Amid the celebrations and hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of
the Beatles’ arrival in America and their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan
Show,” the man Paul McCartney called “the fifth Beatle” is not often
mentioned. But experts say that without him, the Beatles as we know them
would not have existed.
That man is Brian Epstein, the band’s Jewish manager, who died of an accidental drug overdose in 1967.
Epstein’s grandfather, Isaac Epstein, was from Lithuania and arrived
in England in the 1890s at the age of 18. His grandmother, Dinah, was
the daughter of Joseph and Esther Hyman, who had emigrated from Russia
to England.
Asked to write an introduction to Epstein’s autobiography, A Cellarful of Noise,
Beatles scholar Martin Lewis—who emceed the Fest for Beatles Fans in
New York City this month to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band’s
U.S. arrival on Feb. 7, 1964—said Epstein’s death “was a major
contributing factor to the breakup of the Beatles.” John Lennon himself
said when the manager died, “I knew that we were in trouble then.”
Lewis’s association with the Beatles dates back to 1967, when as a
teenage fan he was engaged to compile the discography for Hunter
Davies’s official biography of the group. Years later, he wrote, hosted,
and produced the TV documentary Re-Meet The Beatles!”
“Epstein discovered the Beatles and guided them to mega-stardom,
making them the most successful musical artists of all time,” Lewis told
JNS.org. “But, regrettably, the man who did so much for the
Beatles, and who died tragically in 1967, has become a comparatively
forgotten man since his death. Almost a ‘nowhere man.’”
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