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Birth Of The Beatles
''Birth of the Beatles'' is a 1979 American biographical film, produced by Dick Clark Productions and directed by Richard Marquand. It was shown as a TV film on ABC in the United States, and received a theatrical release in other countries. The film focuses on the early history of the Beatles. It was released nine years after the Beatles disbanded, and is the only biographical film about the band to be released while all four members were alive. Pete Best, the Beatles' original drummer, served as a technical advisor for the production.O'Connor, John J"TV Weekend: ABC Recounts Early Days of Beatles,"''New York Times'' (November 23, 1979). Plot The film starts in 1961, when the Silver Beatles (as they were then called) consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Stuart Sutcliffe. They need a drummer and a manager, and although Sutcliffe can sing, he cannot play an instrument. The only reason Stu is in the band because he is John's friend; none of the others wan ...
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Richard Marquand
Richard Alfred Marquand (22 September 1937 – 4 September 1987) was a Welsh film and television director active in both US and UK film productions, best known for directing the 1983 space opera '' Return of the Jedi'', the final film in the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy. He also directed the 1981 drama film '' Eye of the Needle'', the quiet Paris set romance '' Until September'', and the 1985 thriller '' Jagged Edge''. Early life Marquand was born in Llanishen, Cardiff, Wales. He was the son of Rachel E. (née Rees) and Hilary Marquand, an economist and Labour MP who served as Minister of Pensions and later Minister of Health under Prime Minister Clement Attlee. He is the younger brother of David Marquand, who also served as a Labour MP. Marquand was educated at Emanuel School, London, the University of Aix-Marseille in France and King's College, Cambridge, where he studied modern languages, and where one of his tutors was E. M. Forster. During National Service he s ...
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Ringo Starr
Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the group, usually for one song on each album, including "Yellow Submarine (song), Yellow Submarine" and "With a Little Help from My Friends". He also wrote and sang the Beatles songs "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden", and is credited as a co-writer of four others. Starr was afflicted by life-threatening illnesses during childhood, with periods of prolonged hospitalisation. As a teenager Starr became interested in the UK skiffle craze and developed a fervent admiration for the genre. In 1957, he co-founded his first band, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group, which earned several prestigious local bookings before the fad succumbed to American rock and roll around early 1958. When the Beatles formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool gr ...
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Cavern Club
The Cavern Club is a music venue on Mathew Street, Liverpool, England. The Cavern Club opened on 16 January 1957 as a jazz club, later becoming a centre of the rock and roll scene in Liverpool in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The club became closely associated with Merseybeat and regularly played host to the Beatles in their early years.. The Cavern Club closed in 1973 and was filled in during construction work on the Merseyrail underground rail loop. It reopened in 1984. It was temporarily closed again from 1989 to 1991, and has been open ever since. History of the Cavern Club Early history Alan Sytner, having been inspired by the jazz district in Paris where there were a number of clubs in cellars, returned to Liverpool and strove to open a club similar to the Le Caveau de la Huchette jazz club. He eventually found a fruit warehouse where people were leasing the cellar, which had been used as an air raid shelter in World War II. Tropical fruit used to be stored there and ...
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Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr (; 20 May 1938 – 12 May 2020) was a German photographer and artist known for her association with the Beatles (along with her friends Klaus Voormann and Jürgen Vollmer) and her photographs of the band's original members — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best — during their The Beatles in Hamburg, early days in Hamburg. Kirchherr met artist Stuart Sutcliffe in the Kaiserkeller bar in Hamburg in 1960, where Sutcliffe was playing bass with the Beatles, and was later engaged to him, before his death in 1962. Although Kirchherr shot very few photographs after 1967, her early work has been exhibited in Hamburg, Bremen, London, Liverpool, New York City, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Vienna, and at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. She published three limited-edition books of photographs. Early life Kirchherr was born on 20 May 1938 in Hamburg, Germany, and was the daughter of a former executive of the German branch of th ...
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Rory Storm
Rory Storm (born Alan Ernest Caldwell; 7 January 1938 – 28 September 1972) was an English musician and vocalist. Born in Liverpool, Storm was the singer and leader of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, a Liverpudlian band who were contemporaries of the Beatles in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Ringo Starr was the drummer for the Hurricanes before joining the Beatles in August 1962. The Hurricanes were one of the most popular acts on the Liverpool and Hamburg club scenes during their existence, although their attempt at a recording career was not successful. They released only two singles (and one additional compilation track) during their early 1960s heyday, and none of their material made the charts. Their second and final single was a version of the ''West Side Story (musical), West Side Story'' song "America (Leonard Bernstein song), America", and was produced by the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. Early years Rory Storm was the stage name of Alan Caldwell, born 7 Jan ...
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Kaiserkeller
Kaiserkeller is a music club in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg, Germany, near the Reeperbahn. It was opened by Bruno Koschmider on 14 October 1959. The Beatles had a contract with Kaiserkeller to play there in 1960. History A Caribbean steel band that had played at Allan Williams' The Jacaranda club in Liverpool took an offer to play in Hamburg. After receiving letters enthusing about Hamburg's club scene, Williams made contact with Koschmider, offering to act as a booking agent, to which Koschmider agreed. Koschmider had previously booked Derry and the Seniors after seeing them perform in London, and as they were successful in Hamburg, he asked Williams to look for additional groups.Cynthia Lennon – “John” 2006 p76 Rory Storm and The Hurricanes were Williams' first choice, but as they were committed to a season at a Butlins holiday camp, they turned his offer down, as did Gerry & The Pacemakers, so Williams sent The Beatles to Hamburg instead.Spitz 2005 p202 They we ...
