TV: Beatles manager - all he needed was love

By GRAHAM REID

When Brian Epstein died in August 1967 at the age of 32, he was one of the most famous men in Britain. His death by an accidental overdose of prescription drugs made the front page of newspapers at home and abroad.

Suggestions of suicide are easily discredited by his buoyant mood in the preceding days.

A mere five years earlier Epstein was known only to a few close friends and family in his native Liverpool where he managed a popular record shop as part of the family furniture business.

How Epstein, an intelligent, immaculately groomed, gay Jewish man with aspirations to a career in fashion or acting, came to international renown can be encapsulated in two words: the Beatles.

More by accident than design Epstein became their manager when he started stocking and selling out of their first single, recorded in Germany.

The group was playing in the Cavern, a club a few minutes' walk from his music store.

He saw potential in their natural, working-class humour and driving beat music so took them out of their passé leather gear, put them in suits and, by unwavering faith and diligence, eventually secured them a record deal with one of the smallest labels in Britain in mid-62.

During the following three years his stable of acts grew to encompass Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer and many others. In 1963 Epstein's acts commanded the top spot on the British charts for an extraordinary 37 weeks.

His ghost-written autobiography A Cellarful of Noise (which avoided mentioning his sexual orientation but fed some useful myths about the Beatles) had been a best-seller.

Epstein's remarkable trajectory into the spotlight, which he most often modestly avoided, is told in the excellent documentary The Brian Epstein Story, screening in TV One's Reel Life series tonight and concluding next Friday. A fine portrait of Epstein is drawn by using period footage and interviews, contemporary interviews with Paul McCartney (the only Beatle involved), Marianne Faithfull, a chubby Gerry (Pacemaker) Marsden, a lean and worn Billy J. Kramer and other managers and business associates and people of the period. There is also a moving account of his private life by his housekeeper, Lonnie Trimble.

The documentary shows that behind the facade of grooming and sophistication, Epstein was often deeply unhappy.

As a gay man in Britain in the early-60s - and the documentary doesn't quite remind us how conservative that world really was outside artistic circles - he was forced to moderate his lifestyle and live in secrecy.

He had also been a serial failure until he met the Beatles. His aspirations of being a dress designer had been scotched by his father, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London but left after a year, and the Army, which called him for compulsory National Service considered him a compulsive civilian.

The Beatles, whom he genuinely loved and of whom he was an unabashed fan, saved him from life in the provinces.

Yes, McCartney and others concede he might not have been the most astute businessman, but Epstein and the Beatles were breaking new ground and there were no guidelines on the marketing of merchandise as there are today.

It's telling that after his death the Beatles' career was rudderless. The debacle of the Magical Mystery Tour film would never have happened under the stewardship of Epstein, who liked things under control.

As a two-parter, The Brian Epstein Story is perhaps overlong for casual viewers, and it only tangentially mentions Epstein's unhappy predilection for rough-trade, for which he paid the price in the occasional beating and blackmail threat.

But as portrait of a cool, assured-looking man who went about his business with grace and charm while all the world was seemed to be losing its head, it is intelligent and considered.

And it has a pretty good soundtrack to boot.

Reel Life: The Brian Epstein Story

TV One, 9.35 pm