When They Were Boys (44 page)

“Brian had just lost his father,” Flannery explains. “There was no one closer to him than his mother, Queenie, and there is no way in hell that he would have taken his life, knowing that he would have left her with the mountains of paper that took so long to clear up his estate. I had helped the family sort out all the transactions. I know what an ordeal that would have been.”

He adds, “I knew Brian inside and out. He never would have inflicted that kind of punishment [his own suicide] on his family. Never ever, even though his life was filled with conflicts. He loved his mother so much.”

Freda Kelly, the former personal secretary, aide, and fan club coordinator, says, “Brian was a lot of things. There is no Beatles without Eppy. He was a tough boss. He wanted perfection. He was a man who could be self-destructive, but he was not a man who would ultimately self-destruct. His love for his mother was so intense that he would never have committed suicide.”

Brian's earlier life was a series of frustrations. He experimented with different jobs, in the mid-fifties, with limited results. Family lawyer Russ Makin watched the awkward transition from teenager to young adult, and although troubled by Brian's anxiety, found his emerging personality to be refreshing.

“He certainly wasn't conventional . . . and wasn't usual. It was as if he was trying to break out of himself and take an uplift. He had enthusiasm and sudden bursts of flights of fancy, but he really wasn't very stable . . . rather like a butterfly. Butterflies are very colorful, as well as floating, and don't settle for very long at any one object.”

Makin's description magnifies the years of searching, longing for direction. After a stint in the army as a draftee, Epstein attended three terms at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. His classmates included Peter O'Toole, Albert Finney, and Susannah York. Although he was enamored of theaters, acting would not suit him, although his sense of drama played out very well in his negotiations for the boys' early record contracts.

Returning to Liverpool from London, and impacted by the broadcasts of rock 'n' roll on Radio Luxembourg, Epstein became a director of the family business NEMS (North End Music Stores). He was an active seller of records, and although a fan of classical music, he became more and more
interested in the pop-music scene. There are conflicting stories of what led to his meeting with the Beatles. The most common is the visit by a young man, Raymond Jones, on October 28, 1961, asking for a copy of “My Bonnie,” a song the Beatles recorded with Tony Sheridan in Hamburg. That visit, it is said, caused Epstein to inquire about the Beatles.

But the truth is simple: Epstein had been selling young Bill Harry's
Mersey Beat
in the NEMS store, a publication that had lionized the Beatles. The contradiction between his sudden “discovery” and the much earlier notice of them remains today. Harry,
Mersey Beat
's publisher, is convinced that Epstein had to know about the band when the fever was spreading.

“I mean,” Harry insists, “I mean, he was selling records and there was absolutely no way he could not have heard of the Beatles.”

Harry's truth is confirmed by real events. When he came around to Brian's record store, Harry convinced Epstein to buy a dozen copies of
Mersey Beat
. That was issue number one, July 6, 1961. By issue number two, Epstein ordered twelve dozen. In a few weeks, Brian Epstein began working, freelance of course, as a record reviewer at
Mersey Beat
. It was great for business.

“He was aware of every group in town,” Harry says.

The sequence of knowledge is undisputed. And
Mersey Beat
, which owned the collective minds of the fans and hundreds of would-be stars, holds the real story.

In the famous issue number two, a photo of the Beatles was featured on the entire front cover. Epstein did indeed purchase 144 copies of the publication to sell in his store. Issue number three featured deejay Bob Wooler's dramatic eyewitness account of the Beatles, plus an advertisement for NEMS, Epstein's business, on the same page.

By August 1961, Epstein, an avid reader of
Mersey Beat
, would have had a difficult time ignoring the decisive column written in those early days.

Bob Wooler, the deejay at the Cavern, waxed poetic about the young, raw Beatles. He reported, “I don't think that anything like this will ever happen again.”

In the 1970s, John Lennon set the record straight. He told me, “It is rubbish that Brian didn't know who we were. We were in
Mersey Beat
. People
were talking. The first Hamburg stories were all around. He knew us. But he had yet to see us.”

