The Beatles (84 page)

“
In Liverpool, when you stood
on the edge of the water you knew the next place was America,” John said much later, but the romance of the States had been with him since childhood. To that restless, rebellious Woolton boy “
with a mess of ideas
rattling around his head,” everything that spoke to him was out there, somewhere over the western horizon—in America. Brando, the Beat poets, rock ’n roll: he’d long since fallen under their spell. But with America now only minutes away, it may have been too much for John to deal with.

He took a deep breath, an uneasy look crossing his ruggedly handsome face, and glanced around at the cabin full of reporters, photographers, friends, and hangers-on who had attached themselves to the Beatles’ entourage: the ever-chummy Maureen Cleave of the
Evening Standard,
who’d emerged in recent weeks as the boys’ pet flack; Harry Benson, the pesky
Daily Express
photographer, a talented man although something of a nuisance, to whom Pan Am had reluctantly given permission to shoot pictures exclusively throughout the flight; George Harrison, the
Liverpool Echo
’s unlikely-named columnist, who for years had stubbornly refused to write a word about the Beatles; and Phil Spector, as high-strung as a Pomeranian, and as paranoid, who booked himself on the same flight as the Beatles because, as George recalled, “
he thought we were winners
and he wouldn’t crash.”

Brian, as smooth as a diplomat, had stashed the bulk of the entourage in the 707’s economy cabin, where the less genteel couldn’t badger the Beatles. George, especially, wanted to be left alone; he’d been fighting off some queasiness that the boys initially dismissed as butterflies but was developing rather progressively as a case of the flu. Moreover, there were too many stowaways aboard, British manufacturers who had booked seats on Flight 101 in order to corner the Beatles with far-fetched pitches.
Since just after takeoff
, they’d been dispatching a stewardess to first class every few minutes, to display various products and ask for endorsements. It never failed to amaze the boys what they came up with. All kinds of cheap junk were already being produced to cash in on their name: night-lights, clocks, sweaters, pillows, scarves, pens, bracelets, games, any number of Beatles wigs, which had become a silly rage. And now here was the chance for even more.

When they were passed to him, John regarded each item as he might a dirty sock, holding it by the edge with two fingers. That stuff had never interested him much, although he had some vague appreciation for the income it produced. From time to time Brian took pains to reassure the
Beatles that nothing would be licensed that might embarrass them. Besides, all John could focus on at the moment was the next ten days in New York—and not being embarrassed by
that.
“
Going to the States was a big step
,” Ringo admitted. The prospect of it, the significance, had made him “a bit sick,” too, although by the time they were descending into New York, Ringo was in full party mode.
Paul was also overheard
confiding in Phil Spector about his own misgivings, although they were soon interrupted by word from the cockpit. As Paul remembered it: “
The pilot had rang ahead
and said, ‘Tell the boys there’s a big crowd waiting for them.’ ”

As the plane taxied toward the gate, the Beatles scrambled over one another to get a better view of the scene unfolding outside at the terminal. Everywhere they looked it was wall-to-wall kids.
Shouts—whoops and cheers
—erupted inside the plane, and for the first time since London John’s face broke into a beautiful grin. “Just look at that!” one of them whispered hoarsely, his voice fighting the collision of relief and delight. American fans had been gathering there since early morning, whipped up by New York’s most famous radio deejays broadcasting live from the airport.
All day they had been urging listeners
to head there, playing Beatles records every few minutes and offering prizes: Beatles wigs, sweatshirts, and photographs. As a result, it was a bigger crowd than Kennedy International Airport had ever experienced. “
Not even for kings
or queens,” according to an official at the gate. The
New York Times
reported that “three thousand teenagers stood four deep on the upper arcade of the International Arrivals Building… girls, girls and more girls.” From the plane, you could see them jumping up and down, percolating, much in the manner of their British counterparts. Police, using every bit of available muscle, leaned their shoulders into barricades, fighting to hold the kids in check, but as the plane shut off its engines it looked like a losing battle. Every so often a nervy girl threw herself over the thicket of navy blue uniforms like a running back against a goal-line stand, only to be pushed back behind the uprights. One older bystander suffered a mild heart attack, and according to the
Daily News,
“
some punches were exchanged
as the fans fought for better views.”

