Fact #66219
When:
Short story:
The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein dies of a drug overdose in bed at his home in Chapel Street, Belgravia, London, UK.Full article:
Bryan Barrett (chauffeur to Brian Epstein] : The first I knew that he was dead was when we were on our holiday in the New Forest and a friend told me that he had heard the news on the radio. I drove straight up to Chapel Street - it was Bank Holiday weekend, and I had a lot of trouble getting through all the traffic - but obviously I was way too late.
Someone had been through the place very carefully. It was well Hoovered. Everything personal had been removed. It was like walking into a hotel room. It was as though no-one had ever lived there.
When I got home, my Mother-In-Law, who lived in the flat below us, complained that my telephone had been ringing all the previous night. I wasn't there to answer it, of course, because I had been away. I have always been convinced that it was Mr Epstein calling me. He knew that he'd overdosed, and once again wanted my help. He'd have forgotten that I was away.
Maurice Kinn (owner, NME) : I had a hell of a lot of contact with Brian. We had an enormous flat in Knightsbridge and we gave parties and The Beatles used to come up quite frequently. In fact Ringo used to come up on his own quite a bit. Brian was very frequent. So much so that one time in Beverly Hills he asked me to get him some sleeping pills. He said ‘I don’t know anybody over here I can get them from, I’ll phone my doctor’. We went every year so I knew a doctor, he was Randy Newman’s father. I rang him said ‘this friend of mine is having trouble sleeping, could you give him something?’ ‘Yeah alright, go and pick ‘em up at the drugstore, they’ll be waiting for you’. So I go in, they’ve got my name on them and everything. And a few months later he tries to commit suicide in Eaton Square where he lived. Luckily enough his butler or manservant, whoever it was, called his personal assistant Wendy Hanson before they called the police and she went round and found the bloody bottle with my name on it with the pills emptied out. He’d obviously used it to commit suicide.
(Source : interview with Simon Spence, 1997)
Robin Gibb (Bee Gees) : We were writing To Love Somebody on the back of a boat in Monte Carlo, and Robert said to Anthony Brown, his secretary, 'Go up to the casino and give Brian a call, because I've got to be back in the office on Wednesday for a meeting.'
So Anthony went up the boardwalk and about half an hour later he comes running back down and, absolutely ashen faced, he told Robert that Brian was dead.
Of course there was absolute shock. I felt sick. It was awful. We had this terrible midnight cruise back to Nice so that Robert could catch a plane back.
I think he felt a tremendous amount of guilt. Obviously he had nothing to do with what happened but he felt guilty because if he'd stayed with Brian that might not have happened. But then it might have just delayed it. Brian might have killed himself a week, or a month later.
Robert had no real reason to believe that Brian would harm himself. I think it affected Robert more than anybody. They were very dear friends. They were business partners above all, but they were very dear friends.
The consequence of Brian's death was that his brother Clive came into NEMS and took over, Clive Epstein, and I don't think Robert was very pleased with that. Robert became very eager to move on, now that Brian had died, and start his own organization.
So it was only a few weeks later that he was asking us to look at offices at 67 Brook Street which he was very proud of because that was where he was establishing the Robert Stigwood Organisation. He really was moving on. The catalyst for that was the death of Brian. (Source : interview with Johnny Black, February 9, 2001)
Cilla Black : Bobby (her husband-to-be) and I were in a club in Portugal with Tom Jones and his wife Lynn, and a waiter came over and said, 'Your manager, Brian Epstein, is dead.' Tom was very good. He went and phoned a radio station, and came back and said, 'It's true. Brian's dead.' I was hysterical. (Source : Independent On Sunday, December 15, 2002)
Gary Walker (Walker Brothers) : I remember eating in the steakhouse in London when I got a call from a friend of mine telling me that Brian Epstein had died. He loved the group (Rain, which Walker formed after The Walker Brothers split) and I was supposed to have a meeting with him that Monday.