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Preludin
Phenmetrazine, sold under the brand name Preludin among others, is a stimulant drug first synthesized in 1952 and originally used as an appetite suppressant, but withdrawn from the market in the 1980s due to widespread misuse. It was initially replaced by its analogue phendimetrazine (under the brand name Prelu-2) which functions as a prodrug to phenmetrazine, but now it is rarely prescribed, due to concerns of misuse and addiction. Chemically, phenmetrazine is a substituted amphetamine containing a morpholine ring or a substituted phenylmorpholine. Medical uses Phenmetrazine has been used as an appetite suppressant for purposes of weight loss. It was used therapeutically for this indication at a dosage of 25mg two or three times per day (or 50–75mg/day total) in adults. Phenmetrazine has been found to produce similar weight loss to dextroamphetamine in people with obesity. In addition to its appetite suppressant effects, phenmetrazine produces psychostimulant and sympat ...
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Reeperbahn
The Reeperbahn () is a street and entertainment district in Hamburg's St. Pauli district, one of the two centres of Hamburg's nightlife (the other being Sternschanze) and also the city's major red-light district. In German, it is also nicknamed ''die sündige Meile'' (the sinful mile) and '' Kiez''. The Reeperbahn Festival is among the largest club festivals. Name and history The name ''Reeperbahn'' means ropewalk, which is a place where ropes are made ( = rope, the standard German word is ; = track). Until the 1620s Hamburg's ropewalks had been located in the Neustadt (New Town) quarter of the inner city close to the Elbe, which then became a densely built up area. Therefore, the ropewalks "had to be relocated outside the city walls on the country road leading toward Altona – which later took on the street name 'Reperbahn'." The street was a ropewalk in the 17th and 18th centuries. The street and its side streets The street is lined with restaurants, night clubs, ...
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Bruno Koschmider
Bruno Koschmider (1926 – 2000) was a German entrepreneur in Hamburg, best known for employing the Beatles in the early 1960s. He controlled various businesses, such as the Bambi Kino, which was a cinema, the Indra club and the Kaiserkeller. Personal life Koschmider was born in 1926 in Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk) and died in 2000 in Hamburg, Germany. The Beatles Allan Williams booked the Beatles (in May 1960) into Koschmider's Indra club.Miles. p56. The Beatles first played at the Indra club, while living in small, dirty rooms behind the movie screen in the Bambi Kino cinema. After the closure of the Indra, they played at the larger Kaiserkeller, also owned by Koschmider.Miles. pp. 57–58. In October 1960, they left the Kaiserkeller to work at the "Top Ten Club",Cynthia Lennon, ''John''. p93. which was run by Peter Eckhorn.Miles. pp. 71–72. When Paul McCartney and Pete Best went back to the Bambi Kino to get their belongings they found it in total darkness.Miles. p72. At ...
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Mimi Smith
Mary Elizabeth "Mimi" Smith (''née'' Stanley; 24 April 1906 – 6 December 1991) was a maternal aunt and the parental guardian of the English musician John Lennon. Mimi Stanley was born in Toxteth, Liverpool, England, the oldest of five daughters. She became a resident trainee nurse at the Woolton Convalescent Hospital and later worked as a private secretary. On 15 September 1939 she married George Toogood Smith who ran his family's dairy farm and a shop in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool. After her younger sister Julia Lennon separated from her husband, Julia and her son, the young John Lennon, moved in with a new partner, but Smith contacted Liverpool's Social Services and complained about his sleeping in the same bed as the two adults. Julia was eventually persuaded to hand over the care of John to the Smiths. He lived with the Smiths for most of his childhood and remained close to his aunt, even though she was highly dismissive of his musical ambitions, his girlfriends ...
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Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lennon (' Powell; 10 September 1939 – 1 April 2015) was a British artist and author, and the first wife of John Lennon. Born in Blackpool and raised in Hoylake on the Wirral Peninsula, Powell attended the Liverpool College of Art, where Lennon was also a student. Powell and Lennon started a relationship after meeting in a calligraphy class. When Lennon was performing in Hamburg with the Beatles, Powell rented his bedroom at 251 Menlove Avenue in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton from his aunt and legal guardian, Mimi Smith. After Powell became pregnant with their son Julian, the couple married in August 1962, and they lived at Kenwood in Weybridge from 1964 to 1968, where she kept house and participated with Lennon in a London-based social life. In 1968, Lennon left Powell for Japanese artist Yoko Ono; the couple's divorce was granted in November 1968 on the grounds of adultery. Powell had three further marriages. She published a book of memoirs, ''A Twist of Lennon' ...
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The Casbah Coffee Club
The Casbah Coffee Club, officially Casbah Club, was a rock and roll music venue in the West Derby area of Liverpool, England, that operated from 1959 to 1962. Started by Mona Best, mother of early Beatles drummer Pete Best, in the cellar of the family home, the Casbah was planned as a members-only club for her sons Pete and Rory and their friends, to meet and listen to the popular music of the day. Mona came up with the idea of the club after watching a TV report about the 2i's Coffee Bar in London's Soho where several singers had been discovered. The Quarrymen—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ken Brown—went to the club to arrange their first booking, to which Mona agreed, but said she needed to finish painting the club first. All four took up brushes and helped Mona to finish painting the walls with spiders, dragons, rainbows and stars. In addition to the four boys' artistic contributions, Cynthia Powell, later to become Cynthia Lennon, painted a silh ...
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