As the boys stood by the aircraft door, grinning and gaping at the crowd, waving at random, a radio commentator breathlessly struggled to give an account of their expressions: “
As far as I can tell
, the four Beatles are standing at the door of the aircraft almost certainly completely and utterly in shock. No one, I mean
no one,
has ever seen or even remotely suspected anything like this before!”

“
We had heard that our records were selling
well in America,” George recalled somewhat disingenuously (sales had hit 2.6 million singles in roughly two and a half weeks), “but it wasn’t until we stepped off the plane… that we understood what was going on. Seeing thousands of kids there to meet us made us realize just how popular we were there.” The Beatles were beside themselves with joy.

For security purposes, the Beatles circumvented Customs on their way to a press conference in the ground-floor lounge of Pan Am’s Arrivals building. More than two hundred reporters and photographers were crammed into the room, jostling for position and firing questions even as the boys were led through the door wearing identical dark overcoats and carrying flight bags.

Commandeering a microphone, Brian Sommerville, the band’s new press officer, attempted to broker peace by initiating an orderly hands-up policy for questions, but it was to no avail. Minutes flew by as tempers grew more heated and voices snarled. Neither side was about to give the other any satisfaction. “
All right then
.
Shut up!
” he barked. “Just shut up!”

“Yeah, yeah, everybody just
sharrup,
” said John, the first official words from a Beatle on American soil.

A stunned press gallery fell silent, then broke into applause. Just like that, the Beatles had snatched the upper hand from the hard-core pack of reporters and never really gave it back. Whatever the press expected from these boys, they were completely unprepared for what they were about to get.

“
Will you sing something
for us?” a reporter shouted over the racket.

“No!”
all four Beatles shouted in unison.

“We need money first,” John shot back. The impertinence of it sent approving snickers through the crowd.

George was asked about the group’s ambition, and without missing a beat, he said, “To come to America.”

“What about you, Ringo? What do you think of Beethoven?”

“I love him,” he said, “especially his poems.”

“Are you for real?”

“Come and have a feel.”

“Some of your detractors allege that you are bald and those haircuts are wigs. Is that true, John?”

“Oh, we’re all bald—yeah. And I’m deaf and dumb, too.”

“What about the movement in Detroit to stamp out the Beatles?”

Unruffled, Paul smiled and said, “We have two answers to the Detroit students who want to stamp us out. We’ve a campaign of our own to stamp out Detroit.” That drew appreciative laughter, distracting attention from his “second answer,” which, though never stated, was implicit.

There were the usual questions about their hair, the origin of the band’s name, and how long they felt the phenomenon would last, all of which the boys handled with off-the-cuff wit and flair. The New York press corps, which had expected awkward, faltering teenagers, was delighted; the Beatles were irresistible, they made great copy. Paul, who still had the mike, couldn’t resist one last crack. “We have a message,” he announced, grinning, as the room suddenly fell silent, notebooks poised, cameras pointed. “Our message is: buy more Beatles records!” That did it! Everyone in the room broke out laughing at what the
New York Times
dubbed the “
contagious… Beatle wit
.” According to its reporter on the scene: “Photographers forgot about pictures they wanted to take. The show was on and the Beatle boys loved it.”

As the press conference broke up, George spotted an elfin man with a pencil-thin, crooked grin wearing a brightly patterned madras sport coat and straw boater squeezed into the front row of reporters. “
Hey, I dig your hat
,” he said. “Yeah, right, you can have it,” the man said, flicking it off with a thumb.

