50 Years Ago: The Summer of Love and The Beatl' Gay Manager | The Beatl Story, Liverpool

Contents:

• THE BEATL (AND CYNTHIA LENNON) DIDN’T KNOW THAT THEIR MANAGER, BRIAN EPSTE, WAS GAY
• THE GAY ARCHECTS OF ROCK
• THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BEATL' GAY MANAGER
• DID BRIAN EPSTE’S GAYNS SHAPE HIS VISN OF THE BEATL’ POTENTIAL?
• EXPLORG THE MYTH: DID JOHN LENNON HAVE A GAY AFFAIR?
• BRIAN EPSTE: THE GAY MAN WHO MA THE BEATL
• GAY HISTORY: JOHN LENNON ONCE ALMOST BEAT A MAN TO DEATH

THE BEATL (AND CYNTHIA LENNON) DIDN’T KNOW THAT THEIR MANAGER, BRIAN EPSTE, WAS GAY

“John was a hundred percent heterosexual and, like most lads at that time, horrified by the ia of homosexualy, ” Cynthia Lennon wrote the same memoir.

Consir the gay image makers of the day, like Brian Epste and Jann Beatl wh their manager Brian Epste, right, October Archiv/Redferns, via Getty ImagOct.

THE GAY ARCHECTS OF ROCK

Managers groomed them and shaped them, and the classic rock era those managers were often gay s, the close relatnships between the managers and the predomantly straight micians they advised were not discsed much. “The Fifth Beatle, ” a recent graphic novel that foc on the personal life of the Fab Four’s gay manager, Brian Epste, was a New York Tim bt seller and is now velopment as a six-part mi-seri, wh the approval of the Beatl’ tate. And the documentary film “Lambert & Stamp” ma clear the important role played by K Lambert, the gay -manager of the Who, shapg the band’s inty.

Up until 1967, beg gay was illegal Bra, and long after that law changed, gay men remaed a target of police entrapment, blackmail and beatgs.

THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BEATL' GAY MANAGER

As managers of some of the era’s most potent Brish rock bands, they stood at the foreont of sounds, sensibili and styl that would molish and remake pop gay managers of that era were forthright about their sexualy, if only among iends and lleagu. Napier-Bell, part of the reason Brish gay men of his era gravated to the mic bs was bee was one of the few areas “where you uld be out amongst yourselv.

”Mart Aston, the thor of “Breakg Down the Walls of Heartache: How Mic Came Out, ” said the nnectn between rock’s gay managers and image moldg stems om the fact that “gay men at the time would be judged almost entirely on how they looked. Aston said, gay men veloped a fort wh the art of beg seen, “as opposed to straight men, who, before the phenomenon of the ‘metrosexual, ’ were threatened by the notn of beg looked at, of beg an object. ’”Still, given the vilifitn of homosexualy at the time, one might expect the rockers to have some disfort wh the gay men who advised them.

DID BRIAN EPSTE’S GAYNS SHAPE HIS VISN OF THE BEATL’ POTENTIAL?

”If the young rockers benefed om the taste and ambn of their gay advisers, turn the managers got a sense of nnectn they otherwise uldn’t achieve. ”And an era when gay sexual exprsn was btally supprsed, the men were able to exprs themselv through the most fluential sex symbols of the day, creatg a kd of erotic ventriloquism.

EXPLORG THE MYTH: DID JOHN LENNON HAVE A GAY AFFAIR?

”How we handle rrectnsA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn D, Page 1 of the New York edn wh the headle: Classic Rock ’n’ Roll and Its Gay Archects. It was lerally a felony to be attracted to a member of the same died lonely at the age of 32, never havg had a proper boyiend, and wh the lloquially known "Osr Wil laws" clarg homosexualy illegal still force. I know our circumstanc are not nearly the same as the obstacl Brian and other gay, bisexual, and transgenr people have faced over the years -- and, the se of marriage, ntue to face 34 of the Uned Stat -- but emotnally, Tracy and I uld relate and empathize.

BRIAN EPSTE: THE GAY MAN WHO MA THE BEATL

A furtive acknowledgement—a man’s nod, to be precise—ultimately land Brian Samuel Epste, the gay, elst son of a proment Jewish fay Liverpool, England, jail. Epste, who died at 32 of an accintal dg overdose, was a tortured gay man who was bowed by the weight and import of his wealthy Jewish fay. “I’m very proud that I’ve spent hours nversatn wh folks like Sid Bernste and Nat Weiss, ” says Tiwary of the Jewish producer who helped brg The Beatl to Ameri and the gay lawyer who was Epste’s greatt nfidant.

“I believed that my own willpower was the bt thg wh which to overe my homosexualy, ” Epste lamented a letter to his lawyer, after he was qutned by police.

Yet Brian himself died lonely, never havg had a proper boyiend, and wh the lloquially known “Osr Wil laws” clarg homosexualy illegal still force. The world would remember those days romantilly as the “Summer of Love”, om London to San Francis—and was ed a time of love, eedom, openns, and passn… as long as you weren’t gay, lbian, bisexual, or transgenr.

GAY HISTORY: JOHN LENNON ONCE ALMOST BEAT A MAN TO DEATH

But I hold that is not The Beatl that Brian Epste should be most remembered for—’s the personal obstacl he overme as a gay man the 1960’s while pursug his dreams that mak his story not jt spirg but important.

But had Brian Epste lived to celebrate Liverpool Pri fifty years after his untimely ath—and the simultaneo 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love and the Sexual Offenc Act’s crimalisatn of homosexualy England and Wal—he would have been pleased about a lot more than the endurg legacy of his Beatl. Instead, Tony Barrow, the Beatl’ reful and wise prs secretary, managed to sp the story so there was no mentn of any potential homosexual tryst. While is mon knowledge today that Brian Epste was a homosexual, is important to note that homosexualy was illegal the Uned Kgdom the mid-sixti.