by Peter Brown
The reporters glanced at each other, baffled and unappeased. The very next question was, “But are you prepared to apologize?”
That was exactly what John thought he had just done. Now his temper was rising. “I’m not anti-God, anti-Christ, or antireligion,” he said firmly. “I was not saying we are greater or better. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us ... I wasn’t saying the Beatles are better than God or Jesus. I used ‘Beatles’ because it was easy for me to talk about Beatles ...”
But the questions persisted. Was he or wasn’t he going to eat crow? Brian gave him anxious looks from the sidelines.
“I wasn’t saying whatever they’re saying I was saying...” he insisted, and then he broke down. “I’m sorry I said it, really. I never meant it to be a lousy antireligious thing... I apologize, if that will make you happy. I still don’t know quite what I’ve done. I’ve tried to tell you what I did do, but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then okay, I’m sorry!”
John had reached a turning point; he was tired of selling out, pandering to the press and public, of suppressing his feelings and thoughts. He made himself a solemn promise that it would not happen again. Indeed, it went almost unnoticed when a few minutes later in the press conference John took his first public political stand, coming out against the Vietnam war and America’s recent involvement. This remark did not go unnoticed by Brian, who mentioned it to John later and asked gently if John would refrain from choosing sides in this hotly contested issue. John just glared at him in return.
John’s “Jesus” apology helped soothe some of the troubled waters, but it still left a nasty tension in the air. The American tour now took on the same nightmare quality as the Japanese and Manila dates that had preceded it. On August 14 the Beatles played the Municipal Stadium in Cleveland in the pouring rain on an uncovered stage with poorly grounded electrical equipment. Brian had to stop the show ten minutes into their set to prevent their being electrocuted. They gave tired, lackluster performances in Washington, D.C., and Toronto before going to Tennessee, where the KKK picketed the Memphis Coliseum on August 19. It was at this date that the possibility of a sniper in the large audience was most feared, and police were asked to keep a lookout for firearms. Midway through the performance, a firecracker was thrown out of the bleachers onto the stage where it exploded, and George Harrison very nearly fainted from fright. On the twentieth, in Cincinnati, Paul was so nervous he threw up backstage. On the twenty-fourth they were back in New York for another sold-out show at Shea Stadium. When they were presented with an enormous cake in the locker room, John asked if there was a naked lady inside of it. When he was told there wasn’t, he said, “We don’t want any of your fucking cake,” and stalked off. The twenty-fifth of August they played Seattle and then flew to San Francisco for the final date of the tour at the Cow Palace.
4
“I have an announcement to make,” Brian said to Nat Weiss in the living room of a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Nat, who hated Los Angeles, had been coerced by Brian into accompanying him for a short holiday. “Tomorrow night in San Francisco is the Beatles’ very last concert,” Brian intoned gravely.
“I don’t believe you,” Nat said, dismissing it as one of Brian’s fatalistic predictions. Of late Brian was always saying dramatic things. He had never completely recovered from his glandular fever, and his poor health was complicated by his habitual use of uppers and downers. He had missed a slew of dates on the Beatles’ American tour, more often than not stoned in suite 35E at the Waldorf Towers. His liaisons were much more open now but also much more dangerous. The night manager of the Waldorf Towers stopped more than one surly-looking visitor to Brian’s apartment. Brian would come down to the lobby himself to straighten the matter out. “This man is unquestionably my welcomed guest,” he would say, showing the young construction worker into the elevator. By the end of his stay the Waldorf billed him for the marks left by the dirty construction shoes on the white carpet in front of the living room sofa.
“But it’s true, they’re going to stop touring after tomorrow,” Brian insisted as he fixed Nat a scotch. “It’s very sad, I think, but they say they don’t want to do it anymore.”
“They’ll change their minds,” Nat assured him.
“There is also something to cheer me up,” Brian said. “Dizz Gillespie called me. He’s here in Los Angeles.”
