name	Pete Best
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth name	Randolph Peter Best
alias	Pete Best
born	November 24, 1941Madras, Madras Presidency, British India
origin	Liverpool, England, United Kingdom
instrument	Drums, vocals
genre	Rock and roll, rock
occupation	Drummer, civil servant, songwriter, vocalist
years active	1959–68, 1988–present
associated acts	The Beatles,Lee Curtis & the All-Stars,Pete Best & the All-Stars,The Pete Best Four,The Pete Best Combo,The Pete Best Band
website	www.petebest.com
notable instruments	}}

Pete Best (born 24 November 1941) is a British musician, best known as the original drummer in The Beatles. He was born in Madras, British India. After moving from India to Liverpool in 1945, Best's mother, Mona Best (1924–1988), started The Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the Bests' house in Liverpool, which became very popular—the membership list grew to over a thousand—and was where The Beatles (then known as The Quarrymen) played some of their first concerts. Best played there with his first band, The Black Jacks, and later with The Beatles.

Best joined The Beatles on 12 August 1960, only one day before they were to go to Hamburg to play a season of club dates. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, who were the co-founders and nucleus of the group, fired Best through their manager Brian Epstein on 16 August 1962, replacing him with Ringo Starr. Best is one of the group of people sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle". He later worked as a civil servant for 20 years, before starting The Pete Best Band. He has been married for over 45 years to Kathy Best; they have two daughters and four grandchildren.

Early life

Best's mother, Mona Best (née Alice Mona Shaw), was born in Delhi, India, and was the daughter of Thomas (an Irish major) and Mary Shaw. Her first son, Randolph Peter (Pete Best), was born in Madras (now Chennai), Madras Presidency, British India, on 24 November 1941. His father's name is unknown. Mona was training to become a doctor in the service of the Red Cross when she met Johnny Best. He came from a family of sports promoters in Liverpool which once owned and ran the Liverpool Stadium. After their marriage on 7 March 1944, at St. Thomas' Cathedral, Bombay, Rory Best was born. In 1945, the Best family sailed for four weeks to Liverpool on the ''Georgic'', the last troop ship to leave India, carrying single and married soldiers who had previously been a part of General Sir William Slim's forces in south-east Asia. The ship docked in Liverpool on 25 December 1945.

The Beatles and Hamburg

In 1960, Allan Williams arranged a season of bookings for The Beatles in Hamburg, starting on 12 August 1960, but said that he was not impressed with them as a musical group, and hoped that he could find a better act to follow them.

Having no permanent drummer, McCartney looked for someone to fill the Hamburg position. Best had been seen playing with The Quarrymen in The Casbah, and it was noted that he was a steady drummer, meaning that he played the bass drum on all four beats in the bar, which pushed the rhythm. He was known in Liverpool as being "mean, moody, and magnificent" by female fans, which convinced McCartney he would be good for the group. After The Black Jacks broke up, McCartney convinced Best to go to Hamburg with the group, by saying they would earn £15 per week each. As Best had passed his school exams—unlike Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, who had failed most of them—he had the chance to go to a teacher-training college, but decided that playing in Hamburg would be a better career move. Best had an audition in the Jacaranda club—owned by Williams—and travelled to Hamburg the next day with The Beatles. Williams later admitted that the audition with Best was not needed, as the group had not found any other drummer willing to travel to Hamburg, but did not tell Best in case he asked for more money. The Beatles first played at the Indra club in Hamburg, but slept in the Bambi Kino (cinema) in small, dirty rooms, which were noisy, cold, and directly behind the screen. Upon first seeing the Indra, Best remembered it as being a depressing place that was filled with a few tourists, and having heavy, old, red curtains that made it seem shabby compared to the larger Kaiserkeller. As Best had been the only one to take O-Level German at school, it was left to him to communicate with the club's owner, Bruno Koschmider, and the clientele. After the closure of the Indra because of complaints about the noise, the group started a residency in the Kaiserkeller.

