NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN FOOTAGE OF THE BEATLES EMERGES

Never-before-seen footage of The Beatles, getting ready for the special The Music of Lennon & McCartney on 1 November 1965. This clip is silent.
Footage shot by Dawn Swane, an Australian dancer and make-up artist who at the time was working at Granada TV in Manchester.

Never-before-seen footage of The Beatles preparing for a television performance has been released, showing the quartet mucking around for the camera while having their make-up done.

Never-before-seen footage of The Beatles preparing for a television performance has been released, showing the quartet mucking around for the camera while having their make-up done.

The silent footage, shot by Australian dancer and make-up artist Dawn Swane in 1965, shows the group grooming their famous hair-dos and winking at the camera before The Music of Lennon & McCartney which aired on November 1.

 

The clip, published by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, allows an insight into the world-famous band and their pre-performance routines.

Swane was working for Granada TV in Manchester at the time, and documented various parts of her working life as a make-up artist, dancer, and founder of 3 Arts Make-up Centre (now The Art and Technology of Make-up College) in Sydney.
“I don’t know if it was John or if it was Ringo, but they took the camera off me and said ‘This is no way to use a camera’ and they sort of jiggled it upside down,” Swane said.
“Everybody was just mucking around…They were a nice group of people.”

Her detailed collection of films and musings were donated to the NFSA by her daughter, production designer Melinda Doring.