At first Nat was incredulous, then angry. “Brian, you must not have anything to do with that boy—”
“Now, now,” Brian interrupted, “he came all this way to find me. He said he came because he loves me.”
Nat sighed but said nothing. As preposterous as it was that Dizz Gillespie had any real affection for Brian, Nat could see by the smitten look in Brian’s eyes that he believed it. He wanted to believe it, for better or for worse. Anyway, Brian had been so skittish lately that one wrong word could send him off on a three-day snit. Over the next twenty-four hours Nat watched in silence as the inevitable drama was played out.
They met with Dizz at a house in Beverly Hills that the Beatles had vacated for a concert date in San Diego. Nat and Brian moved in for the day. For Brian it was one brief idyllic moment in a hideous tour. Brian took Dizz from room to room and showed him the Beatles’ clothing and where they slept. They sat by the pool in the hot and nourishing California sunshine. They were alone for the first time; there were no servants, no press, no Beatles. Later in the day Brian and Dizz went shopping for dinner together at a local supermarket, and Brian made his roast chicken with vegetables speciality for them.
During dinner, Brian again said, “I have an announcement to make. Tomorrow night is the Beatles’ last concert, and I want you both to come.” Nat still didn’t believe him, but he agreed that if it was their last he’d want to join Brian and Dizz in San Francisco the next day.
The following morning, after spending the night in the rented house, Dizz went off early to the bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he had left his suitcase. When Brian and Nat arrived at the bungalow later in the morning, Dizz was gone. So were Brian’s and Nat’s attaché cases. Nat’s case contained important business documents, and its loss was a major inconvenience, but Brian’s attaché case was a witches’ stew of enormous ramifications. First, there was his large and questionable supply of pills, obviously the property of a junkie. Then there were half a dozen or so billets-doux containing explicit references to his conquests, along with Polaroid photographs of his young friends. Lastly, there was $20,000 in brown paper bag money skimmed from concert funds to be distributed as a bonus. The revelation of any of these items would make John’s “Jesus” furor seem like an Easter pageant.
Nat had seen Brian through many mercurial moods, but he had never seen him come crashing down so quickly or so hard. It was more than he could deal with that he had been fooled again, that he had been caught in another self-defeating scandal. By nightfall he had turned into a mass of self-loathing, lashing out at anyone who tried to console him. Ironically, he was too heartsick to make it to the Beatles’ last concert.
Nat Weiss insisted that they notify the police, but Brian wouldn’t hear of it. He could not risk the possibility of a scandal. It was better to let Dizz keep the lot, the papers and the money and the pills, than to chance the press getting wind of it. Brian could just see the headlines. “Good riddance to bad trash,” Brian told Nat. The next morning, a little feverish, Brian was on a flight with the Beatles back to London.
By the time he arrived at his Chapel Street town house—for the first time in two months—there was an urgent phone call waiting for him from Nat Weiss, who had returned to New York. Nat had received a blackmail letter at his office from Dizz Gillespie. The note demanded an additional $10,000 in cash for the return of Brian’s photographs and letters. “Pay him the money,” Brian insisted. “Just give him his blood money.” Brian got so agitated that Nat didn’t
press the point, but he had no intention of becoming a blackmail victim himself. Without telling Brian, Nat hired a private detective in Los Angeles and set up a phony ransom rendezvous with Dizz to take place behind the Union Station in L.A. Dizz Gillespie himself didn’t turn up, as Nat had hoped, but sent instead a young accomplice who was easily apprehended by the private detective and turned over to the police. The accomplice led them to the attaché case in exchange for a promise not to press charges. The case still had $12,000 in it but no pills or incriminating letters and photos. Dizz had taken the $8,000 and disappeared.
When Nat informed Brian what had taken place, he was beyond solace. Now he lived under the constant threat that one day Dizz would turn the letters and photographs over to some newspaper. Brian was so despondent that his personal physician, Dr. Norman Cowan, asked me to find an excuse to stay at Chapel Street for a few days, so Brian would not be alone. This suggestion was met with great enthusiasm by Qucenic, who hoped I would be a good influence on Brian.