John had to be correct. Was Epstein oblivious to the buzz about the sexy boys with the amazing backbeat, or just indifferent?

The stories of Epstein's “discovery” will no doubt persist. But one thing is certain. Brian Epstein first
watched
the Beatles at noontime in the Cavern on Mathew Street on November 9, 1961. He visited them backstage, enjoyed a lunch with his assistant, Alistair Taylor, and is quoted by Taylor as calling the Beatles “tremendous” that day. Taylor was not impressed, but Epstein didn't care.

The contract offer for Epstein to manage the Beatles came in two months, but in the meantime, Epstein called Allan Williams to make sure they were, indeed, free to sign. Williams was frank. He told Epstein not to “touch them with a fucking barge pole.” Williams was angered that some money, earned in their performing dates in Hamburg, had been held back from him.

“I'll tell you,” Williams says, looking at me with intense eyes and a flash of sarcastic anger, “we had a commission dispute. I was happy to be rid of them. Then and now, the Beatles were users, and once they used a person, they discarded them.”

It didn't bother Epstein, who was leery of Williams's attitude toward the group, that Williams claimed to have discovered them. One thing you have to give Williams: he did indeed give them their first break. He did take them to Hamburg. He did watch for their health, and he proudly, in a book and throughout the decades, has proclaimed that he was the man who gave them away. And Epstein seemed happy to take them off his hands. Like all of history, versions pile up quickly, especially in a town where one's turf is sacred and protected ground.

In characteristic Liverpool fashion, where one rarely holds back one's feelings, Sam Leach proclaims Williams less of a manager than a promoter.

“Brian Epstein was the first real manager,” Leach states. “Allan Williams was an agent. He was almost a manager. Allan got them to Hamburg. The six-hour shifts held the band together. Hamburg is what made them. But Brian Epstein was the first real manager. And although he could be
unlikable, what he did for them . . . was . . . I would say . . . truly amazing.”

Leach looks across the St. Albert's dock, as the waters from the Mersey, mere ripples, splash rhythmically. He sips his beer and wistfully says, “I taught Epstein a lot.”

“You did?” I ask.

“Yes.”

Then his expression changes from wistful to gloomy. He looks at me and adds,

I
WAS THE ONE WHO GAVE THEM AWAY
. T
RULY
, I
KNEW
. T
HEY PLAYED FOR ME IN 1961
. M
Y ROLE WAS PROMOTING SHOWS
. E
VENTUALLY
I
WANTED TO MANAGE THEM . . . AND WAS TRYING TO
. I
T WAS CLOSE BETWEEN ME AND
E
PSTEIN
. I
TOOK THE
B
EATLES TO
L
ONDON, TO THE
A
LDERSHOT
. T
HE SHOW BOMBED, AND THAT DAY ONLY EIGHTEEN PEOPLE CAME IN BECAUSE THE ADVERT NEVER WENT IN THE PAPER
. O
N THEIR WAY BACK THE FOLLOWING DAY
, I
BELIEVE, IS WHAT MADE THEM DECIDE TO GO WITH
B
RIAN AS MANAGER
. T
HEY FIGURED THAT WOULDN'T HAPPEN WITH HIM
. I
SHOULD HAVE SIGNED THEM
. B
UT
B
RIAN DID
. F
OR THAT, HE DESERVES THE CREDIT
. B
UT HE HAD SOME ASSETS THAT
I
DIDN'T HAVE
.

“Assets?” I ask.

