Fact #98531
When:
Short story:
On Pan-Am flight PA-101, The Beatles fly into Kennedy Airport, New York City, USA, for their first visit to the USA. After being greeted by 5000 screaming fans, they book in at The Plaza Hotel on Central Park.
Full article:
Dick Fontaine (researcher, Granada tv) : One night at the end of 1962 I went to The Cavern Club to hear some jazz. When I got there they produced Lennon and McCartney to talk to me. Some one at the club had said to them, 'A bloke from the telly's coming.' It was the week Ringo joined the band. John and Paul said, 'Come back and hear us', so I did, and I thought, 'Aha, here's my first film.'
(A year later) I called an avant-garde film-maker, Ricky Leacock. He thought it was a dumb idea but suggested Albert and David Maysles. I phoned them in New York on a Wednesday, and Friday the band arrived. I asked them to start filming when the plane landed, and I met them there.
(Source : https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.beatles/9uHq6p-9geI)
George Harrison : I remember Phil (Spector) was so paranoid about flying that he cancelled his flight and booked on the same flight as us because he thought we were winners and he wouldn't crash.
Ringo Starr : We did all feel a bit sick that first time. We always did, though we never showed it, before anything big. We'd felt a bit sick before the Palladium Show. Going to the States was a big step. People said just because we were popular in Britain, why should we be there?
George Harrison : We had heard that our records were selling well in America, but it wasn't until we stepped off the plane in New York that we truly understood what was going on. Seeing thousands of kids there to meet us made us realize how popular we were there.
Albert Maysles (documentary film-maker) : They (Granada tv) said The Beatles were arriving in two hours at Idlewild airport, New York and would we like to make a film about them. We raced down to Idlewild. We ended up spending four or five days with them.
Kennedy had been killed just two months before. The children of America were in trauma. That had a huge amount to do with what happened with the Beatles there. It was phenomenal, other-worldly.
Albert Maysles (film-maker) : You could really film people's events and experiences without imposing yourself with lights and tripods and unwieldy equipment. We were paying attention to people's lives as they were lived. We stuck to our principle of not trying to change anyone's behaviour.
George Martin : It's difficult to describe just how crazy those tours were. Everybody wanted to touch, feel, be near, smell, see The Beatles in some or another. When they first broke in America, they stayed at the Plaza in New York and the whole of that square outside was blocked, they had to divert the traffic. Wherever you turned your dial at any time of the day, you heard a Beatles song. Wherever they went, the media would fight - literally, hit each other - in order to muscle in.
Chet Huntley (NBC-tv presenter) : The four English musical stars with their pudding-bowl haircuts were greeted by about 4,000 shrieking teenagers at Kennedy Airport and mobbed by another large group of juveniles when they got to the Plaza Hotel. All day long, some local disc jockeys had been encouraging truancy with repeated announcements of The Beatles’ travel plans, flight number and estimated time of arrival. British journalists tell us that the record company had sixteen press agents handling the arrival, but we wouldn’t know much about that. However, like a good little news organisation, we sent three camera crews to stand among the shrieking youngsters and record the sights and sounds for posterity. Our film crews acquitted themselves with customary skill and ingenuity. The pictures are very good but someone asked what the fuss was about, and we found we had no answer.
(Source : http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/what-you-dont-know-about-beatles-u-s-debut-n24171)
Geoffrey Ellis (friend of Brian Epstein] : The whole scene was extremely surrealistic. The Beatles were all sitting round with transistor radios in their ears, listening to their records playing and watching themselves on television at the same time.
Mike Hennessy (journalist, Today magazine) : In The Beatles' suite at The Plaza, I took over telephone duty for twenty minutes and felt like a tycoon. Offers for appearances were pouring in from all over the States, on name-your-own-price terms. Teenage girls were running up fantastic bills for long-distance calls.
Frank Sinatra : I thought The Beatles would die in New York. I was very surprised by the reaction they got. I guess I was wrong.
