He Managed The Beatles and They Couldn't Manage Without Him

“I thought for a long time there was no room for me in writing about the Beatles,” says British journalist and author Philip Norman. “So many millions of words have being written about the Beatles. How could there possibly be room for me?”

Yet the fates conspired to have Norman write not just one, but four Beatles-related tomes: Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation (1981), and biographies of John Lennon (2008), Paul McCartney (2016), and George Harrison (2023). Now, he’s onto his fifth book about the Fab Four, but has skipped over Ringo Starr (“Ringo would not be a book, really; a ‘booklet,’ I think, in Ringo’s case”). Instead, he tackles the life of the group’s ill-fated manager, Brian Epstein, in Mr. Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles.

Epstein’s story is as remarkable as those of the Beatles’ own band members. He was from a prosperous family, albeit in provincial Liverpool, running what was billed as “The finest record store in the North [of England]” when he fell under the Beatles’ spell. Then, through sheer determination and a sizeable dose of luck, he managed to get them a record contract, sending them on their way to worldwide fame.

Polite, soft-spoken, and immaculately groomed, Epstein stood in stark contrast to the stereotypical view of a brash, cigar-chewing rock band manager. But he was also a highly conflicted person; Jewish at a time when casual antisemitism was normalized, gay when it was illegal and brought risks of assault, blackmail, and a prison sentence. Epstein, Norman shows, coped with these mounting anxieties through an increasing, and ultimately fatal, use of alcohol and drugs.

Source: bookandfilmglobe.com/Gillian G. Gaar

Read More<<<