Even without the hat, Murray Kaufman had a prepossessing demeanor that compelled attention. Physically, he was slight, but a streak of brashness and self-importance added to his stature. He had that frantic New York aura about him, a real live wire, with a penetrating crinkly-eyed stare that served a multitude of emotional purposes. As “Murray the K,” he was a well-known radio personality, handling the prime-time evening show, from six o’clock until ten each night, on WINS, a top pop station. His voice reached from one end of New York to the other and deep into Connecticut and New Jersey, a seemingly endless spray of magpie chatter as it spun circuitous webs around the pop hits of the day, light news, commercials, and marginalia, all thickened by a style that Murray referred to as “my shtick.”

And right now Murray was positively glowing with excitement. The Beatles had “done a number on [him],” taken him by surprise. He couldn’t get over their collective sense of humor and the way they’d handled the hard-boiled press corps. It was a welcome turn of events, considering he had come to the airport against his will. At the end of January, Murray had
been in Florida, on a vacation that was supposed to extend to the end of February. That was where Joel Chaseman, WINS’s program director, found him and ordered him back to New York. “
The Beatles are coming
,” Chaseman told him. In October a copy of “She Loves You” had crossed Kaufman’s desk, and thanks to some strong-arming by Swan Records’ promotion man, Murray entered it in the “Swingin’ Soiree,” his nightly record-review roundup. Incredible as it seems, the Beatles came in third—a distant third. Even so, Murray was determined to give them a shot. “I played their record for about two and a half weeks,” he recalled, “and nothing. No reaction.” There was no way he intended to interrupt his vacation for the Beatles, and he told Chaseman as much. “Then he sort of insisted and put my job on the line.”

Murray had been waiting for an opening since the press conference swung into gear, and now he got one from George big enough to drive his massive personality through. “
Who
are
you?
” George wanted to know.

“I’m Murray the K,” Kaufman shouted back, giving it that special seductive twist.

George grinned wolfishly. “Hey, this is Murray the K,” he announced, calling over the other Beatles. The Beatles loved disc jockeys, especially those who played their records. Murray immediately went into his “rap,” a long-winded self-promotion that inflated his hipness and influence, and for twenty minutes he had the very hot, exclusive Beatles virtually to himself. They even invited him back to their hotel for a party that would serve as Murray’s scoop.

But first they had to escape. As Nora Ephron reported in the
New York Post,
“
the Beatles were lifted
bodily by two policemen each, and each young man was placed and locked in his own Cadillac limousine.” A handful of girls actually threw themselves at the Cadillacs, she wrote, “and were led, briefly sobbing, from the parking lot.” Securely inside the cars, each of the Beatles watched the familiar scene unfold outside, albeit this time with a stunned fascination. The whirlwind at Kennedy had happened without any warning whatsoever; not even Brian had prepared them for such a reception. “
I remember… getting into the limo
and putting on the radio,” Paul recalled, “and hearing a running commentary on
us:
‘They have just left the airport and are coming towards New York City….’ It was like a dream. The greatest fantasy ever.”

It came as quite a shock
to officials at the posh Plaza Hotel, just off the southeastern edge of Central Park, when it was discovered that several guests, Mr. J. Lennon, Mr. P. McCartney, Mr. G. Harrison, and Mr. R. Starkey—all holding reservations booked routinely under their own names—were, in fact, those same Beatles splashed across the news. And by the time they found out, it was too late to do anything about it.

The boys checked in a little after four o’clock, and from then on the hotel fell under siege. Hundreds of fans showed up simultaneously, causing gridlock. A throng of girls clogged the cut-through between Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Streets that doubled as the Plaza’s entrance; others swarmed over the fountain and statue in the tiny arcade along Fifth Avenue or took up position on the sidewalk adjoining the park. It had taken some quick work to move the kids off the front steps and secure the side doors. Those found wandering the halls were also ejected. Before long there were dozens of blue police barricades in place and horse patrols circling the block.