AS FOR THE so-called rivalry between [WINS disc jockey] Murray the K and me, first of all, he’s gone. He passed away many years ago. He had a terrible end to his life, so it’s kind of tough to even talk about him.
He called himself “the Fifth Beatle,” and honestly the Beatles did not like that. In many places in the country, in a lot of major markets, there was always a Fifth Beatle. So he hung on to that because he knew it would be a good thing for his career. But it was not official and it was not accepted or appreciated by the Beatles.
I never did that. Never did that, never claimed it. I was just there with them and we had a great time. They appreciated what I did for them and I appreciated them because they really saved the music industry. But that Fifth Beatle thing was nonsense.
I SPEAK TO Paul when he comes to town, he’ll make an appearance on my SiriusXM radio show. So does Ringo. They come on and, you know, we talk and they either come up live or they call me on the telephone.
Paul is a warm, loving human being. He’s a guy who says “Give me a hug.” He’s a terrific guy! I’ll keep calling him “Sir Paul” to his face—I have such a respect for him. But he stops me, saying, “Brucie, it’s Paul.” Ringo’s the same way. They’re both terrific guys.
It was an amazing time and I’m glad that I went through it. There are not actually too many people left who actually felt this amazing energy like I did, and I’m very appreciative.
I was very lucky. I consider myself lucky that I was here at the right time and at the right place because that’s what this is all about. The Beatles were also at the right time and at the right place. And the audience? Well, they were, too. So we’re all very lucky.
There’ll never be another group that gains so much in so little time—by the way, it was only seven, eight years. They had such a huge, international audience! It was just one of those things. We needed it and they had it and they gave it.
Sister Mary Paul McCartney
by Mary Norris
“HEY, MARY!” MY brother Miles hollered from the living room. “Get in here and watch this. These guys are going to be big.” This group called the Beatles was on Ed Sullivan. I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV. It was a big old cabinet model with a nick in the Bakelite rim from the time I crashed into it and chipped my tooth while trying to keep a balloon up in the air. I was twelve years old, and in sixth grade at St. Thomas More School.
Miles, who was five years older than me, was always trying to propel me to the next level. “You’re still playing with paper dolls?” he had said, catching me in the garage with my girlfriends. “You should be listening to the radio and buying singles.”
I was skeptical, but the next day at school every girl in the class had metamorphosed overnight into a full-blown Beatles fan. Even my dorkiest classmates had buttons—“I love Ringo” or “I love George”—pinned to the bibs of their uniforms. Irene, the most precocious girl in the class, had a Beatles button so big that it covered her entire chest, like a shield. I came home from school an avowed Beatles fan. My favorite was Paul.
Miles said that John was the obvious genius, but I stuck with Paul. I soon knew everything about him that it was possible to know. He was sweet and innocent-looking, and had the best voice, and was left-handed and motherless. There was a problem, though. Well, maybe a few problems. There was the age difference: he was ten years older than me, and I couldn’t get married until I was at least eighteen. Meanwhile, he had a girlfriend, a red-haired actress named Jane Asher. (I knew all about her, too. She had played Lady Jane Grey in The Prince and the Pauper.) More worrisome was his religion. I had heard on the radio, in an interview with George’s sister, that Paul was Church of England. I was steeped in Catholicism, and couldn’t imagine a future with Paul unless he converted. So I folded my obsession with Paul McCartney into the liturgical year.
My mother had given me a five-year diary, a small brown volume with a fleur-de-lis motif on the cover, noticeably absent a lock and key. (Was she trying to keep tabs on me?) Digging it out recently, I was impressed not so much by the prose quality (“Lousy day. It rained and ruined the first snow”), or even by the enterprise and diligence that marked my early teens (I have never been as busy as I was when I was in eighth grade), as by the sheer fact that I wrote in it faithfully, four lines a day for five years.
I had no idea what an oddball I was. While I thought I was going forward as a wholesome teenager of my generation—black-and-white houndstooth skirt, green fake-leather jacket—I was actually backpedalling furiously into something like a perpetual girlhood.
January 18, 1965—I made it to Mass and I’m glad, because this is supposed to be an octave of prayer, ending with the Conversion of St. Paul! Y’know what that means! I hope I can convert Paul! This is a perfect chance!
