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Beatles News Archives

2000 - page 2

McCartney Highest Earning Rock Star

Paul McCartney is the highest-earning rock star in history with an estimated personal value of $750 million, according to Business Age magazine.

Paul racked up the huge sum from album sales, royalty payments, stock investments and property holdings, the British magazine said.

Paul beat his nearest rival for the top spot – Elton John - by $500 million. Other top earners included Rolling Stones stars Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, with $225 million and $220 million, respectively, David Bowie, with $145 million, and Engelbert Humperdnick64, with $100 million.

"Age accounts for everything in this survey", Business Age editor Chris Butt told the New York Post. "The real route to financial success is down to a star's 'classic' status".

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Beatles '1' Tops Charts in 19 Countries

The latest Beatles album, ‘1’, has hit number one in 19 countries in its first week of release, a spokesman for the British band's surviving members said Thursday.

The collection of 27 number one singles, which includes the classics ‘A Hard Day's Night’, ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Come Together’, topped the charts from Britain to Venezuela, Portugal to Japan.

"Although ‘1’ features 27 songs first released between 1962 and 1970, it still beat competition from new bands -- beating the new Oasis album in the UK and topping the new album from Ricky Martin in the USA,'' the spokesman added. "They're ecstatic.''

The Beatles previous best was in November 1995 when ``The Beatles Anthology 1'' was top of the charts in 10 countries in its first week of release, said the spokesman for the legendary quartet's three surviving members.

The record is the biggest first-week seller this year, outperforming Robbie Williams, who sold 313,000 ‘Sing When You're Winning’ albums earlier this year, by 6,000 albums.

In the United States ‘1’ sold 595,000 copies in its first week, 150,000 more than its nearest competitor ‘Now That's What I Call Music Vol. 5’ -- a compilation of recent hits.

But Japan's fans led the way, buying 750,000 copies of The Beatles greatest hits album, which spans their recording career from ‘Love Me Do’ to ‘The Long and Winding Road’.

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Harrison's Concerns Could Lead to New British Law

George Harrison’s concern over not knowing when the man who stabbed him would be set free has prompted the British government to push for a new law to tell victims when their attackers are released.

Home Secretary Jack Straw said Sunday he would introduce legislation ensuring victims of sexcrimes and serious assaults would not have to face their attacker at their local shop or pub.

"I intend to end the horror of a rape victim suddenly coming face to face with her attacker in the street because she didn't know he had been freed", Straw told the Sunday People newspaper.

Straw said a bill to warn victims of sexcrimes in advance of their attackers' release dates would become law by Christmas, but that he wanted to extend the legislation to include all victims of serious crimes, including burglary, in the New Year.

The proposals come after George Harrison and his wife asked Straw to warn them if a man who stabbed him last December because he thought he was "an alien from hell" was ever released back into society.

The newspaper said George's wife Olivia was furious, because under current laws the family would not be warned of their attacker's release.

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Beyond Songs, McCartney Wings It with Paintings

After nearly 40 years of hits, it is no secret that Paul McCartney has a way with a song. Now he is showing he has a touch with a brush and canvas too.

Although he has been painting for some 18 years, has only recently gone public. After an exhibition in Siegan, Germany, in May 1999, he has published a collection, ‘Paintings’, and has staged shows in London and New York.

The new book features prints of such McCartney works as an accidental likeness of David Bowie, portraits of his late wife, Linda, and George Harrison's ex-spouse, Patty Boyd, and three whimsical renderings of the Queen of England.

"I never really wanted to publicize (painting) too much because I didn't really like that thing of the celebrity who also paints, because it seemed to belittle the painting a bit", Paul, said in a telephone interview.

"So I didn't really show. But then the guy in Germany persuaded me to do it and said, 'I want to take your work seriously,' etc., and so I did it, and it went down pretty well, so here we are".

Paul said he was not entirely a novice when he picked up the palette in the early 1980s. He won a school art competition when he was growing up in Liverpool and he became an avid modern art collector as he began to amass some wealth during The Beatles meteoric rise to fame in the 1960s.

Still, music superseded painting until he visited abstract expressionist artist Willem de Kooning in 1982.

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Lennon TV movie rides wave of Beatlemania

Three months ago Phillip McQuillan was working part-time as a musical sales representative in Dublin and playing guitar in an evening band.

