flu. Moreover, there were too many stowaways aboard, British manufacturers who had booked seats on Flight 101 in order to corner the Beatles with far-fetched pitches. Since just after takeoff, they’d been dispatching a stewardess to first class every few minutes, to display various products and ask for endorsements. It never failed to amaze the boys what they came up with. All kinds of cheap junk were already being produced to cash in on their name: night-lights, clocks, sweaters, pillows, scarves, pens, bracelets, games, any number of Beatles wigs, which had become a silly rage. And now here was the chance for even more.
When they were passed to him, John regarded each item as he might a dirty sock, holding it by the edge with two fingers. That stuff had never interested him much, although he had some vague appreciation for the income it produced. From time to time Brian took pains to reassure the Beatles that nothing would be licensed that might embarrass them. Besides, all John could focus on at the moment was the next ten days in New York—and not being embarrassed by that. “Going to the States was a big step,” Ringo admitted. The prospect of it, the significance, had made him “a bit sick,” too, although by the time they were descending into New York, Ringo was in full party mode. Paul was also overheard confiding in Phil Spector about his own misgivings, although they were soon interrupted by word from the cockpit. As Paul remembered it: “The pilot had rang ahead and said, ‘Tell the boys there’s a big crowd waiting for them.’ ”
As the plane taxied toward the gate, the Beatles scrambled over one another to get a better view of the scene unfolding outside at the terminal. Everywhere they looked it was wall-to-wall kids. Shouts—whoops and cheers—erupted inside the plane, and for the first time since London John’s face broke into a beautiful grin. “Just look at that!” one of them whispered hoarsely, his voice fighting the collision of relief and delight. American fans had been gathering there since early morning, whipped up by New York’s most famous radio deejays broadcasting live from the airport. All day they had been urging listeners to head there, playing Beatles records every few minutes and offering
prizes: Beatles wigs, sweatshirts, and photographs. As a result, it was a bigger crowd than Kennedy International Airport had ever experienced. “Not even for kings or queens,” according to an official at the gate. The New York Times reported that “three thousand teenagers stood four deep on the upper arcade of the International Arrivals Building… girls, girls and more girls.” From the plane, you could see them jumping up and down, percolating, much in the manner of their British counterparts. Police, using every bit of available muscle, leaned their shoulders into barricades, fighting to hold the kids in check, but as the plane shut off its engines it looked like a losing battle. Every so often a nervy girl threw herself over the thicket of navy blue uniforms like a running back against a goal-line stand, only to be pushed back behind the uprights. One older bystander suffered a mild heart attack, and according to the Daily News, “some punches were exchanged as the fans fought for better views.”
As the boys stood by the aircraft door, grinning and gaping at the crowd, waving at random, a radio commentator breathlessly struggled to give an account of their expressions: “As far as I can tell, the four Beatles are standing at the door of the aircraft almost certainly completely and utterly in shock. No one, I mean no one, has ever seen or even remotely suspected anything like this before!”
“We had heard that our records were selling well in America,” George recalled somewhat disingenuously (sales had hit 2.6 million singles in roughly two and a half weeks), “but it wasn’t until we stepped off the plane… that we understood what was going on. Seeing thousands of kids there to meet us made us realize just how popular we were there.” The Beatles were beside themselves with joy.
For security purposes, the Beatles circumvented Customs on their way to a press conference in the ground-floor lounge of Pan Am’s Arrivals building. More than two hundred reporters and photographers were crammed into the room, jostling for position and firing questions even as the boys were led through the door wearing identical dark overcoats and carrying flight bags.
Commandeering a microphone, Brian Sommerville, the band’s new press officer, attempted to broker peace by initiating an orderly hands-up policy for questions, but it was to no avail. Minutes flew by as tempers grew more heated and voices snarled. Neither side was about to give the other any satisfaction. “All right then. Shut up!” he barked. “Just shut up!”
“Yeah, yeah, everybody just sharrup,” said John, the first official words from a Beatle on American soil.
A stunned press gallery fell silent, then broke into applause. Just like that, the Beatles had snatched the upper hand from the hard-core pack of reporters and never really gave it back. Whatever the press expected from these boys, they were completely unprepared for what they were about to get.
“Will you sing something for us?” a reporter shouted over the racket.
“No!” all four Beatles shouted in unison.
“We need money first,” John shot back. The impertinence of it sent approving snickers through the crowd.
George was asked about the group’s ambition, and without missing a beat, he said, “To come to America.”
“What about you, Ringo? What do you think of Beethoven?”
“I love him,” he said, “especially his poems.”
“Are you for real?”
“Come and have a feel.”
“Some of your detractors allege that you are bald and those haircuts are wigs. Is that true, John?”
“Oh, we’re all bald—yeah. And I’m deaf and dumb, too.”
“What about the movement in Detroit to stamp out the Beatles?”
Unruffled, Paul smiled and said, “We have two answers to the Detroit students who want to stamp us out. We’ve a campaign of our own to stamp out Detroit.” That drew appreciative laughter, distracting attention from his “second answer,” which, though never stated, was implicit.