January 25, 1965—(Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul) Nothing happened yet. Testa wrote in my math book, “Roses are red ‘vilets’ are blue sugar is sweet so I love you. stuff that in your Pipe and smoke it.” Wow! He’s okay but I prefer Paul McCartney.
Paul Testa was the ugliest, baddest kid in class—fat, gap-toothed, crazy eyes, greasy hair—but if he really liked me I would be tempted to reciprocate. I was fat and self-conscious, but hopeful that someone would see my inner beauty. Every night, after kneeling beside my bed to write in my diary (naturally, I kept it under the mattress), I would will myself to dream about Paul McCartney. The closest I came to an erotic fantasy was picturing Paul behind me in line at the Dairy Queen.
I truly believed that God heard my prayers. I had lavished on my mother a spiritual bouquet—the promise of hundreds of rosaries and dozens of Masses—and I was deep in spiritual debt. The very day after I switched back to praying for her instead of Paul, a potential buyer appeared for our old house, a family property that my father had been trying to unload for years. Now I could concentrate on Paul with a clean conscience. I scoured the meager resources available to me—the Cleveland papers, Time, 16 Magazine—looking for some item about Paul McCartney, some sign from God that He would advance my special intention. A year later, I was still at it:
January 24, 1966—Mon. Tomorrow’s the conversion of St. Paul. Gosh, but I’m gonna pray!
The high-water mark of my twin obsessions came in the summer of 1966. I was in eighth grade, verging on fourteen, and the Sisters of the Incarnate Word were doing their best to funnel us girls into Catholic high schools. Sister Andrew had chosen my best friend, Mary Jo, and me to be on a panel about vocations. “Religious, that is!” I wrote (February 1, 1966). “Sister thinks I’m interested in a religious vocation.” The thing that appealed to me most about being a nun was getting to change my name. The main thing that worried me was having to get up early in the morning. But I had an idea that I might be popular in the convent. In the outside world, or at a public high school, I would have to dress up and try to attract boys, but in the convent, or for the next four years at an all-girls school, I could avoid all that.
“If I’m ever a nun I’ll be named after St. Paul,” I wrote. “I’ll only be a nun if I don’t marry Paul.” I liked the name Sister Mary St. Paul. My father’s middle name was Paul, so no one would suspect that I was actually taking the name of Paul McCartney, the guardianship of whose soul would occupy me for eternity. (It wasn’t until decades later that I began to suspect that Paul and the convent were smokescreens. The man I was really dedicated to, and didn’t know how to let go of, was my father.)
That spring I was engaged in a protracted battle with Dad to let me go to Lourdes Academy, a Catholic girls’ school where all my friends were going: Mary Jo, Patsy, Connie, and even Irene, in her coveted John Lennon cap. Dad didn’t want to pay tuition if he could send me to school for free, and he didn’t want his daughter to be a churchy girl. He had refused to let me study Latin in a special Saturday class when I was in fifth grade, and when my piano teacher suggested I train to be a church organist, he said, “No dice.”
On a spring day in 1966, secular a
nd religious events converged to lift my spirits:
March 17, 1966—Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! We went to Mass at the Cathedral & Bishop Elwell gave me Communion. That ring! . . . The parade was great. Dad said hi to us. [We were Irish, of course. Dad marched with the fire department.] And Locher lifted the Beatle ban!
Ralph Locher, the mayor of Cleveland, had banned the Beatles after their first tour, in 1964, when fans had stormed the stage at Public Auditorium. I didn’t go—even if I had been able to scrape up $7.50 for a ticket, my father would never have let me go downtown alone at night. Irene had gone, but her father was dead.
On Tuesday, May 3, 1966, it was announced that the Beatles were coming back to Cleveland and would play at the stadium on August 14. That the concert fell on a Sunday was auspicious: maybe Paul would come to the eleven-fifteen Mass at Thomas More!
As graduation approached, my father relented and said I could go to Lourdes. The nuns had given me a scholarship, which demolished his argument about the tuition.