Sid Bernstein : They were fun guys, absorbing it all, curious - even ashamed - at all the attention they were getting in America. They didn't expect it. They were kind of overwhelmed by it all.
Don Henley (The Eagles) : When The Beatles came along in the '60's, it completely changed my life and I knew I wanted to be involved in music. I said, "This is it!"
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(A year later) I called an avant-garde film-maker, Ricky Leacock. He thought it was a dumb idea but suggested Albert and David Maysles. I phoned them in New York on a Wednesday, and Friday the band arrived. I asked them to start filming when the plane landed, and I met them there.
(Source : https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.beatles/9uHq6p-9geI)
George Harrison : I remember Phil (Spector) was so paranoid about flying that he cancelled his flight and booked on the same flight as us because he thought we were winners and he wouldn't crash.
Ringo Starr : We did all feel a bit sick that first time. We always did, though we never showed it, before anything big. We'd felt a bit sick before the Palladium Show. Going to the States was a big step. People said just because we were popular in Britain, why should we be there?
George Harrison : We had heard that our records were selling well in America, but it wasn't until we stepped off the plane in New York that we truly understood what was going on. Seeing thousands of kids there to meet us made us realize how popular we were there.
Albert Maysles (documentary film-maker) : They (Granada tv) said The Beatles were arriving in two hours at Idlewild airport, New York and would we like to make a film about them. We raced down to Idlewild. We ended up spending four or five days with them.
Kennedy had been killed just two months before. The children of America were in trauma. That had a huge amount to do with what happened with the Beatles there. It was phenomenal, other-worldly.
Albert Maysles (film-maker) : You could really film people's events and experiences without imposing yourself with lights and tripods and unwieldy equipment. We were paying attention to people's lives as they were lived. We stuck to our principle of not trying to change anyone's behaviour.
George Martin : It's difficult to describe just how crazy those tours were. Everybody wanted to touch, feel, be near, smell, see The Beatles in some or another. When they first broke in America, they stayed at the Plaza in New York and the whole of that square outside was blocked, they had to divert the traffic. Wherever you turned your dial at any time of the day, you heard a Beatles song. Wherever they went, the media would fight - literally, hit each other - in order to muscle in.
Chet Huntley (NBC-tv presenter) : The four English musical stars with their pudding-bowl haircuts were greeted by about 4,000 shrieking teenagers at Kennedy Airport and mobbed by another large group of juveniles when they got to the Plaza Hotel. All day long, some local disc jockeys had been encouraging truancy with repeated announcements of The Beatles’ travel plans, flight number and estimated time of arrival. British journalists tell us that the record company had sixteen press agents handling the arrival, but we wouldn’t know much about that. However, like a good little news organisation, we sent three camera crews to stand among the shrieking youngsters and record the sights and sounds for posterity. Our film crews acquitted themselves with customary skill and ingenuity. The pictures are very good but someone asked what the fuss was about, and we found we had no answer.
(Source : http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/what-you-dont-know-about-beatles-u-s-debut-n24171)
Geoffrey Ellis (friend of Brian Epstein] : The whole scene was extremely surrealistic. The Beatles were all sitting round with transistor radios in their ears, listening to their records playing and watching themselves on television at the same time.
Mike Hennessy (journalist, Today magazine) : In The Beatles' suite at The Plaza, I took over telephone duty for twenty minutes and felt like a tycoon. Offers for appearances were pouring in from all over the States, on name-your-own-price terms. Teenage girls were running up fantastic bills for long-distance calls.
Frank Sinatra : I thought The Beatles would die in New York. I was very surprised by the reaction they got. I guess I was wrong.
Sid Bernstein : They were fun guys, absorbing it all, curious - even ashamed - at all the attention they were getting in America. They didn't expect it. They were kind of overwhelmed by it all.
Don Henley (The Eagles) : When The Beatles came along in the '60's, it completely changed my life and I knew I wanted to be involved in music. I said, "This is it!"