In October 1960, they left Koschmider's club to work at the Top Ten Club, which was run by Peter Eckhorn, as he offered the group more money, and a slightly better place to sleep, although by doing so they broke their contract with Koschmider. When Best and McCartney went back to the Bambi Kino to get their belongings they found it in almost total darkness. As a snub to Koschmider, McCartney found a condom in his luggage, attached it to a nail on the concrete wall of the room, and set fire to it. There was no real damage done, but Koschmider reported them both for attempted arson. Best and McCartney spent three hours in a local prison and were deported, as was George Harrison, for working under the legal age limit, on 30 November 1960.

Back in Liverpool, no-one contacted each other for two weeks, but Best and his mother made numerous phone calls to Hamburg to recover the group's equipment. The ex-Black Jacks guitarist Chas Newby was invited to play bass for four concerts, as bassist Stuart Sutcliffe had decided to stay on in Hamburg. Newby played with the group at Litherland Town Hall and at The Casbah. He was shocked at the vast improvement in their playing and singing, and remembered Best's drumming to be very powerful, which pushed the group to play harder and louder. It was probably due to McCartney that Best developed a loud drumming style, as he would often tell Best in Hamburg to "crank it up" (play as loud as possible). When the group returned to Hamburg, Best was asked to sing a speciality number, "Peppermint Twist", while McCartney played drums, but always felt uncomfortable being at the front of the stage.

"My Bonnie"

The reunited Beatles returned to Hamburg in April 1961. While playing at the Top Ten Club they were recruited by singer Tony Sheridan to act as his backing band on a series of recordings for the German Polydor Records label, produced by bandleader Bert Kaempfert. Kaempfert signed the group to a Polydor contract at the first session on 22 June 1961. On 31 October 1961, Polydor released the recording "My Bonnie" (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur) which appeared on the German charts under the name "Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers"—a generic name used for whoever happened to be in Sheridan's backup band. The song was later released in the UK. There was a second recording session on 23 June, and a third session in May 1962.

Decca, Parlophone, and dismissal

Brian Epstein, who had been managing The Beatles for less than a month, arranged for the group to have an audition at Decca Records on New Year's Day, 1962. They recorded 15 songs, mostly covers, and, as Lennon later admitted, were "terrified and nervous". A month later, Decca turned down the group, which Best was not informed about.

Five months later, on 6 June 1962, The Beatles played a Parlophone audition at Abbey Road Studios, for George Martin. Ron Richards and his engineer, Norman Smith, recorded four songs, which Martin (who was not present during the recording) listened to at the end of the session. The recording convinced Martin that the group was good enough to be signed to a contract (even though he had already signed a contract with Epstein) but with one exception; Martin and his engineers wanted to use an experienced session drummer in Best's place, as was common practice amongst producers. Many years later Martin still expressed regret about this decision and what followed: "I decided that the drums, which are really the backbone of a good rock group, didn't give the boys enough support. They needed a good solid beat and I said to Brian, 'Look, it doesn't matter what you do with the boys, but on record, nobody need know. I'm gonna use a hot drummer.' Brian [Epstein] said, 'Okay, fine.' I felt guilty because I felt maybe I was the catalyst that had changed his [Best's] life".

When the group heard that Martin and the engineers preferred a session drummer for their upcoming recording session, Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison asked Epstein to dismiss Best from the band. Before Epstein became The Beatles' manager, Best's mother had arranged all the bookings in Liverpool, after they had parted company with Williams. Epstein agonised about the decision. As he wrote in his autobiography, ''A Cellarful of Noise'', he "wasn't sure" about Martin's assessment of Best's drumming and "was not anxious to change the membership of The Beatles at a time when they were developing as personalities ... I asked The Beatles to leave the group as it was." Epstein also asked Bob Wooler for advice, to which Wooler replied that it was not a good idea, as Best was too popular with the fans. Ultimately, Epstein decided that "if the group was to remain happy Pete Best must go". He summoned Best to his office and dismissed him on 16 August 1962, two years and four days after Best had first joined the group.