My diary reflects my excitement as both of my projects shifted into high gear:
May 4, 1966—Weds. Sister thinks I’m gonna be a nun. How am I supposed to know?! Two nuns congratulated me on the scholarship. Me, Connie, & Mary Jo finally talked to Sister tonight. She’s great!
May 8, 1966—Sun. We went for a ride & that was fun. I’m trying to win Beatle tickets. I’ve got to go! I’m really gonna go on a diet & get pretty & meet Paul this summer.
The tickets were going on sale at the stadium at nine o’clock in the morning on Saturday, May 21. My best friend, Patsy, was going to stay overnight at my house the Friday before, and we would get up early and take the bus downtown. My parents didn’t encourage us to invite friends to stay overnight, or let us stay overnight at our friends’ houses, a policy I never understood. Anyway, I finagled it—caught Dad in a good mood and framed it so it made financial sense.
That Friday night, Dad took us all out to dinner at the Flat Iron Café, in the Flats. The special was a fish fry. I hated fish (it would be a year before Catholics were no longer compelled to eat fish on Friday) and was relieved that I could have macaroni-and-cheese. My mother said, “I had to tee-hee when I thought of that Patsy telling her father we took her to a beer joint.” My father was at his most gracious. After dinner, he gave us a tour of the bridges over the Cuyahoga River.
May 21, 1966—Sat. I’m dead tired. Stood out in the pouring rain for over 5 hours. Got a ticket, though. I think I’ll be on Paul’s side.
Patsy and I got seats in the lower deck: Section 27, Row 10, Seats 16 and 17. I was familiar with the stadium, because I was a baseball fan—the old stadium was huge, and the Cleveland Indians, those perennial losers, could never fill it up; the Cleveland Press gave free tickets to anyone who got straight A’s—so I knew that our seats were on the left-field side.
Irene was way ahead of us in line—she had been there all night. (She called herself Rinny now, and she had given a British name to her dog, Geoff, which we all, Irene included, pronounced in what we thought was the British way: GEE-off.) Her seat was probably down on the field.
Thus began the long vigil:
May 22, 1966—Sun. . . . Can’t wait till Aug. 14!
June 5, 1966—Sun. The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. They were OK, but they should’ve changed the order of songs & should’ve not worn those dopey glasses. Paul looked sweet but like he chipped his tooth.
June 17, 1966—It’s Paul’s birthday right now & I heard that he bought himself (as a birthday present, the dope!) a farm in Scotland. Man, would I love that!
July 3, 1966—Sun. . . . Finished a letter to Paul which is pretty good.
July 9, 1966—Sat. Took a bath & the works & I’m gonna be different tomorrow. Skinny! We’ve been sorta mad at Connie lately, but who cares. I’ve got to get a job. And I’ve got to meet the Beatles.
July 19, 1966—Tues. Jinxed the Indians. They lost. . . . Race riots on the east side. Civil War II on the way.
World events rarely intruded into my diary (I allotted half a line to the death of Winston Churchill), but my father’s fire station was on the East Side, and that summer, when his company responded to an alarm in the Hough district, rioters threw bricks and stones at the firemen.
Dad was already a bigot, and now he was mad. Downtown Cleveland was about halfway between where we lived—on the West Side, near the zoo—and the slums. Downtown was black. I knew that Dad would give me a hard time about being there at night after the concert.
Then an earth-shattering revelation:
July 20, 1966—Wed. Paul really did chip his tooth! What’d I tell you! I love him more than ever! And I’m gonna write him a letter & tell him so! He flipped off his motorbike & had to get stitches in the mouth! Sweet.
July 21, 1966—Thurs. . . . Wrote Paul a letter. I keep thinking about his tooth!
The chipped tooth was a big deal to me. I had been devastated when I chipped my own tooth against the TV that time. I’d never seen a Miss America contestant with a chipped tooth, so there went that fantasy. My mother took me to our ancient dentist, but he declined to cap it or do anything cosmetic. (Electroplating, if it had been invented, was not in his repertoire.) “But I can’t go through life like this!” I wailed. “Oh, I think you can,” the dentist said.
July 26, 1966—Tues. Went swimming. I am too darn fat! I’ll never make a hit with Paul. (I love his tooth!) Mary Jo got a postcard from Sr. Andrew. Gotta brush my hair.
