The Beatles Reveal How Their Families Reacted to Sudden Fame
For the first time since it was originally published in 2000, Chronicle Books will release The Beatles Anthology, 25th Anniversary Edition in a unique co-release with Disney+, UMG, and Apple Corps
The Beatles’ expanded Anthology Collection music releases will also be released Nov. 21 by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe
The Beatles’ restored, expanded “Anthology” documentary series begins streaming November 26 on Disney+
RINGO: In 1963 the attitude of my whole family changed. They treated me like a different person.
One absolutely clear vision I had was round at my auntie’s, where I’d been a thousand times before. We were having a cup of tea one night and somebody knocked the coffee table and my tea spilt into my saucer. Everyone’s reaction was, "He can’t have that. We have to tidy up." That would never have happened before. I thought then, "Things are changing." It was absolutely an arrow in the brain.
Suddenly I was "one of those," even within my family, and it was very difficult to get used to. I’d grown up and lived with these people and now I found myself in Weirdland.
GEORGE: My family changed, but in a nice way. They were so knocked out with the whole idea of what was happening. Anybody would be. Everybody likes success, but when it came on that scale it was ridiculous. They loved it.
My mother was a nice person, but she was naive; as we all were in Liverpool in those days. She used to write to anybody who’d written to us, answering the fan mail. She’d answer letters from people saying, "Dear Mr Harrison, can you give us one of Paul McCartney’s toenails?" Still, to this day, people come up to me brandishing letters that my mother once wrote to them. Even back when I was a kid, she had pen-pals, people who lived in Northumberland or New Zealand or somewhere, people she’d never met: just writing and sending photographs to each other.
RINGO: Home and family were the two things I didn’t want to change, because it had all changed "out there" and we were no longer really sure who our friends were, unless we’d had them before the fame. The guys and the girls I used to hang about with I could trust. But once we’d become big and famous, we soon learnt that people were with us only because of the vague notoriety of being "a Beatle." And when this happened in the family, it was quite a blow. I didn’t know what to do about it; I couldn’t stand up and say, "Treat me like you used to," because that would be acting "big time."
The other thing that happens when you become famous is that people start to think you know something. They all want to know what you think about this and that, and I would blah on — as a 22/23-year-old — as if suddenly I knew. I could talk about anything, I knew exactly how the country should be run, and why and how this should happen; suddenly I was a blaher: "Yeah, Mr Blah here, what do you want to know?" It was so crazy. I remember endless discussions that went on for days and days — nights and days, actually, discussing the world, discussing music.
Source: Lizz Schumer/people.com
