Fact #190646
When:
Short story:
The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein has a second meeting with American tv mogul Ed Sullivan in New York City, USA, to finalise an agreement under which Sullivan will book The Beatles for the Ed Sullivan Show.
Full article:
Brian Epstein (manager, The Beatles] : I was in a luxurious hotel suite overlooking some of New York's tallest buildings when the urgent telephone call from Liverpool came through. "Paul McCartney has a high temperature. It's well over the hundred mark. He won't be able to go on tonight."
That was the simple, startling message which turned that Tuesday into a day of frantic trans-Atlantic telephoning for me and for my staff in London and Liverpool. All told, I spent nearly two hours speaking on long-distance calls - at a pound a minute!
Gradually the details came through. Paul had seen a London doctor and been advised to stay in bed. Determined to carry on, without letting down the other three Beatles, he went against the doctor's orders and travelled to Portsmouth for the evening concerts at The Guildhall. Five minutes after being filmed on The Guildhall stage for TV, Paul collapsed and went to bed with a severe attack of gastric flu. Should the whole show be postponed? Could three Beatles go on with the performance without Paul? Would it be possible to book The Guildhall for another evening?
The answers cost me a hundred pounds in telephone calls. Meantime, I was trying to cope with New York press interviews for Billy J. Kramer whom I'd brought to America for television and radio appearances. Most of my days are busy, but this one beat the lot, It was capped by a late-night report from Portsmouth that George Harrison was another 'flu suspect.
The concerts were cancelled. We decided it would be better to fix another date later, when the same audience could see the full show with four rather than three Beatles. The boys had never missed a show since February 1962 and, luckily, both Paul and George had recovered sufficiently by the next evening to continue with the tour.
(Source : not known)
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That was the simple, startling message which turned that Tuesday into a day of frantic trans-Atlantic telephoning for me and for my staff in London and Liverpool. All told, I spent nearly two hours speaking on long-distance calls - at a pound a minute!
Gradually the details came through. Paul had seen a London doctor and been advised to stay in bed. Determined to carry on, without letting down the other three Beatles, he went against the doctor's orders and travelled to Portsmouth for the evening concerts at The Guildhall. Five minutes after being filmed on The Guildhall stage for TV, Paul collapsed and went to bed with a severe attack of gastric flu. Should the whole show be postponed? Could three Beatles go on with the performance without Paul? Would it be possible to book The Guildhall for another evening?
The answers cost me a hundred pounds in telephone calls. Meantime, I was trying to cope with New York press interviews for Billy J. Kramer whom I'd brought to America for television and radio appearances. Most of my days are busy, but this one beat the lot, It was capped by a late-night report from Portsmouth that George Harrison was another 'flu suspect.
The concerts were cancelled. We decided it would be better to fix another date later, when the same audience could see the full show with four rather than three Beatles. The boys had never missed a show since February 1962 and, luckily, both Paul and George had recovered sufficiently by the next evening to continue with the tour.
(Source : not known)