This week, the unknown Irish actor who was only three years old when John Lennon was shot dead, is giving interviews, signing autographs and playing Beatles hits for a new generation of screaming fans.

"It's been absolutely fabulous", said McQuillan, 23, who plays Lennon in a two-hour television movie about the early life of the founder of the Fab Four that was broadcast on NBC just as Beatlemania hits the world anew.

"We have had so much fun. We can only imagine what it was like for them. I've always wondered what it was like to be in The Beatles so we got a kind of taste of that", he said.

McQuillan, who captures the edgy charm of Lennon and who ironically sang Beatles songs at his first public performance at an Irish fair at the age of 12, was chosen from more than 300 hopefuls to star in the movie after a search spanning Britain, Ireland, North America and Australia.

The movie ‘In his Life: The John Lennon Story’, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of Lennon's murder by a crazed fan in New York. It also coincides with yet another hit for The Beatles as their new compilation album ‘1’ went top of the pop charts in 19 countries.

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Lennon comes to life in NBC movie

In His Life: The John Lennon Story

A surprising charmer of a picture, NBC's ‘In His Life: The John Lennon Story’ is easily the best of the year's Beatles-based made-for-TV movies, following the middling ‘Linda McCartney Story’ on CBS and ‘The Two of Us’ on VH1.

Focusing on seven years in John's life, from the time he bought his first guitar to the Fab Four's triumphant arrival in America, ‘In His Life’ covers territory less familiar to audiences. The film largely eschews the usual sentimentality of such dramatic re-enactments, thanks in large measure to a spirited performance by Irish newcomer Phillip McQuillan. But what really sets this picture apart and will make it a fave with avid fans is the authenticity of the location shooting in Liverpool, including the house where John grew up.

While the settings are limited -- this is still a television movie after all, with a small visual scale -- they lend an air of reality that gives the story an unpretentious quality. The actors portraying the future Beatles don't walk around with the mark of important artistes branded into the performances. Instead, these are youngsters, lead by the ‘cheeky’ John, out to have a good time and make a buck doing it. They are Liverpudlians who revolutionized the world by accident, not by design.

Pic begins with a contemporary scene in which John's first guitar is auctioned for $225,000, then flashes back to begin its tale, nicely establishing the link with John's humble beginnings -- the guitar cost about $10 in 1957.

Teenager John, obsessed with Elvis, convinces his mum Julia (Christine Kavanagh) to buy him that guitar after his stern Aunt Mimi (Blair Brown), who raised John from the time he was three, refused. As he's learning to play and forming his first band, meeting the more advanced musicians Paul (Daniel McGowan) and George (Mark Rice-Oxley) along the way, he gets kicked out of school and sent to art college, where he meets close pal Stuart Sutcliffe (Lee Williams). All the sidekicks here are well cast.

After a few events of personal import -- John meet and marry girlfriend Cynthia when she gets pregnant, his mother Julia dies -- the boys are off to Hamburg.

There they retrace, with less detail and less existential pretense, the period covered by indie film ``Backbeat.'' Back in England, they become the toast of Liverpool and are spotted by Brian Epstein, who replaces drummer Pete Best (Scot Williams) with Ringo (Kristian Ealey) and begins managing their rowdy personalities as well as their marketing.

After a fateful rejection at Decca records, The Beatles soon find themselves bigger than you-know-who and, in a nicely realized scene, John returns home to the usually disapproving Aunt Mimi in a limo, flocked by fans.

Teleplay, by exec producer Michael O'Hara, is like a ``Best Of'' compilation, a well-selected anthology of the most notable moments in Lennon's early adulthood with an added flashback to a defining moment when, as a toddler, he had to choose between his mother and father.

By necessity, the script is heavy on the exposition, and the dialogue sometimes feels highly contrived. David Carson's direction, though, is exceedingly crafty. The beat rings true with only a couple of exceptions -- when John finds out about Stuart's death, and when he and Brian get into a tiff -- with McQuillan always opting for the dry approach.

There's not a lot of depth to the relationships, but there's not a lot of cringe-inducing melodrama either. And John's not treated with fawning respect -- his less-than-admirable treatment of Cynthia is not sugarcoated.

Throughout the film, O'Hara and Carson lace references to Lennon's later songs; we see the gates to the real Strawberry Fields, for example, and the gravestone of Eleanor Rigby.

