All About the Beatles

Today they love BTS. We loved Paul, John, Ringo and George

Last Saturday night I watched the BTS concert on Netflix along with 19 million other people, including my cousin, who’s not young, but is a devout fan of the K-pop group. She once told me that BTS helped her get through her Covid depression. That’s a fan.

I thought they were cute. Frankly, they reminded me of the Beatles. Not their music, which is sort of jangly rap, but their youthful sweetness and, most of all, the look of adoration on the faces of their fans. The thousands of girls screaming in Gwanghwamun Square reminded me of the thousands of girls screaming outside the Plaza Hotel when the Beatles hit New York in 1964. My cousin told me that BTS immediately had all 14 top spots on Spotify’s Daily Top Song Chart. Well, on April 4, 1964, the Beatles had the five top spots on Billboard’s Top 100 Chart, a never equaled feat.

We needed the Beatles when they came to America two months after Kennedy was assassinated. We desperately needed to be cheered up. Their arrival was a big story, especially in my household. At that time my husband was the Chief American Correspondent for the London Daily Mail. He had covered Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. He had stood behind Oswald when he was shot. He needed to be cheered up, too, with a big positive American story,

A couple of months before they arrived, few people in America had heard about the Fab Four though they were already topping the charts in England. Their manager, Brian Epstein, came to New York and convinced Ed Sullivan, whose Sunday night television variety show was already a ritual in most homes to put them on. Sullivan, by coincidence, had been at Heathrow Airport in late October that year when a crowd of 1,500 Beatles fans was on hand, welcoming the group back from a performance in Sweden.

At that time British musicians had not done well in America, but Sullivan sensed perhaps this long-haired band was different. Oddly enough, the first news report about the growing popularity of the Beatles was scheduled to run on Walter Cronkite’s CBS News on the night of November 22. Of course, it was preempted. In that interview, which was finally broadcast later in December, the Beatles were asked if they were concerned that their fans might get tired of them. A very young John Lennon replied, “It could happen tomorrow.” While Paul said, “Or it could last quite a while.”

Capitol, the Beatles’ American record company, did not intend to release any of their music until just before the Sullivan show slated for February. But American disc jockeys got copies of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the British top charter, and started playing it. Fans wanted to buy the single, and Capitol began pressing copies in a hurry and started a $40,000 promotional campaign, “The Beatles Are Coming,” which was a lot of money at that time.

I went to Bennington College which had winter work periods, partly because the school was based on John Dewey’s philosophy that education should be practical. And partly because it was a way to avoid heating the school during those cold Vermont mid-winter months. During one of my Bennington work periods, I’d been an editor at a small magazine for teenagers called Datebook. It was run by a sweet gay guy named Arthur Unger out of his one-bedroom apartment. He published an issue of the magazine whenever he could get enough money to pay the printer. My mother worried that I was always in Arthur’s bedroom. No problem at all. Arthur had me interview teenage B-list celebrities. I remember interviewing Leslie Uggams with her mother. Leslie is on The Gilded Age.

Leslie, isn’t it nice that we are both still here?

Arthur was smart. He had heard about the Beatles early, too. So, he bought the rights to all the features about the group that the London Evening Standard had published and produced a one-shot called All About the Beatles. He borrowed money to get it on newsstands across the country. It changed his life, making a fortune for him. He bought a three-bedroom apartment in the East Village, came out, found a boyfriend, and truly lived happily ever after.

Photo credit Harry Benson

Of course, my husband Jeffrey, along with hundreds of other reporters, was at the airport the morning the Beatles arrived. In Harry Benson’s famous photo of the Fab Four getting off the plane, he’s in the crowd of waiting journalists. Jeffrey went to the “Ed Sullivan Show” on Sunday night to watch them. He went to the two performances they gave at Carnegie Hall the next day at 7:30 and 11:00 in front of adoring, hysterical fans. The girls left the seats soaking wet after each show, a detail reporter at the time were simply too delicate to note. All of New York was gripped with Beatlemania. Jeffrey filed front-page story after story.

He also went with them to Washington, D.C., on the train. They were being honored at the British Embassy. The Beatles were friendly to the British press then. I still have a photo of all four that each signed — something to take for an appraisal if I ever get to “Antique Roadshow.” Then he went with them to Miami. It was the Beatles’ R&R in the sun and on the beach. I joined him there. In mid-February, the hotels were so crowded we ended up sleeping in a cabana by the pool at the Fontainebleau.

Frank Sinatra was the big-name entertainer at the hotel. We went to see him perform. The Beatles didn’t. Sinatra was furious. The club where he was singing was almost empty. He told the audience he hated being there. It was probably some long-time mob obligation. He said he was counting the days till he could go back to California and made some dismissive cracks about the Beatles. It was a short, sad show. We were watching one generation leave very grudgingly while another took over.

The Beatles went to see Cassius Clay, who was training nearby for his bout with Sonny Liston. The Beatles didn’t know who he was. Clay, not yet Ali, didn’t know who they were. Harry Benson convinced the group to take some photos with the boxer. The most famous photograph shows Clay knocking them all out. John Lennon never forgave Harry for that photo.

At that time the Beatles gave a glow to everything British. My husband and I went to England a couple of times while the group was still together and recording. London seemed the hippest place on earth. I did all the things you were supposed to do in London then –– had my hair done at Vidal Sassoon, bought a Mary Quant dress on Carnaby Street. Unfortunately, my hair was too curly for a Sassoon geometric cut, and I was too curvy for a short Twiggy-type dress. Still, I tried.

I once flew back from an assignment in Europe in first class with John Lennon. I was sitting next to a monsignor who desperately wanted his autograph. “Ask him,” I suggested. It took hours for the priest to build up his courage. But, over the Atlantic, John said no.

Ringo and Paul are still around and very nice. Ringo was on the cover of AARP Magazine, and the readers loved him. The girls who bought those Billboard’s top five singles still love them all. Just like the girls in Gwanghwamun Square who’ll remember that night and BTS the group they love which was part of their young lives. Both my granddaughter and my grandson know many Beatle songs. I have walked with my grandson, singing together, “Hey Jude.” One year he bought me Beatles socks for Christmas. I wear them now to bed on cold nights.