Influencing Brian, however, was easier said than done. He languished in the house all day, sometimes not even getting out of his pajamas for dinner. His conversation was morbid and nostalgic, that of a man who had given up. He stayed up until dawn every day and then slept until five in the afternoon, avoiding his business responsibilities.
One night, directly after finishing his dinner, Brian disappeared to his room. Since this was not his usual behavior, I checked on him in a half an hour and then again later. Brian was asleep both times, but when he was still in the same position, I tried to wake him. He was out cold. When slapping him didn’t bring him around, I called Dr. Cowan from the phone next to Brian’s bed. Dr. Cowan’s service located him on call in a hospital a good thirty-five minutes away in Richmond. When I described Brian’s color and shallow breathing to Dr. Cowan, he advised that I call an ambulance and take Brian to the nearest hospital, St. George’s, just around the corner from Chapel Street, to have his stomach pumped.
I considered this carefully for a moment and refused. From my experiences with the Beatles, I knew that hospitals and police stations always had a paid informant on staff who would notify the press if any noteworthy personalities turned up. If whatever Brian had taken to put him to sleep didn’t kill him, the publicity the next day would. I made the dangerous and frightening decision not to take him to the hospital. I told Dr. Cowan that I would continue to try to revive Brian while waiting for him to arrive from Richmond.
It took Cowan nearly an hour to get there, and all that time I was not able to bring Brian around. With the help of Dr. Cowan and Brian’s chauffeur, an ex-guardsman named Brian Barrett, we carried Brian out the front door of the house and gently loaded him onto the backseat of his waiting silver Bentley. I followed in Dr. Cowan’s car as the chauffeur drove the Bentley at breakneck speeds all the way to Richmond Hospital, while Cowan kept Brian breathing in the backseat. At Richmond, Brian’s stomach was pumped, and he was put to bed semiconscious.
“What’s the matter with you, Brian? How could you try something like that? You have so much to live for,” I said to him.
“It was a foolish accident,” Brian answered feebly. “I just took one pill too many. I didn’t mean to do it. I promise I’ll be careful from now on.”
But when I returned to Chapel Street that night, I learned it was no accident. On Brian’s night table, next to an empty bottle of pills, was a suicide note I had not noticed before. It said, in part, “This is all too much and I can’t take it anymore.” A short will and testament followed, in which he left his house and business and money to his mother and Clive. I was also a small beneficiary.
The next day I took the letter to Brian in the hospital and confronted him with it. He was grateful I had not told anyone about it, but I had my doubts I was doing him a favor by not showing it to Dr. Cowan. In any event, Brian took the letter from me, saying he was going to burn it. He never did. I guess he thought it might come in handy some other time.
When Brian was released from the hospital, it was decided he should go away for a short time to an exclusive “drying-out” clinic in Putney for detoxification and rest.
chapter Twelve
I think the problem was we underestimated this crazy little Japanese lady.
—Neil Aspinall
1
In the fall of 1966 the Beatles each went their own separate ways. For the four young men who had been locked up together for so long under such extraordinary circumstances, being apart for the first time in nearly ten years was an odd and wrenching experience. They intended to reconvene sometime in December to begin work on a follow-up album to Revolver, but that left four months for them to occupy on their own.25 In a perhaps odd coincidence, although they were apart, they each grew moustaches and longer hair without consulting the others. Suddenly, everywhere you looked young men had moustaches and long hair.