The music consists of rock classics and traditional tunes every one of which The Beatles actually covered. Solid cinematography and editing help capture the energy and fun of the early Beatles performances.

John Lennon ....... Phillip McQuillan
Mimi Smith ........ Blair Brown
Julia Lennon ...... Christine Kavanagh
Cynthia Lennon .... Gillian Kearney
Paul McCartney .... Daniel McGowan
George Harrison ... Mark Rice-Oxley
Stuart Sutcliffe .. Lee Williams
Brian Epstein ..... Jamie Glover
Ringo Starr ....... Kristian Ealey
Pete Best ......... Scot Williams
Astrid ............ Palina Jonsdottir
With: Michael Ryan, AlexCoxAnthony Borrows, Paul Usher, Brian Yarwood, Paul Broughton, Mike Pyatt, John Draycott, George Christopher, Jane Cunliffe, Charles De'ath.

Filmed in Liverpool, England, by Michael O'Hara Prods. in association with NBC Studios. Executive producer, Michael O'Hara; producer, Colin McKeown; co-producers, David Carson, Donna Molloy. Director, Carson; writer, O'Hara; cinematography, Lawrence Jones; production design, Stephen Fineren; costumes, Diane Holmes; editor, Lisa Bromwell; music, Dennis McCarthy; casting, Paul Broughton, Bernadette Turner (Liverpool), Beth Charkham (U.K.), Carol Dudley (London).

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Beatles Reunion Shaping Up For 2004?

It appears as though the three surviving members of The Beatles have agreed to reunite and perform together again, but not until four years from now.

According to published reports, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr have signed on to perform at the grand opening of a Cirque De Soleil art center in London, which is scheduled to open in 2004.

The French-Canadian circus troupe is in the process of building a state-of-the-art performance hall for its London cast to call home. According to New York's Daily News, the site will also house a Formula One race course, themed restaurants, and a Beatles museum. When and if this once-in-a-lifetime show takes place, McCartney will be 62, Starr will be 64, and Harrison 61.

Promoter Sid Bernstein, who brought The Beatles to America and who has made offers for them to regroup in the past, wasn't moved by the story. He said, "Well, it's good publicity."

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Lennon's Legend Lives On

Sitting inside her office at the Dakota apartments, a stone's throw from the spot where her husband was mortally wounded two decades earlier, Yoko Ono considers the question: Imagine John Lennon at 60?

There's a pause. A long pause. "I think he was always innovative", she finally says. "I think he would have jumped into the Internet. Also, his music was very funky and punky - the rap kind of thing".

There's a shorter pause, and her voice grows lively. "You can almost see that John would have done that", she continues. "I'm sure he would have been the first white rapper. Or the second, maybe".

It's pure speculation 20 years after a demented Beatlemaniac killed John with five gunshots on Dec. 8, 1980. It's also something that Ono, who watched in horror as her dying husband collapsed, lives with every day.

"I miss the laughter, you know?" the 67-year-old widow reflects. "He made me laugh, especially at times when things were very difficult."

To the world at large, John was never the funny Beatle - that title belonged to Ringo. Paul, even at 58, remains the cute Beatle, while George in his English mansion is ever the quiet Beatle. John, paradoxically, lives on as the dead Beatle - fascinating but forever frozen in time: house-husband, father, reluctant rock star who spent five years watching the wheels go round with his new son, Sean.

This year, when John would have turned 60, his work was ubiquitous. Nine Beatles-related books were introduced in the year 2000 - from the authorized 'The Beatles Anthology to a reissue of Lennon's verse ‘In His Own Write’, to a tome on The Beatles' dalliance with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

A compilation of the Beatles 27 No. 1 hits released in time for Christmas shoppers, landed atop the Billboard chart after selling nearly 600,000 copies in its first week.

Ono supervised re-releases of the first and last solo albums of his life, ‘Plastic Ono Band’ and ‘Double Fantasy’. There was even a book from John about John: a 151-page pressing of his revealing 1970 interviews with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. "The dream's over", John warned, 10 years before his death. "And I have personally got to get down to so-called reality".

A visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame provides a stark dose of that reality. When the Cleveland facility unveiled a Lennon tribute in October, the first items in the display reinforced his violent absence:

The blood-spattered spectacles that John wore on the night of his murder. And a hospital bag containing his clothes riddled with bullet holes.