Best's friend, Neil Aspinall, was waiting for him downstairs in Epstein's NEMS record shop after the meeting. The two went to The Grapes pub, across from The Cavern Club, where The Beatles had often played. Starting in 1961, Aspinall had become good friends with Best and subsequently rented a room in the house where Best lived with his parents. Best had asked Aspinall to become the band's roadie, resulting in Aspinall buying an old Commer van for 80 pounds. He had been employed as the band's road manager and personal assistant, but was furious at the news, saying that he would stop working for them as well, but Best strongly advised him to remain with the group. Aspinall asked Lennon at the next concert why they had fired Best, to which he replied, "It's got nothing to do with you, you're only the driver."

Prior to Best's dismissal, during one of the extended business trips of Best's father, the 19-year-old Aspinall became romantically involved with Best's mother, Mona Best, who was 17 years his senior. During this period, he fathered a child by Mona: Vincent "Roag" Best. Roag Best was born in late July 1962, just three weeks prior to Best's dismissal. Despite his initial support after Best's dismissal, Aspinall elected to stay in the employ of the group, and ended his relationship with Mona (and their three-week-old baby, Roag).

''Mersey Beat'' magazine editor, Bill Harry, has claimed that the vacant drummer position in The Beatles was initially offered by Epstein to Johnny Hutchinson of The Big Three, whom he also managed. Hutchinson turned down the job, saying, "Pete Best is a very good friend of mine. I couldn't do the dirty on him", although he did agree to play three bookings until Starr could join. Starr had previously played with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes—the alternate band in the Kaiserkeller—and had deputised when Best was ill or unable to play, in Hamburg and Liverpool. Best's dismissal was reported by Harry on the front-page of the ''Mersey Beat'' magazine, upsetting many Beatles fans. The Beatles encountered some jeering and heckling in the street and on stage for weeks afterwards, with some fans shouting, "Pete forever, Ringo [Starr] never!" One agitated fan headbutted Harrison in The Cavern, giving him a black eye.

Reasons for dismissal

Best was never fully told why he was dismissed, as the only reason Epstein stated was, "The lads don't want you in the group anymore". Epstein subsequently claimed in his autobiography that Lennon, McCartney and Harrison thought Best "too conventional to be a Beatle, and though he was friendly with John, he was not liked by George and Paul". It has been documented (notably in Cynthia Lennon's book, ''John'') that while Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison usually spent their offstage time together in Hamburg and Liverpool, writing songs or socialising, Best generally went off alone. This left Best on the outside, as he was not privy to many of the group's experiences, references, and in-jokes.

German photographer Astrid Kirchherr asked The Beatles if they would mind letting her take photographs of them in a photo session, which impressed them, as other groups only had snapshots that were taken by friends. The next morning Kirchherr took photographs in a municipal park called "der Dom" which was close to the Reeperbahn, and in the afternoon she took them all—minus Best, who decided not to go—to her mother's house in Altona. Best was described by Dot Rhone—McCartney's girlfriend at the time, who later visited Hamburg—as being very quiet, and never taking part in conversations with the group.

Clothes, drugs and hairstyle

On their first trip to Hamburg, The Beatles realised that the stage suits they wore could not stand up to the hours of sweating and jumping about on stage every night, so they all bought leather jackets, jeans and cowboy boots, which were much tougher. Best preferred to play in short sleeves, and so did not match the sartorial style of the group, even though he was later photographed wearing a leather jacket and jeans. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Sutcliffe were introduced to drugs in Hamburg. As they had to play for hours every night, they often took Preludin to keep themselves awake, which were given to them by German customers or by Astrid Kirchherr, whose mother bought them. Lennon would often take four or five, but Best always refused.

It has been claimed that Epstein became exasperated with Best's refusal to adopt the mop-top-style Beatle haircut as part of their unified look, although Best later stated that he was never asked to change his hairstyle. In a 1995 BBC ''Radio Merseyside'' interview, Kirchherr explained: "My boyfriend, Klaus Voorman, had this hairstyle, and Stuart [Sutcliffe] liked it very, very much. He was the first one who really got the nerve to get the Brylcreem out of his hair, and asking me to cut his hair for him. Pete Best has really curly hair, and it wouldn't work".