Andrew Loog Oldham (manager, The Rolling Stones] : Brian was a lovely and passionate but tortured man who probably should have died a few months earlier whilst he was still king and did not — propelled by self-medication — perceive of himself as a rejected old queen supplanted by some tatty little guru who in any other decade could not have got a job as a head waiter. (Source : Rock's back Pages, January 2001)
Tweet this Fact
Someone had been through the place very carefully. It was well Hoovered. Everything personal had been removed. It was like walking into a hotel room. It was as though no-one had ever lived there.
When I got home, my Mother-In-Law, who lived in the flat below us, complained that my telephone had been ringing all the previous night. I wasn't there to answer it, of course, because I had been away. I have always been convinced that it was Mr Epstein calling me. He knew that he'd overdosed, and once again wanted my help. He'd have forgotten that I was away.
Maurice Kinn (owner, NME) : I had a hell of a lot of contact with Brian. We had an enormous flat in Knightsbridge and we gave parties and The Beatles used to come up quite frequently. In fact Ringo used to come up on his own quite a bit. Brian was very frequent. So much so that one time in Beverly Hills he asked me to get him some sleeping pills. He said ‘I don’t know anybody over here I can get them from, I’ll phone my doctor’. We went every year so I knew a doctor, he was Randy Newman’s father. I rang him said ‘this friend of mine is having trouble sleeping, could you give him something?’ ‘Yeah alright, go and pick ‘em up at the drugstore, they’ll be waiting for you’. So I go in, they’ve got my name on them and everything. And a few months later he tries to commit suicide in Eaton Square where he lived. Luckily enough his butler or manservant, whoever it was, called his personal assistant Wendy Hanson before they called the police and she went round and found the bloody bottle with my name on it with the pills emptied out. He’d obviously used it to commit suicide.
(Source : interview with Simon Spence, 1997)
Robin Gibb (Bee Gees) : We were writing To Love Somebody on the back of a boat in Monte Carlo, and Robert said to Anthony Brown, his secretary, 'Go up to the casino and give Brian a call, because I've got to be back in the office on Wednesday for a meeting.'
So Anthony went up the boardwalk and about half an hour later he comes running back down and, absolutely ashen faced, he told Robert that Brian was dead.
Of course there was absolute shock. I felt sick. It was awful. We had this terrible midnight cruise back to Nice so that Robert could catch a plane back.
I think he felt a tremendous amount of guilt. Obviously he had nothing to do with what happened but he felt guilty because if he'd stayed with Brian that might not have happened. But then it might have just delayed it. Brian might have killed himself a week, or a month later.
Robert had no real reason to believe that Brian would harm himself. I think it affected Robert more than anybody. They were very dear friends. They were business partners above all, but they were very dear friends.
The consequence of Brian's death was that his brother Clive came into NEMS and took over, Clive Epstein, and I don't think Robert was very pleased with that. Robert became very eager to move on, now that Brian had died, and start his own organization.
So it was only a few weeks later that he was asking us to look at offices at 67 Brook Street which he was very proud of because that was where he was establishing the Robert Stigwood Organisation. He really was moving on. The catalyst for that was the death of Brian. (Source : interview with Johnny Black, February 9, 2001)
Cilla Black : Bobby (her husband-to-be) and I were in a club in Portugal with Tom Jones and his wife Lynn, and a waiter came over and said, 'Your manager, Brian Epstein, is dead.' Tom was very good. He went and phoned a radio station, and came back and said, 'It's true. Brian's dead.' I was hysterical. (Source : Independent On Sunday, December 15, 2002)
Gary Walker (Walker Brothers) : I remember eating in the steakhouse in London when I got a call from a friend of mine telling me that Brian Epstein had died. He loved the group (Rain, which Walker formed after The Walker Brothers split) and I was supposed to have a meeting with him that Monday.
Andrew Loog Oldham (manager, The Rolling Stones] : Brian was a lovely and passionate but tortured man who probably should have died a few months earlier whilst he was still king and did not — propelled by self-medication — perceive of himself as a rejected old queen supplanted by some tatty little guru who in any other decade could not have got a job as a head waiter. (Source : Rock's back Pages, January 2001)