Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan (67 page)

Ed, now apparently feeling the awesome weight of anticipation, shifted back and
forth from foot to foot, projecting even more discomfort than in his usual stage unease. As he launched into his introduction, he bobbed forward stiffly, as if he was an old pugilist preparing to throw a late-round knockout punch.

The showman ran pell-mell through his cue card, dropping almost as many syllables as he pronounced:

“Now yesterday and today our theater’s been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation and these veterans agree with me that the city has never witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves the Beatles”—at this point he refused to pause even for a moment, knowing that if he did the barely constrained volcano might erupt before he finished—“Now tonight, you’re going to twice be entertained by them—right now, and again in the second half of our show. Ladies and gentlemen…
the Beatles! Let’s bring ’em out!”

Ed let his voice get carried away with the excitement, swooping his right arm in a roundhouse gesture toward stage left—who says this man is wooden?—and the studio audience experienced spontaneous combustion, giving voice to a full-throated primordial shriek expressing some otherworldly frenzy, equal parts romantic longing, lust, and sheer amazement that such creatures as inhabited the stage actually existed.

The camera panned over this female teenage riot, bouffants and pageboys shaking, arms akimbo and mouths agape, then settled on the Beatles, who, after Paul’s brisk count off, snapped into the mid-tempo “All My Loving.” Dressed in matching Edwardian suits with white shirts and ties, equipped with carefully coiffed mop tops, they appeared closer to terminally cute than revolutionary. The set had a mod look, with oversized white arrows pointing toward a center performance area, bathed in light from above. In the middle of this cleanly geometric stage, bobbing their heads in time to the music, it appeared possible the foursome might be aliens from another planet designed to drive earthlings batty. Paul smiled and sang lead, shaking his bangs with boyish charm, George and John crooned harmonies, and Ringo managed to look cool and goofy at the same time. The music was all but drowned in audience screams through much of the song, but it didn’t matter; the foursome’s buoyant energy proved able to break through every barrier, social or musical, put before it.

After their first number, they paused only briefly for a bow before beginning the sweet “Till There Was You.” In mid song the camera lingered over each member in turn, superimposing his name (during John’s section it read “Sorry girls: he’s married”). From this ballad the group jumped into “She Loves You” (“she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah!
”). This, finally, was really rock ’n’ roll—fast insistent energy, the beat a rapid foot tapper, and they played it like joyful demons, three minutes of exuberant youthfulness, all about love and sex and having a good time. John smiled along with Paul as they belted out the melody. Being young had never seemed so attractive, so unbound by what came before. In the time it took to play three pop songs, America made a tectonic shift toward being a youth-oriented culture. As “She Loves You” ended, the studio audience kept shrieking like the theater was on fire—which, in a sense, it was.

Ed was to bring back the Fab Four for two more numbers, but first the studio audience had to behave itself through the other acts—such a difficult task that Sullivan
interrupted his next introduction to demand quiet, papering over his pique with a small smile as he reminded the audience of its pledge of good conduct.

Following the Beatles was tuxedo-clad magician Fred Kaps, who did card tricks and—like magic—poured salt endlessly out of a small salt shaker; the cast from the Broadway musical
Oliver!
(including Davy Jones, who later fronted the pop group the Monkees) reprised two numbers; impressionist Frank Gorshin portrayed the White House staff as if it were peopled with actors (Gorshin went on to play the Riddler in the
Batman
TV series); Tessie O’Shea, an ample-girthed grand dame of English cabaret, wielded a copious fur boa while razzmatazzing show tunes—“This is gonna be sexy!” she warned; the comedy duo McCall and Brill rambled through a routine about casting calls. Then, after a commercial for Kent cigarettes, Ed, visibly relaxed, reintroduced the Beatles with a huge swiveling arm gesture: “Ladies and gentlemen,
once again!
”

Proving that, remarkably, they could top even themselves, the band galloped through “I Saw Her Standing There,” Paul and John tossing off sexy yowls while smiling in unison and shaking their matching mop tops. As the Beatles kept jouncing in time to the music, the studio audience’s excitement kept escalating in cascading, vibrating waves. Watching from the control room, Bob Precht remarked: “
I don’t believe this—this is unreal.” Then the Beatles destroyed the last remnants of feeble resistance with their current number one hit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” with Ringo driving the steady backbeat, and John, Paul, and George giving the song a big ending by bobbing their guitars in choreographed rhythm. The boys, after taking their customary bow, walked over and shook Mr. Sullivan’s hand, each flashing a big smile as he did so. Speaking would have been impossible amid the hail of screeching, so the emcee sent them offstage with a nod of his head. The British Invasion had just begun, but the American surrender was already unconditional.

