Brian Epstein’s life was more twisted than you thought

11 hours ago
7 min read

Without Brian Epstein you would have never heard of the Beatles. In fact, he is often referred to as the 5th Beatle. But for someone so celebrated, his life was incredibly tragic.

In the early 60s, Beatlemania was taking hold of the UK and, indeed, the rest of the world. But it wasn’t an easy ride for them. In fact, Brian Epstein really had to fight to get them to that stage.

But before we get to any of that, let’s go back to the beginning.

Brian Epstein grew up the eldest son in a Jewish family from Liverpool. His family ran a successful retail business, and it was expected that he would follow in their footsteps. However, he had always been creative, and had a dream to work in the arts. He told the BBC in 1964:

“When I left school, at the age of 16, I had ambitions to be a dress designer, and also to be an actor, but my family weren't very keen on this, and I allowed myself to be swayed into going into the business.”

So he worked in his family business for a while, relatively unhappy, until he was called up to mandatory National Service. He quickly found that military life was not for him, and became so miserable that a psychiatrist recommended an early medical discharge.

Upon his return, he realised he needed to make a change in his life, and left his family business to enrol at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Now by this point, Brian had realised he was a gay, which was a terrifying realisation at the time. In 1950s England, homosexuality was still illegal, and society was full of homophobia. If the wrong people found out, Brian could have faced violence or even prison time.

A particularly cruel legal punishment for homosexuality at the time was chemical castration, which was something that happened to the national war hero Alan Turing in 1952.

So the threat was real and Brian was well aware of the danger he was in, which set the scene for the paranoia he would feel for the rest of his life. This secret - sadly - had to be carefully guarded. But, at the same time, he was someone who enjoyed taking risks. He loved the thrill of risk taking, something that would continue throughout his life.

His worst fears came to life in 1957 when he was arrested for ‘insistent importuning’ by an undercover policeman (translation = soliciting the undercover officer for sex). This was a common trick the police used to catch closeted gay men at the time, as they targeted areas that they knew gay men would frequent.

Brian was given a 2 year suspended sentence. Humiliated and distrustful, he dropped out of acting school and moved back to Liverpool.

His parents welcomed him back to the family business, and this time his dad unintentionally changed Brian’s life forever. You see, this time Brian was put in charge of the record department at the family’s North End Music Stores (NEMS).

He thrived in this role. He had a talent for predicting which songs would be a hit, and pretty soon teenagers across Liverpool knew where to come to get the hottest new music.

One day, a kid came in asking for a record by the Beatles - My Bonnie. The store didn’t have it, and, curious, Brian decided to find out more about this band.

The track was actually by Tony Sheridan, and had been recorded with the Beatles (with this point with Pete Best instead of Ringo Starr) as his backing band. Have a listen - you can tell it is them, can’t you?

At first, Brian thought they were German, since the record had been made in Hamburg. But he soon found out that not only were they English, but they were Scouse too - and they regularly played at the Cavern club in Liverpool. So he went to see them with the hopes of finding out how to order that record.

Brian saw the potential straight away, but also immediately saw they could have been doing more with their image. He told the BBC:

"I heard their sound before I met them. They were, sort of, rather scruffily dressed, in the nicest possible way, or I should say, in the most attractive way. Black leather jackets and jeans, long hair, of course, and rather untidy stage presentation, not terribly aware, and not caring very much what they looked like."

Now Brian certainly had the gift of the gab, and despite no experience convinced them that he should be their manager. And so begins the career of the one of greatest managers in music history.

He made them ditch the leather for black Italian suits, and worked tirelessly to get them heard.

Fast forward to 1962, and Brian had managed to get a demo of the Beatles on the desk of executives at Decca records. He was sure they would offer a contract… but they turned them down. This was the time of solo artists like Elvis dominating the charts, not guitar bands.

Shocked, Brian reportedly swore to the executives that the Beatles would one day be bigger than Elvis. He always had an unshaking belief in the band.

And he was right. When Brian had taken their demo to producer George Martin in 1962, he managed to get them a record deal with Parlophone. What followed was their lead single Love Me Do and the album Please Please Me. The rest is history.

Brian had taken these boys - who could be a little rough around the edges - and transformed them into charming, uniform, musical icons. While he had little to do with the music (a deliberate choice - that wasn’t his strong point), he shaped their image and did all the grunt work behind the scenes to get them noticed. The band themselves were no strangers to the impact of Brian on their careers. In fact, Paul McCartney declared in the Brian Epstein Story documentary in 1997:

“If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was Brian.”

He was a major success. He had made himself a fortune, and had expanded his management repertoire to include other high profile acts such as Gerry and the Pacemakers.

But behind the scenes, Brian was pretty fragile. His immediate circle - including the Beatles - knew about his sexuality, but he still had to keep it a secret from the general public.

However, as when he was younger, he was still a risk taker. Not just with the secrecy surrounding his sexuality - he also was prone to gambling, and sadly, drugs. By the mid 60s he had a reliance on prescription drugs that seemed impossible to break, a habit that had developed from overworking himself.

In 1966, The Beatles were thrown into controversy when John Lennon made an off-hand comment about the band being more popular than Jesus. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t go down well with devout Christians in the States, where they were touring at the time. Radio bans and death threats started heading their way.

Brian managed to limit the damage by holding a press conference and insisting John’s words had been taken out of context, before formally apologising and organising a press conference for John to apologise too.

Brian’s quick thinking meant the US tour carried on, but the whole affair was the final straw for the Beatles, who decided that this would be their last tour.

This was devastating for Brian, who loved the logistics and work that went into touring. He worried that he would lose his close friendship with the band without tour life keeping them together. This added to his already fragile mental state.

To make matters worse, at one of the shows on the US tour, he was betrayed by a reoccurring lover, a man called Dizz Gillespie.

Dizz was an aspiring actor, who soon after establishing a relationship with Brian moved himself into the Epstein estate. Brian’s friends were cautious of him, believing Brian was being exploited. They were right to be concerned. The relationship was on and off, but this particular night Dizz showed up and convinced Brian to spend the night together.

Peter Brown, who was Brian’s assistant for a time, later wrote a book - The Love You Make - which explained what happened, a source some Beatles fans see as colourful and occasionally unreliable, so bare that in mind.

While Brian was at the gig, Dizz took off with valuable items from Brian’s suitcase.

“First, there was his large and questionable supply of pills, obviously the property of a junkie. Then there were half a dozen or so billets-doux containing explicit references to his conquests, along with Polaroid photographs of his young friends. Lastly, there was $20,000 in a brown paper bag.”

Now obviously it was evidence of his sexuality that Brian was most concerned about, but the very betrayal itself sent him spiralling. He entered a very deep depression, and even attempted to take his own life in September 1966.

Peter luckily found him, and he was rushed to hospital in time to save his life.

Over the next year, it seemed like Brian was doing better. His businesses were doing well, and he had started taking LSD, which friends noted seemed to help improve his mood.

So, it was a shock to everyone when on the 27th August 1967, Brian was found dead in his home. He had died of what doctors believed to be an accidental overdose of prescription medication. He was just 32.

Heartbreakingly, homosexuality had become partially legal in the UK just a month before. Who knows if that could have changed the trajectory of Brian’s personal life had it been made legal earlier.

Obviously, this news was devastating to the Beatles, who saw him as the glue of not only the band but their friendship group. Many fans argued Brian’s death signalled the beginning of the end for the Beatles; they just couldn’t go on without him. It makes you wonder what could have been had he lived longer.

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