Paul adjusted the best. He found lots to keep him busy. He and Jane were the essence of the glamorous young couple in Swinging London. Too old to still be living in the guest room at the Ashers’, Paul bought his first house. Distinctly unlike the other Beatles, Paul bought an urban house, on Cavendish Avenue in London’s smart St. John’s Wood. It was a square white Georgian minimanse, protected from the street by high brick walls and electronic gates. The old house had three baths, two guest bedrooms and separate quarters for the couple who came to take care of Paul and Jane’s needs. Instead of turning the decoration over to professionals, they decided to furnish it themselves. They took pleasure in shopping for each piece individually, sometimes buying used furniture at secondhand shops and refinishing it themselves. Paul was proud to point out that the Victorian clock on the mantel cost only £7, and the sofa and armchairs, which he had reupholstered in a bottle green velvet, cost only £20 together. Of course, there was also a gleaming bronze Paolozzi sculpture called “Solo” worth many thousands of pounds and an 1851 clock and a collection of Tiffany glass that were priceless. The floors were covered in deep-pile carpets in sedate tones of brown and gray, and Paul’s bedroom, which faced the front courtyard, had a king-size bed covered in Porthault linens, which were changed almost daily by his loyal housekeeper, Rose. Paul also had a closet built that ran the width of the twenty-two-foot room, which he stocked with the latest fashions from King’s Road and the top tailors. In the master bath, completely tiled in imported blue and white mosaics, he had built a sunken tub big enough for two.
Jane also encouraged him to find a hideaway from the world, a place for just the two of them, without autograph-seeking fans or the constant ring of the telephone. Paul purchased High Park, an isolated but beautiful farm in the boggy moors of Scotland. High Park was a very simple place, just an old wooden farmhouse and some barns, surrounded by miles of open fields. No outsiders, not even other Beatles, were invited up for a visit. Paul, it should be noted, was the first Beatle to show any distance or privacy from the others. One rare visitor to High Park was Alistair Taylor, the loyal office manager and general fixer at NEMS. Paul summoned Alistair to High Park so that he could pay a visit to the local pharmacy for him. According to Alistair, Paul had the crabs and needed a pesticide to shampoo with. Being Paul McCartney, the neighborhood celebrity, Paul was too embarrassed to ask the pharmacist in the small town for the pesticide himself, so he sent Alistair. There was also a sense of urgency to this mission, lest Paul give the tiny parasites to Jane, who would most certainly realize he had been unfaithful to her. The town pharmacist was baffled by Alistair’s request. He had nothing for that purpose other than “sheep dip,” which was used to delouse cattle. Paul presumably made do with that.
Paul also persevered with a vigorous self-improvement program. He read, he went to foreign films, he became sophisticated and, in a certain sense, very bourgeois. While the others went on vacation to sunny isles, Paul went on an educational safari to Africa, with Mal along to protect him from lions and cannibals. He also set to work writing a very ambitious motion picture score for the Boulting
Brothers’ new movie, The Family Way, which starred the very popular young Hayley Mills. It was the first solo work by a Beatle.
George Harrison also blossomed once taken out of the vacuum created by John and Paul. As the years passed it had become clear to all of us that as far as John and Paul were concerned, George was only a third-class Beatle, and there was nothing he could do about it. His music was summarily dismissed at recording sessions, and his few songs to appear on Beatles albums were relegated to filler positions. Only his song “Taxman” had been a commercial hit. In public popularity as well, George seemed to be stuck in third place, in a tie with Ringo. The one talent that set him apart from the others was his growing ability in Indian music. Since he had first heard the sitar on the set of Help!, where Hindi musicians were seen playing in one scene in the Bahamas, George had been diligently studying the twenty-one string, guitar-like instrument. It first appeared on John’s “Norwegian Wood” song and then in “Rain,” which closed with one of George’s neo-Indian ragas.
One night at a London dinner party, George was introduced to Ravi Shankar, India’s best-known sitar virtuoso, who was then little known by the Western world. Shankar invited George to come to India to study with him. It marked the beginning of a long, fruitful alliance for the two musicians. In the years to come, George would make Indian music (and Shankar) part of the commercial music mainstream. In October of 1966 the Harrisons left London for Kashmir for a two-month study vacation. They spent the first night at Shankar’s home in Bombay, but the house was surrounded by the inevitable frantic Beatles’ fans, and Shankar and his guests were forced to move out. They lived for the next seven weeks at Shankar’s Himalayan retreat, where George and Pattie studied Indian mysticism and religion, and George worked at mastering the new instrument.