Popularity

Best's popularity with fans was a source of friction, as many female fans considered Best to be the band's best-looking member. Radio Merseyside presenter, Spencer Leigh, wrote a book chronicling Best's firing, suggesting that the other members, McCartney in particular, were jealous. During the ''Teenagers' Turn'' showcase in Manchester, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison walked on stage to applause, but when Best walked on, the girls screamed. Best was surrounded at the stage door afterwards by attentive females while the other members were ignored after signing a few autographs. McCartney's father, Jim McCartney, was present at the time and admonished Best by saying: "Why did you have to attract all the attention? Why didn't you call the other lads back? I think that was very selfish of you". Lennon called the accusations of jealousy a "myth", and claimed that Best was only recruited for the band because The Beatles needed a drummer to go to Hamburg, and said, "We were always going to dump him when we found a decent drummer".

Mona Best's take on her son's sacking, as told to British television in 1963, with Best: "From the point of clash of personalties, well, probably that may be it because Peter did have a terrific fan club, you know, compared to the others". [Interviewer: "Too good looking perhaps?"] "I'll leave that for other people to say but from my point of view we haven't come here to sort of throw sticks and stones at the boys because there is no really hard feeling. There was at first, but it's just the way that it was done that has annoyed us. If it had been done a bit more straightforward it would have been more to the mark". Martin was shocked that Epstein had sacked Best: "He seemed to be the most saleable commodity as far as looks went. It was a surprise when I learned that they had dropped Pete. The drums were important to me for a record, but they didn't matter much otherwise. Fans don't pay particular attention to the quality of the drumming". Martin used session musician Andy White on the third session for "Love Me Do" on 11 September, and not Starr, who was Best's replacement.

Best as a drummer

Musically, Best has been judged to have had a limited rhythmic vocabulary that was seen as holding the other three band members back from their collective musical growth. Martin (see above) deemed Best's drumming to be inadequate for a recording. As stated in Bob Spitz's 2005 biography, "All Pete could do was play 'Fours'", a style of drumming that uses kick drum notes on every quarter note to hold down the beat. Spitz's book also contains engineer Ron Richards' account of his failed attempts to teach Best somewhat more complicated beats for different songs. Critic and Beatles historian Richie Unterberger described Best's drumming at the Decca session as "thinly textured and rather unimaginative", and said that Best "pushes the beat a little too fast for comfort". Unterberger thought Starr to be "more talented". Beatles critic Alan W. Pollack compared the Best, Starr, and Andy White versions of "Love Me Do", and concluded that Best was "an incredibly unsteady and tasteless drummer" on his version. Beatles historian Ian MacDonald, recounting the Decca audition, said that "Best's limitations as a drummer are nakedly apparent". MacDonald notes of the 6 June EMI audition that "...this audition version [of "Love Me Do"] shows one of the reasons why Pete Best was sacked: in moving to the ride cymbal for the first middle eight, he slows down and the group falters".

All the other Beatles went on record about the dismissal of Best. McCartney said: "It was a strictly professional decision. If he wasn't up to the mark... then there was no other choice." He also pronounced Best to be "a bit limited". Harrison said that "Pete kept being sick and not showing up for gigs" and admitted, "I was quite responsible for stirring things up. I conspired to get Ringo in for good; I talked to Paul and John until they came round to the idea." For his part, Starr said: "I felt I was a much better drummer than he [Best] was".

Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison all later stated that they regretted the manner in which Best was sacked. Lennon admitted that "we were cowards when we sacked him. We made Brian do it." McCartney stated: "I do feel sorry for him, because of what he could have been on to." Harrison: "We weren't very good at telling Pete he had to go. Historically it may look like we did something nasty to Pete and it may have been that we could have handled it better." Starr, on the other hand, feels he has no apology to make: "I never felt sorry ... I was not involved." Mark Lewisohn concluded that "Despite his alleged shortcomings, it was still shabby treatment ... the most underhand, unfortunate and unforgivable chapter in The Beatles' rise to monumental power."

After The Beatles

Soon after Best was dismissed, Epstein tried to console him by offering to build another group around him, but Best turned him down. Feeling let-down and depressed, he sat at home for two weeks—not wanting to face anybody or answer the inevitable questions about why he had been sacked. Epstein secretly arranged with his booking agent partner, Joe Flannery, for Best to join Lee Curtis & the All Stars, which then broke off from Curtis to become Pete Best & the All Stars. They signed to Decca Records, releasing the single "I'm Gonna Knock On Your Door", which was not successful.