As Ed opened the following Sunday’s show, broadcast from Miami’s Deauville Hotel, he was in obvious high spirits. His introductory remarks explained his ebullience: “Last Sunday, on our show in New York, the Beatles played to the greatest TV audience that’s ever been assembled in the history of American TV.” Ed’s boast was correct. The Sullivan show’s Nielsen ratings in the early to mid 1960s hovered in the twenty-three to twenty-five range, meaning its typical audience was close to forty million viewers a week, or somewhat less than a quarter of the country. Surpassing even this gargantuan figure, the Beatles debut was a blowout. Its Nielsen rating of 44.6 translated to 73.9 million viewers—the largest audience in television history at the time.

“Now tonight, here in Miamah Beach”—he never pronounced the city’s name correctly despite traveling there annually for decades—“again the Beatles face a record-busting audience.” His statement wasn’t quite correct; this evening’s Nielsens would indicate an audience of seventy million, just a tad down from the prior Sunday’s. Still, the skyrocketing ratings were making Ed almost giddy. As the crowd began murmuring at his mention of the Beatles, he held up his hands and bellowed “Wait!” but his high-beam grin appeared so happy the audience responded with a big chuckle. “Ladies and gentlemen, here are four of the nicest young people we’ve ever had on our stage—
the Beatles, bring ’em on!”

While Ed was speaking, the band had been struggling to get onstage. Shortly before showtime, they took the elevator down from their hotel rooms, only to see an impenetrable crowd of fans blocking the stage entrance. They tried to get through politely, without making any headway, finally breaking through with the assistance of a phalanx of Miami police. As Sullivan staffer Bill Bohnert remembered, Ed finished his introduction, “
Just as Ringo was sitting down and picking up his sticks.”

Clad in matching light-colored Edwardian suits, the band vaulted into a foot-tapping “She Loves You.” If the week before the group had been charged with energy, now their performance felt freer; apparently having passed the audition allowed them to enjoy playing to its fullest. Paul almost danced along with the backbeat as John happily bobbed in time. After only a moment’s pause they slid into the romantic “This Boy.” Although the band was at its freest, the Miami audience was more subdued than the previous week’s. A camera pan of the audience revealed why: much of the twenty-six-hundred-member crowd was middle-aged. As the
Miami Herald
reported, “
The oldsters outdid the kids in mobbing
The Ed Sullivan Show.
A man in a white dinner jacket threw a wicked right at a young usher. A grandmother hammered a head with her high heels in her hand.” To end their set, Paul said hello in his charming cockney accent and promoted the band’s new album, then sang lead vocal on the up-tempo “All My Loving,” with sweet harmonies by John and George.

Outside the theater, some Sullivan crewmembers found themselves in danger. Hundreds of teenagers, unable to get inside, spotted the broadcast control truck parked in back of the theater. As Bill Bohnert remembered, “
The door of the truck was open, and I looked out just as I saw a wave of people coming … they came roaring
toward the truck, and I slammed the door shut just as this wave literally hit the truck—you could feel the truck shake.” The vehicle kept rocking back and forth as the mob attempted to find some way to watch or hear the broadcast.

Paul McCartney getting Sullivan’s autograph. McCartney and John Lennon had long dreamed of playing the Sullivan show. (Globe Photos)

Rehearsal for the Beatles’ second Sullivan show appearance, February 16, 1964. (CBS Photo Archive)

After the Beatles’ first set, Ed introduced two famous boxers in the audience; the switch from rock ’n’ roll to boxing felt incongruous, yet it was Sullivan’s standard format. Reigning heavyweight champion Sonny Liston stood and waved happily, while 1940s-era champ Joe Louis managed only a dour smile. Then Ed brought on comedy team Marty Allen and Steve Rossi, who bantered in a vaudeville-style routine in which a reporter interviews a boxer:

Rossi:
Would you say you’re the best fighter in the country?

Allen:
Yeah, but in the city they murder me.

Rossi:
Who taught you to fight?

Allen:
Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray, and Elizabeth Taylor.

Following the comics was a singer who would have been this evening’s headliner if the Beatles had bombed the prior week, leggy Hollywood chanteuse Mitzi Gaynor. In a blond bouffant and accompanied by four tuxedoed dancers, Gaynor shimmied through “Too Darn Hot,” changing up the mood with a sultry cocktail ballad, finishing with a brassy blues medley that ended with “When the Saints Go Marching In.”