"In John's spirit, it was very important to have a strong message: `Let's not kill each other any more’", Ono explains. "John was always trying to send a message about world peace. I felt it was appropriate".

Even now, 20 years later, Yoko Ono cannot utter his name. She refers to him only as ‘that guy’.

"People would tell me, ‘Don't worry’. But you never know", she says.

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Dhani Harrison Crashes Car

The 22-year-old son of George Harrison escaped serious injury after crashing his sports car.

Dhani Harrison is said to have crashed his 150mph Audi S3 in Oxfordshire causing £4,000 damage, just three weeks after taking delivery of the £25,000 vehicle, The Sun said.

Damage to his Audi was said to be a ruined right wing and burst tyres.

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Prime Minister's Wife Opens Linda McCartney Cancer Centre

Cherie Booth, wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair, has opened the Linda McCartney Cancer Centre.

The Linda McCartney Centre, which lies in the grounds of the Royal Liverpool University hospital, is expected to provide specialist care for thousands of cancer patients from across the North West and beyond each year.

The unit admitted its first patients last month - some seven years after the Forget-Me-Not Appeal was launched raising the £4 million needed to open the state-of-the-art facility.

During a visit lasting almost two hours Ms Booth wore the appeals badge on her lapel - a dove carrying a forget-me-not - its five petals symbolising the five areas of cancer care.

Sir Paul McCartney was unable to attend the official opening ceremony but sent a message, which was read out by Lord Alton, chair of the Forget-Me-Not Appeal.

It read: "I'm sorry I couldn't be there today but I knew my fellow scouser Cherie Blair would do a good job.

'Please send my best wishes to everyone concerned for a very successful day. Thank them for the honour they have done my family by naming the centre after our lovely Linda.'

Ms Booth said she knew how proud Sir Paul McCartney was of the centre named after his late wife. 'I know it is wonderful for them to know Linda's name lives on in a place so associated with McCartney’s.'

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George Leaves Friar Park

George Harrison has left Friar Park - maybe for good, according to record-mail.com

A housekeeper is looking after the sprawling 19th Century building in upmarket Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. She confirmed: "The Harrison’s moved out some weeks ago and have no immediate plans to return. There was a stabbing here and that has had a lot to do with their decision."

An insider said: "The Harrison’s now feel there is bad karma around the area where the attack took place. They just want to get away. As you can imagine, the rooms need to be cleansed. George loves the house and only time will tell if he feels strong enough to come back. But for the time being he and his wife have moved out, although there is still a high level of security."

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VH1 and The John Lennon Night

It's twenty years since his death but even kids of ten know about Lennon and his music. Those kids may be a little young to stay up for this evening of Lennon mania, but they'll be be missing out.

Kicking off on December 8th on music channel VH1 at 8pm there is a chance to see Imagine, a documentary cut down from 240 hours of material.

Later Julian Lennon will be picking his ten of the best and later still is 'Gimme Some Truth', a documentary about the making of the imagine album.

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Jeff Lynne projects include new Wilburys album, McCartney track

The Los Angeles Times reports that both George and Ringo will be featured on the new Jeff Lynne album (on which Lynne will resurrect the Electric Light Orchestra mimicker) to be released in April. The article also reports the resurrected ELO will tour, though the only past ELO member to be involved will be Richard Tandy.

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A Hard Day’s Night

MiramaxFilms is definitely releasing "A Hard Day's Night" in the USA this year! It will be released initially in two cities - New York and Los Angeles on Friday December 1st. The film is then due to open in 10 further cities on Friday December 8th - though the 10 cities have not yet been confirmed. The film then should roll out to other US cities in future weeks.

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Official A Hard Day's Night Website Opens

A new website to celebrate the re-release of a 'A Hard Day's Night' has just opened.

Included on the site is the first-draft script from 'A Hard Day's Night,' with scenes that never made it to the 1964 movie, or at least only made it in severely altered form. Among them is an extended scene that would have featured John Lennon acting out a Raymond Chandler-esque detective fantasy.

Beatles historian Martin Lewis found the script in the archives of the film's producer, Walter Shenson, shortly before Shenson's recent death. Lewis was looking for artifacts to display on an Internet site tied to the re-release of the movie Dec. 1. The old script will be a central feature of the site, which opened today at http://www.miramax.com/aharddaysnight

In addition to the deleted scenes, it includes handwritten notes by director Richard Lester and writer Alun Owen.

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