Best later relocated to the United States along with songwriters Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington. As The Pete Best Four, and later as The Pete Best Combo (after increasing their number to five) they toured the United States with a combination of 1950s songs and original tunes, recording for small labels, but had little success. They ultimately released an album on Savage Records, ''Best Of The Beatles''; a play on Best's name, leading to disappointment for record buyers who expected a Beatles compilation. The group disbanded shortly afterwards. Bickerton and Waddington were to find greater success as songwriters in the 1970s, writing a series of hits for the American female group, The Flirtations and a UK group, The Rubettes.

Later years

Best decided to leave show business, and by the time of Hunter Davies' authorised Beatles biography in 1968, he was not willing to talk about his Beatles association. Years later he stated in his autobiography, "The Beatles themselves certainly never held out a helping hand and only contributed to the destruction with their readily-printed gossip that I had never really been a Beatle, that I didn't smile, that I was unsociable and definitely not a good mixer. There was not a single friendly word from any one of them". During the height of Beatlemania he attempted to commit suicide, but was talked out of it by his mother, Mona, and his brother, Rory.

In 1963, he married Kathy, who worked behind the biscuit counter at a Woolworth's store. Best's marriage to Kathy has lasted for more than 45 years. They have two daughters (Beba and Bonita) and four grandchildren. Best did shift work loading bread into the back of delivery vans, earning £8 a week. His education qualifications subsequently helped him become a civil servant working at Garston Jobcentre in Liverpool, where he rose from employment officer to training manager for the Northwest of England, and, ironically, remembered "a steady stream of real-life Yosser Hughes types" imploring him to give them jobs. The most he could do, he recalls, was to offer to retrain them in other fields, "which was an emotional issue for people who had done one kind of work all their lives."

In time, Best began giving interviews to the media, writing about his time with The Beatles, and serving as a technical advisor for the television film, ''Birth of The Beatles''. He found a modicum of independent fame, and has admitted to being a fan of his former band's music, and owning their records. In 1995, the surviving Beatles released ''Anthology 1'', which featured a number of tracks with Best as drummer, including songs from the Decca and Parlophone auditions. He received a substantial windfall—between £1 million and £4 million—from the sales, although he was not interviewed for the book or the documentaries. The collage of torn photographs on the ''Anthology 1'' album cover includes an early group photo that featured Best, but Best's head was removed, revealing a photo of Starr's head, taken from the ''Please Please Me'' cover photo. (The missing section of the photograph appears on the cover of the album ''Haymans Green''). A small photograph of Best can be seen on the left side of the ''Anthology'' cover. Best appeared in an advertisement for Carlsberg lager that was broadcast during the first commercial break of the first episode of the ''Anthology'' TV series on ITV in November 1995. The tag line was "Probably the Pete Best lager in the world", a variation of Carlsberg's well known slogan.

The Pete Best Band

In 1988, after twenty years of turning down all requests to play drums in public, Best finally relented, appearing at a Beatles convention in Liverpool. He and his brother, Roag, performed for the audience and, afterwards, his wife and mother told him, "You don't know it, but you're going to go back into show business". Best now regularly tours the world with The Pete Best Band, sharing the drumming with his younger brother Roag. The Pete Best Band's album ''Haymans Green'', made entirely from original material, was released on 16 September 2008 in the US, 24 October 2008 worldwide excluding the UK and 27 October 2008 in the UK.

Honours

On 6 July 2007, Best was inducted into the ''All You Need Is Liverpool'' Music Hall of Fame as the debut Charter Member. Best was presented with a framed certificate before his band performed. Liverpool has further honoured Best with the announcement, on 25 July 2011, that two new streets in the city would be named Pete Best Drive and Casbah Close.

