A BEATLES' HARD-DIE'S SITE


Manchester Dressing Room Interview (1963 August 28)

The Beatles pondered their past, present and future during this insightful dressing room interview filmed by BBC-TV. The interview footage was first broadcast in Britain during October 1963 as part of a BBC documentary entitled, "The Mersey Sound."


John: "The best thing was (Love Me Do) came to the charts in two days. and everybody thought it was a fiddle because our manager's stores send in these... what is it... record things."

George: "Returns."

John: "Returns. and everybody down south thought 'Oh, aha! He's buying them himself or he's just fiddlin' the charts,' you know, but he wasn't."

George: "Actually we'd been at it a long time before that. We'd been to Hamburg. I think that's where we found our style... we developed our style because of this fella. He used to say, 'You've got to make a show for the people.' and he used to come up every night, shouting 'Mach schau! Mach schau!' So we used to mach schau, and John used to dance around like a gorilla, and we'd all, you know, knock our heads together and things like that. Anyway, we got back to Liverpool and all the groups there were doing 'Shadows' type of stuff. and we came back with leather jackets and jeans and funny hair - maching schau - which went down quite well."

John: "We just wore leather jackets. Not for the group - one person wore one, I can't remember - and then we all liked them so it ended up we were all on stage with them. and we'd always worn jeans 'cuz we didn't have anything else at the time, you know. and then we went back to Liverpool and got quite a few bookings. They all thought we were German. You know, we were billed as 'From Hamburg' and they all said, 'You speak good English.' (smiles) So we went back to Germany and we had a bit more money the second time, so we wore leather pants - and we looked like four Gene Vincents, only a bit younger, I think. (smiles) and that was it, you know. We just kept the leather gear till Brian (Epstein) came along."

Paul: "It was a bit, sort of, old hat anyway - all wearing leather gear - and we decided we didn't want to look ridiculous going home. Because more often than not too many people would laugh. It was just stupid. We didn't want to appear as a gang of idiots. and Brian suggested that we just, sort of, wore ordinary suits. So we just got what we thought were quite good suits, and got rid of the leather gear. That was all."

(Next, the topic of discussion turned to the present fame of the group, and the sudden glare of media attention.)

George: "We do like the fans and enjoy reading the publicity about us, but sometimes you don't realize that it's about yourself. You see your pictures and read articles about George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul and John - but you don't actually think 'Oh, that's me. There I am in the paper.' (smiles) It's funny. It's just as though it's a different person."

Ringo: "When we go home, we go in early in the morning when we've finished a job, and the kids don't know you're at home. But if they find out, where I live, they get the drums out and beat it out! (laughs) 'Cuz it's a play street and, you know, there's no traffic or nothing bothering them. Once when the boys came for me - they popped in to see me Mum and me Dad, you know - we had to go out the back 'cuz there were twenty or thirty outside. and they wouldn't believe me mother, you know, knocking and saying 'Can we have their autographs.' So it built up so much. There was about two hundred kids all around the door, peeping through the window and knocking."

(Beatles giggling)

Ringo: (laughs) "In the end, me mother was ill, you know - terrified out of her life - with just all these kids and boys and girls, you know."

George: "They send us alot of Jellybabies and chocolates and things like that, just because somebody wrote in one of the papers about presents and things that we'd had given to us. and John said he'd got some Jellybabies and I ate them. But ever since that we've been inundated. We get about two-ton a night. (smiles) But the main trouble is they tend to throw them at us when were on stage. (laughs) and, uhh, once I got one in my eye which wasn't very nice. (holds finger to eye) In fact I haven't been the same since."

John: "It all sounds complaining, but you know, we're not. We're just putting the point that it affects your home more than it does yourself, you know, because you know what to expect but your parents and family don't know what's happening."

(The Beatles were then asked what they saw in their own future, and how long their fame might last.)

John: "'How long are you gonna last?' Well, you can't say, you know. You can be big-headed and say, 'Yeah, we're gonna last ten years.' But as soon as you've said that you think, 'We're lucky if we last three months,' you know."

Paul: "Well, obviously we can't keep playing the same sort of music until we're about forty - sort of, old men playing 'From Me To You' - nobody is going to want to know at all about that sort of thing. You know, we've thought about it, and probably the thing that John and I will do, uhh, will be write songs - as we have been doing as a sort of sideline now - we'll probably develop that a bit more we hope. Who knows. At forty, we may not know how to write songs anymore."