Around August 4, John Lennon made his famous remark about the Beatles’ being bigger than Jesus Christ, and the Beatles were banned in the Bible Belt. The furor soon died down, but the fact that religion had come up during the Beatles’ tour gave me new hope as Paul set out on the road to Cleveland. I boldly committed to my diary my most fervent desire. “I wish Paul would tell him off, the Beatles would break up, & Paul would enter a seminary,” I wrote. “Now you know!”
The next ten days were a frenzy of devotion. I listened to the radio religiously. Paul won a Favorite Beatle Contest, beating John by five hundred votes. My favorite disc jockey, Jerry G, was going to interview him when he was in Cleveland. Revolver came out, and “Eleanor Rigby” was issued as a single, with “Yellow Submarine” on the flip side. I watched for sightings of Paul on the news, redid my bedroom door with fresh pictures of my one and only, babysat to earn money to buy film and flashcubes to take pictures at the concert. My father would be working that night, and if there were no fires or riots he was going to pick Patsy and me up in the chief’s car and drive us home. The chief’s car could get through anything.
August 13, 1966—Sat. Made $3 at Aber’s house. Nice people & kids! You know what tomorrow is! I can’t wait! Paul is gonna sing “Yesterday.” I’m gonna stay up all night reading & waiting for the Beatles’ arrival & writing Paul a letter!
Certain that Paul would be feeling hemmed in by the constant travel and the strain of being on tour, I invited him to dinner. If Jesus Christ could rise from the dead, Paul McCartney could come to Sunday dinner, and my mother could put something decent on the table. Chatty and confidential—I felt free to be myself with Paul—I gave him precise directions.
All he’d have to do was catch the 81 bus on Prospect Avenue, across the street kitty-corner from Public Square. The bus stop was in front of a lingerie store called Mamselle, which was next to a nut shop that sold roasted cashews. He would need correct change. I apologized to Paul for the dreary route. Sometimes it seemed to me that the 81 took the longest possible route to our neighborhood, covering every street on the West Side that wasn’t served by some other bus. Scranton, Storer . . . I dreaded to think of Paul on these soulless thoroughfares. But I wanted him to see the real Cleveland.
I explained to him how the boring part would be over once the bus had made a major right turn onto Denison, and then a quick left onto Ridge. He’d pass Zayre’s on the left, where I shopped for fabric; a doughnut shop in the shape of a crown; and a bowling alley, where my first bowling score
had been a humiliating nineteen (lots of gutter balls). Coming up on the left was a storage facility for telephone poles (it reeked of creosote), and then he should watch on the right for Merhaut Flowers and pull the cord to let the driver know he was getting off. Our stop was on the far side of the green bridge: Orchard Grove. He’d have to cross Ridge and walk up one block, to the Phillips 66 station, then turn left onto Meadowbrook. We were the seventh house on the right, a white colonial with green shutters. We ate at six.
I knew what hotel they were staying in. Perhaps I could hand the letter to a policeman to pass along to Paul?
On the evening of the concert, Patsy and I dressed in our Sunday best. I had on a panty girdle and my Easter outfit (without the hat and white gloves). I had the letter in my purse, along with my ticket, my Brownie camera, and a dime to call my father.
Revolver was playing—“For No One”—as we found our seats. The stage was on the pitcher’s mound, impossibly far away, but the girl next to me let me use her binoculars, and for one ecstatic moment they brought me right up to Paul McCartney’s feet.
I rarely exceeded the four lines provided for an entry in my diary, but on this occasion I spilled over into 1967:
August 14, 1966—Sun. Wild scene! 5,000 kids, I was almost one of them, stormed the stage & the show was stopped. It was terrific, though! They had dark green suits & yellowish-green shirts. Paul was lovely. He sang “Yesterday” & almost everyone shut up! He waved & everything & stood behind a pole! We were far away, but in some girl’s binoculars he was close-up & man is he a doll!
When everyone stormed the stage, Patsy turned to me and said, “Should we go?” “I don’t know,” I said, staring straight ahead. I had turned into a pillar of salt. We stood at our assigned seats as everyone around us surged forward. That night, I later read, John Lennon said backstage that this would be their last tour.
The Beatles Are Here! Page 8