Discography

Singles

"I'm Gonna Knock on Your Door" b/w "Why Did I Fall in Love with You" (Decca F 11929, Released: 1964) "Don't Play With Me (Little Girl)" b/w "If You Can't Get Her" (Happening 405, Released: 1965) "If You Can't Get Her" b/w "The Way I Feel About You" (Happening HA1117, Released: 1965) "Kansas City" b/w "Boys" (Cameo 391, Released: 1965) "(I'll Try) Anyway" b/w "I Wanna Be There" (Original Beatles Drummer 800, Released: 1965) "Kansas City" b/w "Boys" (Cameo 391, Released: 1965) "I Can't Do Without You Now" b/w "Keys to My Heart" (Mr. Maestro Records 711, Released: 1965)

Another "Peter Best" single, "Carousel Of Love"/"Want You" (Capitol 2092) is not by Best, but an Australian performer with the same name.

LPs

''Best of the Beatles'' (Savage BM 71, Released: 1965)

* Includes: "I Need Your Lovin"; "Just Wait and See"; "Casting My Spell"; "Keys to My Heart"; "Why Did You Leave Me Baby?"; "Like My Sister Kate"; "I Can't Do Without You Now"; "I'm Blue"; "Some Other Guy"; "She's Alright"; "Nobody But You"; "Last Night"

''The Beatle That Time Forgot'' [Original Version] (Phoenix PB-22, Released: 1981)

* Includes: "I'm Checking Out Now Baby"; "I'll Try Any Way"; "I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)"; "How'd You Get to Know Her Name"; "She's Not the Only Girl in Town"; "If You Can't Get Her"; "More Than I Need My Self"; "I'll Have Everything Too"; "The Way I feel About You"; "Don't Play With Me (Little Girl)"; "Rock and Roll Music"; "All Aboard"

''Rebirth'' (Phoenix PB-44, Released: 1981)

* Includes: "I Can't Do Without You Now"; "Off the Hook"; "She's Alright"; "I Need Your Lovin'"; "Why Did You Leave Me Baby"; "High School Shimmy"; "I Wanna Be There"; "Everybody"; "Pete's Theme"; "Keys to My Heart"

''The Beatle That Time Forgot'' [Reissue] (Phoenix PHX 340, Released: 1982)

* Includes: "I'll Try Anyway"; "I Don't Know Why I Do (I Just Do)"; "She's Not the Only Girl in Town"; "More Than I Need My Self"; "I'll Have Everything Too"; "I'm Checking Out Now Baby"; "How'd You Get to Know Her Name"; "If You Can't Get Her"; "Rock and Roll Music"

CDs

''Back to the Beat'' - (1995) The Pete Best Combo: Beyond the Beatles 1964-1966 (1996) ''Live at the Adelphi Liverpool 1988'' - (1996) ''Best'' (1998) ''Casbah Coffee Club 40th Anniversary Limited Edition'' (2009) ''The Savage Young Beatles'' (2004) ''Haymans Green'' - Released 16 September 2008 (US), August 2008 (UK) (The Pete Best Band)

Filmography

Full length films

''The Rocker'' (Cameo) DVD (UK) Directed by Peter Cattaneo 2008 ''Best of the Beatles'' DVD (US) Pete Best of The Beatles (UK) Directed by Geoff Wonfor

Theatre

''BEST!'', a comedy play written by Liverpool playwright Fred Lawless, was staged at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre and the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1995 and 1996. The play, which was mainly fiction, showed a scenario where after Pete Best's sacking from The Beatles, he went on to be become a world famous rock superstar while The Beatles struggled as one hit wonders. The play was critically acclaimed in both the ''Liverpool Echo'' and also in Spencer Leigh's 1998 book ''Drummed Out : The Sacking of Pete Best''

Notes

References

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External links

Pete Best official site

Complete Pete Best Discography

A downloadable audio interview with Pete Best about his work with the Beatles and the path his life has taken since.