George: "I hope to have enough money to go into a business of my own by the time we, umm, do 'flop.' (laughs) and we don't know - it may be next week, it may be two or three years. But I think we'll be in the business, either up there or down there, for at least another four years."

Ringo: "I've always fancied having a ladies hairdressing salon."

(Beatles giggling)

Ringo: (undeterred) "You know, a string of them, in fact! Strut 'round in me stripes and tails, you know. 'Like a cup of tea, Madam?'"

Beatles' Wives - 3: Maureen Tigrett/Starkey

From SEVENTEEN:

she's on a month long holiday with a Beatle And MAUREEN's DAD SAYS 'WHY NOT?'


She is attractive, wonderful company... and sweet seventeen.
And he is... well HE is Ringo Starr, the Beatles drummer, the pop idol, and heart-throb of thousands of girls.
And they are on a month-long holiday together in the tropical magic of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies.
Even in this with-it age, the golden age of the teenager, is it the kind of holiday most parents would like for girl of 17?
The father of Ringo's friend, trainee hairdresser Maureen Cox, has no qualms about his daughter's holiday.
He said at his council flat in Boundary -street, Liverpool: "Maureen is a sensible girl and well able to look after herself. I cannot see her gettting into any kind of trouble."
Maureen's father, Mr. Joe Cox, 50, did not know his daughter was 5,000 miles awayon a Carribean cruise until he read a newspaper report.
He said: "Maureen told me she was going with Ringo for a few days in London.
"But it really didn't come as a surprise to my wife or myself when we learned she was half-way across the world.
"In any case it would have made no difference. I would have given my permission to go anyway."
Maureen met 23-year-old Ringo at Liverpool's famous Cavern Club two years ago.
Mr. Cox said: "Ringo and my daughter are nothing more than friends."
Sharing the holiday happiness with Ringo and Maureen are fellow Beatle Paul McCartney,21, and his friend actress Jane Asher, 18.



Ringo's Wife Shy, Quiet
By EDDIE GILMORE

London, England - The eighteen year old wife of Ringo Starr - one of the world's best known bridegrooms - is one of the world's least known brides.
Maureen Cox, or Mrs. Starr, is a small, shy girl of few words.
Since her Feb. 11 wedding to the Beatles' off beat drummer, her public utterances have been about as rare as signatures of Button Gwinnet, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independance.
Mrs. Starr will not grant interviews.
"She doesn't want to get mixed up with publicity," said a spokesman for the mop headed musicians, "and Ringo doesn't want her to, either."
A search of the records indicates that Mrs. Starr (real married name Mrs. Richard Starkey) has spoken only a few scentences in public, all in answer to reporters' questions.
Her declarations were made in the flowerless back yard of a seaside villa in Hove on the English Channel, where she and her husband agreed to meet the press on the second day of their three day honeymoon.

Learning to Cook
Even as she spoke, she nervously clutched her 24 year old husband's hand.
Here's the record:
QUESTION: "Has Ringo changed since you met him three years ago?"
ANSWER: "No."
Q. "Have you missed Ringo when he's gone away on tours?"
A. "He went away but he always came back to me."
Q. "Do you agree with marriage?"
A. "Yes."
Q. Do you expect to have children?"
A. "Yes."
Q. "How many?"
No answer, but Ringo said: "Maureen hasn't made up her mind."
Q. "Are you enjoying your honeymoon?"
A. "Yes, but I don't like the publicity."
Q. "Can you cook?"
A. "No." But Ringo said, "She's not bad. She's learning."
Q. "Where did you meet Ringo?"
A. (Very softly) "I can't remember."
Earlier in the news conference, Ringo had said they met at Liverpool's Cavern Club where the Beatles got started three years ago.
Q. "Where are you and Ringo going to live?"
A. "I'm not really fussy where I live - providing it's with Ringo."
Q. "How does it feel to be married to a man that millions of girls all over the world would like to marry?"
No answer.