There were the usual questions about their hair, the origin of the band’s name, and how long they felt the phenomenon would last, all of which the boys handled with off-the-cuff wit and flair. The New York press corps, which had expected awkward, faltering teenagers, was delighted; the Beatles were irresistible, they made great copy. Paul, who still had the mike, couldn’t resist one last crack. “We have a message,” he announced, grinning, as the room suddenly fell silent, notebooks poised, cameras pointed. “Our message is: buy more Beatles records!” That did it! Everyone in the room broke out laughing at what the New York Times dubbed the “contagious… Beatle wit.” According to its reporter on the scene: “Photographers forgot about pictures they wanted to take. The show was on and the Beatle boys loved it.”
As the press conference broke up, George spotted an elfin man with a pencil-thin, crooked grin wearing a brightly patterned madras sport coat and straw boater squeezed into the front row of reporters. “Hey, I dig your hat,” he said. “Yeah, right, you can have it,” the man said, flicking it off with a thumb.
Even without the hat, Murray Kaufman had a prepossessing demeanor that compelled attention. Physically, he was slight, but a streak of brashness and self-importance added to his stature. He had that frantic New York aura about him, a real live wire, with a penetrating crinkly-eyed stare that served a multitude of emotional purposes. As “Murray the K,” he was a well-known radio personality, handling the prime-time evening show, from six o’clock until ten each night, on WINS, a top pop station. His voice reached from one end of New York to the other and deep into Connecticut and New Jersey, a seemingly endless spray of magpie chatter as it spun circuitous webs around the pop hits of the day, light news, commercials, and marginalia, all thickened by a style that Murray referred to as “my shtick.”
And right now Murray was positively glowing with excitement. The Beatles had “done a number on [him],” taken him by surprise. He couldn’t get over their collective sense of humor and the way they’d handled the hard-boiled press corps. It was a welcome turn of events, considering he had come to the airport against his will. At the end of January, Murray had been in Florida, on a vacation that was supposed to extend to the end of February. That was where Joel Chaseman, WINS’s program director, found him and ordered him back to New York. “The Beatles are coming,” Chaseman told him. In October a copy of “She Loves You” had crossed Kaufman’s desk, and thanks to some strong-arming by Swan Records’ promotion man, Murray entered it in the “Swingin’ Soiree,” his nightly record-review roundup. Incredible as it seems, the Beatles came in third—a distant third. Even so, Murray was determined to give them a shot. “I played their record for about two and a half weeks,” he recalled, “and nothing. No reaction.” There was no way he intended to interrupt his vacation for the Beatles, and he told Chaseman as much. “Then he sort of insisted and put my job on the line.”
Murray had been waiting for an opening since the press conference swung into gear, and now he got one from George big enough to drive his massive personality through. “Who are you?” George wanted to know.
“I’m Murray the K,” Kaufman shouted back, giving it that special seductive twist.
George grinned wolfishly. “Hey, this is Murray the K,” he announced, calling over the other Beatles. The Beatles loved disc jockeys, especially those who played their records. Murray immediately went into his “rap,” a long-winded self-promotion that inflated his hipness and influence, and for twenty minutes he had the very hot, exclusive Beatles virtually to himself. They even invited him back to their hotel for a party that would serve as Murray’s scoop.
But first they had to escape. As Nora Ephron reported in the New York Post, “the Beatles were lifted bodily by two policemen each, and each young man was placed and locked in his own Cadillac limousine.” A handful of girls actually threw themselves at the Cadillacs, she wrote, “and were led, briefly sobbing, from the parking lot.” Securely inside the cars, each of the Beatles watched the familiar scene unfold outside, albeit this time with a stunned fascination. The whirlwind at Kennedy had happened without any warning whatsoever
; not even Brian had prepared them for such a reception. “I remember… getting into the limo and putting on the radio,” Paul recalled, “and hearing a running commentary on us: ‘They have just left the airport and are coming towards New York City….’ It was like a dream. The greatest fantasy ever.”
[II]
It came as quite a shock to officials at the posh Plaza Hotel, just off the southeastern edge of Central Park, when it was discovered that several guests, Mr. J. Lennon, Mr. P. McCartney, Mr. G. Harrison, and Mr. R. Starkey—all holding reservations booked routinely under their own names—were, in fact, those same Beatles splashed across the news. And by the time they found out, it was too late to do anything about it.
The boys checked in a little after four o’clock, and from then on the hotel fell under siege. Hundreds of fans showed up simultaneously, causing gridlock. A throng of girls clogged the cut-through between Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Streets that doubled as the Plaza’s entrance; others swarmed over the fountain and statue in the tiny arcade along Fifth Avenue or took up position on the sidewalk adjoining the park. It had taken some quick work to move the kids off the front steps and secure the side doors. Those found wandering the halls were also ejected. Before long there were dozens of blue police barricades in place and horse patrols circling the block.
A special detail of guards was also stationed outside the elevators and stairwells on the Plaza’s highest floors. The Beatles shared a gorgeous ten-room suite on the twelfth floor, at the back of the hotel, along with Neil and Mal, while Brian stayed down the hall. Exhausted from their flight, the boys just vegged out that first night, watching themselves on television and listening to the radio. “We wanted to hear the music,” John recalled. “We were so overawed by American radio.”
