As the play about his life hits the West End, Rex Makin talks to the ECHO about the real Brian Epstein
WEST End theatregoers are about to view him as The Man Who Made The
Beatles, but for veteran Liverpool solicitor and ECHO columnist Rex
Makin he was, first and foremost, a friend and next-door neighbour.
From 1945, when he was 11, Brian Epstein’s family home was 197
Queen’s Drive, Childwall. Rex, who was nine years older, moved into 199
when he married Shirley in 1957.
And it was to Rex that Brian’s grieving younger brother, Clive, and
mother, Queenie, turned when the Fab Four’s manager was found dead in
his London home – 24 Chapel Street, Belgravia – during the August Bank
Holiday weekend of 1967.
The Beatle Making Prince of Pop, as the Daily Mirror called him on its front page the following day, was just 32.
An inquest later found that Brian – whose dad, Harry, had only passed
away the previous month – died as a result of “incautious
self-overdoses” of Carbitral sleeping pills. A verdict of accidental
death was recorded.
“I didn’t see this play (Epstein: The Man Who Made The Beatles,
starring Andrew Lancel) when it was on in Liverpool,” says Rex, and he
has no intention of seeing it during its West End run.
“It pains me as it brings back too many sad memories.”
In 1957, Brian Epstein was 23, and still trying to find his way in
the world, while Rex was 32, and already a successful solicitor. Two
years earlier, Brian had won a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic
Art (RADA) in London, but left after just three terms believing an
actor’s life wasn’t, after all, for him.
Rex recalls: “I didn’t see much of Brian until he was mature. Then I
saw him socially at Philharmonic concerts and other social events. He
was devoted to classical music. His parents were very sociable, while
Brian was a very artistic individual. He did stand out – he was
certainly outre, as far as clothes were concerned. His brother Clive was
more staid.
“I recall we all went to the lounge at the Adelphi after concerts for coffee – it was a well-known social meeting place.”
This, of course, was a different era – an era long before
homosexuality was decriminalised - and Brian’s sexuality, says Rex,
caused “a large amount of stress for his family”.
He adds: “His father was certainly not on the same wavelength as
Brian – he had previously been opposed to Brian’s earlier ambition of
becoming a dress designer.”
Did Brian confide in Rex about the difficulties he was going
through in his day-to-day life? “He did, but I will not reveal what he
said.”
But Rex believes his neighbour and friend became happier after making
the most of the business opportunities his dad gave him after he left
RADA. Harry put Brian in charge of the record department of the new NEMS
store on Great Charlotte Street and then, after making a success of
that, he took sole charge of a second store in Whitechapel – “I think he
settled down when he was working here,” says Rex, sitting in his
offices just yards away from the former NEMS premises.
And it was from here, of course, that Brian made the short walk to
the Cavern one lunchtime in November, 1961, with his assistant Alistair
Taylor, to watch The Beatles for the first time. Afterwards, the pair
went to The Peacock restaurant in Hackins Hey, off Dale Street, where
Rex had offices.
“I can’t remember being there on that day, but I did have lunch with
Brian on occasions. As for The Beatles, I had no knowledge of them at
all at this stage – and when Brian told me of his interest in managing
them I was stupefied. He described them as being a band who would
conquer the world. I thought it was baloney, just another pipe dream of
his.”
Brian asked for Rex’s advice about drawing up a contract with the
band which would bind them to him forever, but the solicitor told him
such an arrangement would be legally unworkable.
In the end, Brian signed The Beatles to a five-year contract in
January, 1962 – a contract which was sold at auction for £240,000 in
2008.
Rex’s reaction? “The whole evolution and growth of The Beatles stupefies me – I still can’t understand it all.”
The songs? “Mostly they go over my head – and, at the time, I thought
Brian was ill-suited to The Beatles. But he definitely groomed them as
performers, persuading them to wear suits and to bow at the end of
performances – I think all that was a masterstroke.”
Brian’s life became a rollercoaster one of frenetic activity, but Rex
stresses: “I did keep in touch with him during the following years. He
took a lot on and I don’t think he was properly-equipped to master all
the things he became responsible for. I think he adapted and organised
things as best he could but, as a person, he was always highly-strung
and he lived very recklessly in some ways.”
Brian took drugs and gambled heavily – did Rex ever counsel
him about the path he was going down? “No, I never tried to be- cause it
would have been futile.”
Rex then recalls the last time he saw his old friend: “It was a hot
summer’s day and he was back at the family home. His father had just
died. Brian put his head over the garden fence and invited me down to
his country house in East Sussex. Of course, I wasn’t able to go down to
visit him, because not long afterwards Brian, himself, died.
“I think it was his brother who called me on the Sunday of that
terrible August Bank Holiday weekend. I feared it might happen. It was
something that was in the back of my mind. I’m not sure he made the
right choices regarding some of his friends, I don’t think he was
surrounded by good companions.”
Rex dropped everything and took a train to London: “I had to see it
as another job I had to do, and to the best of my ability. I spoke to
the coroner and the religious authorities. And after I had finished, all
the reporters, bar one, had left. Anne Robinson, who was then working
as a trainee for the Daily Mail, gave me a lift to Euston and we have
been friends from that day to this.
“I arranged the funeral, which took place at Long Lane Jewish
Cemetery in Aintree and, yes, the Rabbi did say Brian was ‘a symbol of
the malaise of our generation’ - but I think his family were too bemused
and grief-stricken to take any notice.”
Paul McCartney famously said “If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was
Brian”, and this is something Rex wholeheartedly agrees with. But he
says: “I think he would be highly amused by all the attention today,
including this play. I think there is a myth around Brian that has been
created, that he was a genius. It was a mixture of things. He had great
talent and was hard-working but he struck lucky with The Beatles. Though
I take nothing away from his legacy. I was very much in favour of his
enterprises, but there was an element of luck and being in the right
place at the right time.
“He did, however, pay a terrible price for his achievements. He paid
with his life. He got mixed up with drugs and with a gambling set. I
remember there was an invitation to a gambling party on his mantelpiece.
“Though, having said all that, I couldn’t ever see Brian living to a
ripe old age. I think he would have fallen to various temptations
whatever he had been doing. But he achieved so much in his short life,
and I was proud to know him.”
Epstein: The Man Who Made The Beatles, again starring Andrew
Lancel, is at The Leicester Square Theatre from Wednesday until
September 6, having premiered at the Epstein Theatre in Liverpool in
November, 2012
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