Born Mary Cox in Liverpool, she began calling herself Maureen shortly before she met Ringo.
By trade she was a hairdresser.
Maureen looks a lot like a Beatle herself.
SHE HAS AS MUCH HAIR as Ringo, Paul McCartney, George Harrison or John Lennon. Like the Beatles, Maureen wears bangs that flop downward almost to her eyelashes. She wears her ears exposed as do the Beatles. Shapely in the right places, she's about 2 1/2 inches shrter than Ringo and he stands about 5 feet 7. Her education is not extensive, for she stopped school at the age od 15. That's when she met Ringo.
Will Ringo's marriage affect The Beatles? The Beatles don't think so. John Lennon, who is, perhaps, the most articulate of the musicians said:
"You're bound to loose a few fans - the ones who believe that one day they might marry you." Jhn is the other married Beatle. His wife is Cynthia and he keeps her out of the limelight.
"I DON'T THINK IT'LL really affect our popularity," Lennon went on. "There might be a reshuffling of fans from one Beatle to another - at least that's what happened when I got married, but now they seem to carry on as if I'm not married."

BBC Radio 'Pop Chat' Interview (1963 July 30)

This brief interview with the Beatles was recorded on July 30th 1963 by the BBC, and was later aired during the month of August on a program segment entitled, 'Pop Chat.' The Beatles were interviewed by BBC Radio's Phil Tate. The Fabs were in London during a two-day break in their busy performing schedule.

Q: "Our guests this week on 'Pop Chat' are The Beatles - John, Paul, George and Ringo. Let's start off with you, Ringo. Everybody knows that the Beatles are a Liverpool group, but were you all actually born in Liverpool?"

Ringo: "Yes, every one of us."

Q: "Are you keeping your homes in Liverpool, or do you plan to move into London, or anything like that?"

Ringo: "I don't think any of us are moving. We must have a base in London, you know, because we're there more than we are in Liverpool at the moment. But we're not moving our houses."

Q: "John, over to you for a minute. You do alot of songwriting of late. Do you always work as a team?"

John: "Well, mainly. All the better songs that we have written - the ones that anybody wants to hear - those were co-written."

Q: "Do you write the words and music together, or does one of you write the words?"

John: "Yeah, well... Sometimes half the words are written by me and he'll finish them off. We go along a word each, practically."

Q: "Did you write your new record release?"

John: "Uhh... 'She Loves You'? Yeah."

Paul: "Yeah."

John: "We wrote that two days before we recorded it, actually."

Paul: "We wrote it in a hotel room in Newcastle."

Q: "This brings me to a question from one of your fans. How did the distinctive hairstyle come about?"

George: "Well, umm... I don't think any of us had been bothered with having haircuts, and it was always long. Paul and John went to Paris and came back with it - something like this. and I went to the baths and came out with it like this."

Q: "Another fan was anxious to know how you manage to get any private life. I mean - If you take a girl out, how do you avoid being recognized, Paul?"

Paul: "Uhh, I don't know... just sort of run."

Q: "Now, John, I know you have very little time for anything but music at the moment. But if you had spare time - What sort of hobbies and sports do you enjoy?"

John: "Well, none of us are very sporty, you know. The only sport we do bother with is swimming. We don't count it as a sport, but... and hobbies are just writing songs."

Lucy who inspired Beatles song 'seriously ill'

The woman who inspired The Beatles' song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is seriously ill, according to John Lennon's son Julian.

For years it was thought the song was an ode to hallucinogenic drug LSD, but it was later revealed that Lucy O'Donnell, a nursery classmate of Julian's, was the muse.
As the story goes, one day Lennon was picking Julian up from nursery when his son showed him a picture he had drawn of a girl surrounded by starlike shapes.
But according to Julian, Lucy, now 46 and Mrs Vodden after marriage, is suffering from the chronic auto-immune disease where the body's defence system begins to attack itself, causing damage in joints and organs.

Speaking ahead of a new exhibition of John Lennon memorabilia, Julian said: "I've been able to help out a bit. I was so upset to hear what had happened."
Julian sent her flowers to her home in Surbiton, Surrey, as well as garden centre gift vouchers when he learnt she found peace in tending to plants.
Mrs Vodden, who has only seen Julian once since their childhood, 23 years ago at one of his concerts, said: "It was lovely of Julian".

Since Lennon was murdered in 1980, Julian, who has had his own successful musical career, has spent £1 million buying up a collection of his father's possessions.
Although he has previously spoken of the anger her felt about the breakdown of their relationship, Julian, 46, says "there is nothing but love now."
He and his mother Cynthia will appear together at a ceremony later this month when he will lend his collection to the Beatles museum in Liverpool.
The collection includes hand-written recording notes by Sir Paul McCartney of Hey Jude, originally written as Hey Jules to console then five-year-old Julian during his parents' divorce. The whereabouts of Julian's drawing of Mrs Vodden is unknown, although it is thought it could be worth at least £250,000.

By Chris Irvine
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009

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