The Beatl (and Cynthia Lennon) Didn't Know That Their Manager, Brian Epste, Was Gay

Contents:

• THE BEATL (AND CYNTHIA LENNON) DIDN’T KNOW THAT THEIR MANAGER, BRIAN EPSTE, WAS GAY
• THE BEATL STAR REVEALS THE BAND’S ATTU ABOUT GAY PEOPLE
• THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BEATL' GAY MANAGER
• EXPLORG THE MYTH: DID JOHN LENNON HAVE A GAY AFFAIR?
• THE ABSURDLY VLENT AND GAY BEATL MOVIE THAT NEVER GOT MA
• DID BRIAN EPSTE’S GAYNS SHAPE HIS VISN OF THE BEATL’ POTENTIAL?

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

Don't worry, everyone: The Beatl are OK wh gay by Para magaze about their manager, Brian Epste, Rgo had nothg but supportive thgs to say.

"I had known a lot of gay men, " he told the magaze. Epste's homosexualy was an open secret for most of his reer.

In 2016, he ncelled a ncert North Carola prott of the state's recently-passed homophobic 's ftg that Starr would speak wh Para, as they're approximately the same age: Rgo was born 1940, and Para was found a year later 1941. When they first met, however, the band didn't know that this lol bs owner was gay.

THE BEATL STAR REVEALS THE BAND’S ATTU ABOUT GAY PEOPLE

He served as their manager for several years, even if most fans didn’t know he was gay until after his ath. The Beatl’ manager, Brian Epste, was gay. “It didn’t occur to then that Brian was gay, ” Cynthia Lennon wrote.

In the early sixti if you were gay you kept secret.

Gays were lled ‘queers’ and were disliked and diststed by many — there was a huge amount of prejudice agast them.

THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BEATL' GAY MANAGER

Cynthia Lennon said that at the time, John Lennon was ‘horrified’ by the ia of homosexualy. “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. One of the most inic stars of The Beatl, Rgo Starr had a new terview wh Para’s Jim Farber and revealed his ias about ‘gay accatns’ about The Beatl’ Brian Epste.

“The Beatl had a gay manager, Brian Epste, at a time when beg gay was illegal England and very much stigmatized.

What was the band’s attu about gay people back then? “I had known a lot of gay men. He was a closeted gay man who had a tumultuo relatnship wh his sexualy.

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

Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Whe Album vers, wh a Magrte patg he troduced to McCartney servg as the Apple Rerds logo’s Spetti, the fuzzy sweater-clad TV director that the Beatl teased A Hard Day’s Night, was a notable gay man. He also held an LGBTQ+ nnectn to the Prton, an openly gay man, joed the Beatl at a time when the band seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown.

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.

Bee what the public didn’t know was that Brian Epste was gay. In 1960s England, fet about beg allowed to marry—gay men and lbians weren’t allowed to openly walk the streets! 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.

THE ABSURDLY VLENT AND GAY BEATL MOVIE THAT NEVER GOT MA

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. So on 27 July 1967, the day that male homosexualy was partially crimalised the UK, the UK No 1 was All You Need Is Love. Nowhere his obuari was his homosexualy mentned.

”Epste was only one of many gay men who were volved the mic dtry at every level the 1960s. A rally anised by the Campaign for Homosexual Equaly.

Photograph: Hulton Dtsch/Corbis via GettyFrom early on, Brish rock stars, om Cliff Richard and Billy Fury through to the Beatl, had a softer masculy that reflected the gay showbiz i as well as the target market of young femal. No major Brish star me out as gay durg the 1960s: the fluence of homosexualy, while embedd ep wh pop culture, was still ’s also important to note that the passg of the act had no direct put om pop culture.

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

Unlike Ameri, where the homophile movement – as was lled 1966 – was pursued by young activists and termed prsure groups, the attempt to change the UK laws was unrtaken wh tradnal lobbyg and parliamentary guil. Most of the people ncerned – the two policians who unrtook the bnt of the work the ho, Leo Abse and Lord Arran, as well as the members of the Homosexual Law Reform Society, which beme the Campaign for Homosexual Equaly – were olr, pre-pop. Although the Sexual Offenc Act loosened the legal rtrictns agast gay men, people weren’t dancg the streets when was passed.

Some people thought was about time, while some olr gay men, born well before the send world war and steeped the reprsive atmosphere of the 1950s, rented the fact that the whole topic had been ma public and the supposed glamour of illegaly removed. Attus wh the gay world were to some extent dictated by a generatnal divi.

“I never worried about whether my homosexualy was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – bee seemed perfectly natural to me and by the time I had bee aware of society and the law’s attus, was too late for me to change me. Although did not directly ntribute to the changg of the law, the saturatn of 60s pop androgyny and homosexualy ntributed to a more liberal climate. In 1966 and 1967, for stance, Bra was famo worldwi for s Carnaby Street fashns – largely domated by one gay man, the signer John Stephen.