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How one man's advance planning brought Beatlemania to America
How one man’s advance planning brought Beatlemania to America
Brian Epstein, the Beatles’s 29-year-old manager, spent months engineering “Operation U.S.A.,” a strategy for massive stateside success
By Glenn Frankel
February 4, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EST
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https://wapo.st/3ubjutT
The Beatles arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Feb. 7, 1964. (Cbs/Getty Images)
On Feb. 7, 1964, the Beatles stepped down the narrow jet stairs of Pan American Flight 101 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York into a mob of thousands of shrieking youngsters who welcomed them to America like conquering heroes.
And, indeed, over the next two weeks, they made three TV appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” to record-breaking audiences, gave sold-out concert performances at Carnegie Hall and the Washington Coliseum, triggered saturation-playing of their hit songs on AM radio stations throughout the country, and staged a series of news conferences in which their cheeky humor outwitted and disarmed the press corps in New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami.
Brian Epstein, who managed the Beatles, attends a recording of “Late Scene Extra” on Nov. 25, 1963, at a television studio in Manchester, England. (Bob Thomas/Getty Images)
Commentators were so lost for words to describe the power of what was happening that they fell back on natural phenomena, using terms such as “whirlwind,” “tidal wave” and “cultural earthquake.”
But the Beatles’ conquest of America, which began 60 years ago this week, was a man-made event. And the man most responsible was the band’s suave, self-confident 29-year-old manager. Brian Epstein seldom gets the credit he deserves, in part because he was gay in an era when British law still deemed homosexual acts a crime, and in part because he was Jewish, which British society largely disdained. But also because the Beatles, who were often coldhearted when it came to money matters, badmouthed his business acumen after his death in 1967.
{snip}
Glenn Frankel, The Post’s former London bureau chief, is writing a book about Brian Epstein and the rise of the Beatles.
Share
https://wapo.st/3ubjutT
Brian Epstein, the Beatles’s 29-year-old manager, spent months engineering “Operation U.S.A.,” a strategy for massive stateside success
By Glenn Frankel
February 4, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EST
Share
https://wapo.st/3ubjutT
The Beatles arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Feb. 7, 1964. (Cbs/Getty Images)
On Feb. 7, 1964, the Beatles stepped down the narrow jet stairs of Pan American Flight 101 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York into a mob of thousands of shrieking youngsters who welcomed them to America like conquering heroes.
And, indeed, over the next two weeks, they made three TV appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” to record-breaking audiences, gave sold-out concert performances at Carnegie Hall and the Washington Coliseum, triggered saturation-playing of their hit songs on AM radio stations throughout the country, and staged a series of news conferences in which their cheeky humor outwitted and disarmed the press corps in New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami.
Brian Epstein, who managed the Beatles, attends a recording of “Late Scene Extra” on Nov. 25, 1963, at a television studio in Manchester, England. (Bob Thomas/Getty Images)
Commentators were so lost for words to describe the power of what was happening that they fell back on natural phenomena, using terms such as “whirlwind,” “tidal wave” and “cultural earthquake.”
But the Beatles’ conquest of America, which began 60 years ago this week, was a man-made event. And the man most responsible was the band’s suave, self-confident 29-year-old manager. Brian Epstein seldom gets the credit he deserves, in part because he was gay in an era when British law still deemed homosexual acts a crime, and in part because he was Jewish, which British society largely disdained. But also because the Beatles, who were often coldhearted when it came to money matters, badmouthed his business acumen after his death in 1967.
{snip}
Glenn Frankel, The Post’s former London bureau chief, is writing a book about Brian Epstein and the rise of the Beatles.
Share
https://wapo.st/3ubjutT
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