How the Beatles Really Ended Up at a Garden Party in Brentwood

Unpublished photos of the Beatles are increasingly hard to come by, but Alison Martino found a few taken in Los Angeles to twist and shout about.

My friend Laura Fleming and I were teenagers when we first pored over images of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in her family’s photo albums back in the ‘80s. I remember fixating on a snap of Laura’s mother, Bonnie Cowan Fleming, getting chummy with Paul and members of the band’s entourage at a garden party in Brentwood in 1964. She looked like Gidget in a polka dot dress from Jax boutique in Beverly Hills. Laura and I were so jealous. 

Bonnie hadn’t attended that garden party by luck. Laura’s grandfather, Warren Cowan, was the cofounder of Rogers & Cowan, a publicity firm that once counted Hollywood legends like Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, Natalie Wood, and Elizabeth Taylor as clients. The company added the Beatles to that list during the band’s first trip to America.

Decades later—and with a little help from my friends—I’m thrilled to make the Cowan’s family photos and the story behind them public for the first time. 

By: Alison Martino

Source: Los Angeles Magazine

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