In My Life: The Brian Epstein Story

Overview

Without the determination, magnetism, vision, good manners, respectable clothes, and financial security of Brian Epstein, no one would ever have heard of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. In Liverpool, in December 1961, Brian Epstein met the Beatles in his small office and signed a management deal. The rest may be history, but it’s a history that Epstein created, along with a blueprint for all pop groups since.

Out of the public eye, Epstein was flamboyant and charismatic. He ...

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Overview

Without the determination, magnetism, vision, good manners, respectable clothes, and financial security of Brian Epstein, no one would ever have heard of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. In Liverpool, in December 1961, Brian Epstein met the Beatles in his small office and signed a management deal. The rest may be history, but it’s a history that Epstein created, along with a blueprint for all pop groups since.

Out of the public eye, Epstein was flamboyant and charismatic. He drank, gambled compulsively, and took drugs to excess. But people remember his wit, charm, and capacity to inspire affection and loyalty. That’s when he wasn’t depressed, or even suicidal. Epstein was Jewish in a society filled with anti-Semitism. He was homosexual at a time when it was a crime to be gay, and from his teenage days to the end of his life he suffered arrests, beatings, and blackmail—all of which had to be kept secret.

This book tells the story of Epstein’s complicated life through the reminiscences of his friends and family. Based on dozens of interviews—with Paul McCartney, George Martin, and Marianne Faithfull, among others—plus many of Epstein’s personal diaries, this book uncovers the truth behind the enigmatic young man who unintentionally caused a cultural revolution, and in the process destroyed himself.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Brian Epstein's death by drug overdose in 1967 cut short a career marked by scandalous secrets and phenomenal success. As manager, Epstein cleaned up the Beatles, gave them cute haircuts and promoted them tirelessly, telling anyone who would listen that they would be "bigger than Elvis" until, surprisingly, they were. Born to an upper-middle-class Jewish household and pushed into joining the family business, Epstein transformed his father's furniture store first into the best music store in Liverpool, then into a music empire. All the while, he struggled with loneliness and unhealthy relationships, forced to hide his homosexuality from the public and always insecure about the motivations of others. This new look at his life (the first since Ray Coleman's 1989 bio, The Man Who Made the Beatles) was culled largely from interviews presented in the award-winning BBC documentary The Brian Epstein Story, directed by Anthony Wall and produced by Geller. The interviewees include people who worked with Epstein, family members and musicians, including Gerry Marsden (of Gerry and the Pacemakers) and Paul McCartney, as well as Beatles producer George Martin and '60s Britpop scenester Marianne Faithfull. Also excerpted here is Epstein's 1964 autobiography, Cellarful of Noise, along with extracts from his unpublished diaries and writings. The anecdotes, presented without commentary in documentary-style quotations, present a complicated, intimate view of his life and the lives he affected. Persistent rumors, such as those suggesting a sexual relationship with John Lennon, are alternately denied and confirmed, leaving some mysteries while shedding light on Epstein's life as a whole. B&w photos. (Dec.) Forecast: This title should get a small boost from the current wave of interest in all things Beatles, particularly from the bestselling Beatles Anthology. The BBC documentary on which this book is based has been featured at several gay and lesbian film festivals this year, which could also increase interest in the book. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
At the height of Beatlemania, Epstein was nearly as famous as the group he managed, yet today he is barely more than a pop music footnote despite defining a new style of manager/artist relations. Television journalist Geller has compiled excerpts from interviews she conducted with 28 Epstein associates for a 1998 BBC documentary (unfortunately, Paul McCartney is the only Beatle included). These voices provide a moving oral biography of the man whose unswerving devotion to the Beatles led to unprecedented fame, which hastened a drug dependency that resulted in his death in 1967 at 33. The book also explores at length Epstein's attraction to dangerous homosexual liaisons, which more than once left him physically beaten and blackmailed. In My Life's real strength lies in the eloquent and brutally honest excerpts from Epstein's own diary, available here for the first time. Recommended as a strong complement to Ray Coleman's The Man Who Made the Beatles (McGraw-Hill, 1989) and Epstein's 1964 autobiography A Cellarful of Noise (Pocket, 1998. reprint).--Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The brief, striking life of Brian Epstein, who made the Beatles"bigger than Elvis" and broke the Liverpool sound worldwide. TV journalist Geller constructs her narrative almost entirely from the recollections of Epstein's circle, which gives the text a cut-and-paste feel common to oral histories. Fortunately, Epstein's story is inherently interesting, resonant with the social turbulence pulsing below the staid surface of the early 1960s. Despite his correct British facade (employees called him"Mr. Brian"), the Jewish, homosexual Epstein felt himself a misfit. He countered by creating elaborate business environments he could control, initially making a surprise success of the family furniture store by diversifying into recordings, showing a keen aptitude for stocking the American pop and roots music that was"cutting edge" in late-1950s Britain, and for predicting hits. He demonstrated singular shrewdness by pursuing the Beatles when they were a little-known"skiffle" act with a silly tough-boy posture, and admirable persistence when he was rebuffed by numerous music executives. Finally, of course, he provoked"Beatle-mania" in 1963—64, inventing many pop marketing tenets along the way. Yet the stress of success was evinced in a growing snarl of lawsuits and Beatle-related controversy; Epstein's demise at age 32, from an apparently accidental overdose of sleeping pills, universally shocked those around him and may have hastened the Beatles' dissolution. Smoothly confident and ingenious in forcing a cultural sea change, Epstein experienced obvious conflicts between his proper, collected public persona and his tormented, rambunctious private life, which included liaisons with"roughtrade"who blackmailed, assaulted, or hustled him. Geller captures Epstein's personality and presents his associates' collective take on the Epstein-Beatles relationship, but since Paul McCartney was the only former Beatle to speak with the author, the portrait of the interplay between the band and the"fifth Beatle" is not intimate. A solid celebration of Epstein's star-crossed life.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780312288624
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press
  • Publication date: 2/1/1902
  • Edition description: REPRINT
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 208
  • Product dimensions: 5.40 (w) x 8.36 (h) x 0.55 (d)

Meet the Author

Debbie Geller lives in New York City and is a freelance television producer and writer.

Anthony Wall has been the series producer of the Arena documentary series since 1985. He lives in London and is an award-winning director and producer of television and radio.

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