T
HE
L
IVERPOOL
I
RISH ACCENT IS WHAT
I
HAVE, WHICH DIDN'T GO TOO WELL IN
L
ONDON
. B
RIAN HAS THE ACCENT OF
M
ICHAEL
Y
ORK, THE ACTOR
. I
T WAS VERY DISTINCT, POLISHED
. V
ERY CONTROLLED, VERY MEASURED, AND VERY SUAVE
. H
E WAS EDUCATED AND REFINED, ALL OF THAT
. A
LSO, HE WAS
J
EWISH AND GAY, AND THEY WERE TWO BIG INS IN
L
ONDON
. A
T THAT TIME THERE WAS SO MUCH SNOBBERY IN
L
ONDON AMONGST THE
A
SIANS, AND THAT'S WHAT GOT HIM IN
. I
T WORKED FOR HIM, WE'LL JUST SAY THAT
. H
E WOULD HAVE TO HIDE THE GAY THING IN
L
IVERPOOL
.

As Epstein moved quickly on the Beatles, there were those who tried to talk him out of it.

Allan Williams, a newcomer to Epstein, had punctuated his bad review of the boys by calling them “poison.” But Epstein, trusting his own instincts,
went into fast-forward with aggressive intensity.

There were barriers. More than three sources, who wish to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, have quoted Jim McCartney telling his older son about his concern for doing business with a Jewish businessman. That would be so unlike Jim McCartney that it remains unbelievable to many who knew him. But the mood of the day and the times suggested that a blatant anti-Semitism was part of Liverpool society, as much as the bitter and sometimes emotional divide of Catholics and Protestants in Liverpool.

Paul McCartney, for his part, was uncharacteristically subdued at the boys' meeting with Epstein that sealed the deal. But in subsequent years, his admiration and respect for the boss was clear and vocal. His assertion that Epstein was the “fifth Beatle” was repeated on many occasions.

The deal meeting was on December 3, 1961. Paul was taking a bath and arrived seventy minutes late—his nonchalance about that first business meeting was never explained. But after calling Paul at home, and Paul telling Epstein he was in the bath, the sometimes intensely serious businessman replied, “He is quite late.”

George responded, “Yes, but he is clean.”

George's humor, in my time with him, and throughout his career, was always a relief in tense situations.

That meeting and two subsequent sessions—on December 6 and 10—sealed it. And it was the leader, John Lennon, who nodded in favor of Epstein and said, “Give me the contract. I will sign it.”

So three years and six months after the rendezvous at Woolton, the first real Lennon-McCartney connection, Brian Epstein inherited the rough-and-tumble foursome. Epstein's prediction that the children of the millennium would be enjoying the Beatles came true. He never lived to see that, but the time he spent with the boys, a mere five and a half years, would pave their road with gold and glory. No, he never witnessed the blessing of the Beatles to cultural immortality. But the failed actor, nervous soldier, socially conflicted young businessman, and delightful fantasist would find his date with destiny, his true calling: the twenty-three-month race that would propel them to the top.

And how did Epstein succeed? The once-shy, introverted young man had somehow developed a talent that is, for the most part, difficult to define—a sense of understanding of what people want. Maybe it was the experience on the stage, or the contact with music fans at NEMS. But he was, in the words of early and lifelong Beatles friend and world-class record promoter Tony Bramwell, a master, by the age of twenty-seven, of personal communication.

Bramwell's mother was so impressed with Epstein that she looked the other way when her mid-teen son traveled with the band, at Epstein's request, in a van for hours, returning from concerts a hundred miles away in the middle of the night. She admired Epstein, and so did he.

“He was classy, well dressed, knowledgeable, and educated. Brian would talk to you like you had something to contribute,” Bramwell remembers. “He didn't belittle you. He had a way about him.

“He was very intelligent in dealing with people—a consummate businessman. People paid attention when he walked into the room. But they liked him, respected him. He didn't evoke fear, just respect.”

Epstein had the respect of the boys and their faithful, but his management prowess, never challenged in those special early days, was tested by flawed contracts and inadequate security that led to great dangers on the American tours. But in the first flush of success, his leadership was incalculable. And more than any one factor, his belief in their potential was a driving force.

That absolute belief was always part of Epstein's message, which, while sitting next to me on that awkward evening at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he made very clear.

“Although I had never had anything to do with pop artists, and this was a new world to me, I never thought that they would be anything less than the greatest stars of the world.”