Pete Best interview from NPR ''Fresh Air'' program

The Occult World of the Beatles by William H. Kennedy Free Audio Book [Best describes Club]

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:British expatriates in the United States Category:English rock drummers Category:People from Chennai Category:The Beatles members Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:People educated at Liverpool Collegiate Institution

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name	David Letterman
pseudonym	Earl Hofert
birth date	April 12, 1947
birth place	Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
medium	Stand-up, talk show
nationality	American
genre	Observational comedy, surreal humor, deadpan
subject	Self-deprecation, everyday life
influences	Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, Paul Dixon
influenced	Jimmy Kimmel, Jim Gaffigan, Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon
website	CBS.com/latenight/lateshow
active	1974–present
domesticpartner	Regina Lasko (1986-2009)
spouse	Michelle Cook (1969–1977)Regina Lasko (2009–present)
Religion	Lutheran
notable work	Host of ''Late Night with David Letterman'' (NBC)Host of ''Late Show with David Letterman'' (CBS)
signature	David Letterman Autograph.svg

}} David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, ''Late Show with David Letterman'', broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of ''Late Night with David Letterman'' on NBC. Letterman recently surpassed friend and mentor Johnny Carson for having the longest late-night hosting career in the United States.

Letterman is also a television and film producer. His company Worldwide Pants produces his show as well as its network follow-up ''The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson''. Worldwide Pants has also produced several prime-time comedies, the most successful of which was ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', currently in syndication.

In 1996, David Letterman was ranked #45 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Early life and career

Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father, Harry Joseph Letterman (April 1915 – February 1973), was a florist of British descent; his mother Dorothy Letterman (''née'' Hofert, now Dorothy Mengering), a Presbyterian church secretary of German descent, is an occasional figure on the show, usually at holidays and birthdays.

Letterman lived on the north side of Indianapolis (Broad Ripple area), not far from Speedway, IN, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he enjoyed collecting model cars, including racers. In 2000, he told an interviewer for ''Esquire'' that, while growing up, he admired his father's ability to tell jokes and be the life of the party. Harry Joseph Letterman survived a heart attack at age 36, when David was a young boy. The fear of losing his father was constantly with Letterman as he grew up. The elder Letterman died of a second heart attack at age 57.

Letterman attended his hometown's Broad Ripple High School at the same time as Marilyn Tucker Quayle (wife of the former Vice President) and worked as a stock boy at the local Atlas supermarket. According to the ''Ball State Daily News'', he originally had wanted to attend Indiana University, but his grades weren't good enough, so he decided to attend Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana. He is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and he graduated from what was then the Department of Radio and Television, in 1969. A self-described average student, Letterman endowed a scholarship for what he called "C students" at Ball State.

Though he registered for the draft and passed his physical after graduating from college, he was not drafted for service in Vietnam due to receiving a draft lottery number of 352 (out of 365).

Letterman began his broadcasting career as an announcer and newscaster at the college's student-run radio station—WBST—a 10-watt campus station which now is part of Indiana Public Radio. He was fired for treating classical music with irreverence.

Letterman then became involved with the founding of another campus station—WAGO-AM 570 (now WWHI, 91.3).

Letterman credits Paul Dixon—host of the ''Paul Dixon Show'', a Cincinnati-based talk show also shown in Indianapolis while Letterman was growing up—for inspiring his choice of career: :"I was just out of college [in 1969], and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And then all of a sudden I saw him doing it [on TV]. And I thought: That's really what I want to do!"

Weatherman

Letterman began his career as a radio talk show host on WNTS (AM), and on Indianapolis television station WLWI (now called WTHR) as a local anchor and weatherman. He received some attention for his unpredictable on-air behavior, which included congratulating a tropical storm for being upgraded to a hurricane and predicting hail stones "the size of canned hams." He would also occasionally report the weather and the day's very high and low temps for fictitious cities ("Eight inches of snow in Bingree and surrounding areas.") while on another occasion saying that a state border had been erased. ("From space you can see the border between Indiana and Ohio has been erased. I'm not in favor of this.") He also starred in a local kiddie show, made wisecracks as host of a late night TV show called "Freeze-Dried Movies" (he once acted out a scene from "Godzilla" using plastic dinosaurs), and hosted a talk show that aired early on Saturday mornings called "Clover Power," in which he interviewed 4-H members about their projects.

In 1971, Letterman appeared as a pit road reporter for ABC Sports' tape-delayed coverage of the Indianapolis 500. David is initially introduced as Chris Economaki in his job as a corner reporter. He interviews Mario Andretti who has just crashed out of the race and asks him a question about traffic on the course.

Move to Los Angeles

In 1975, encouraged by his then-wife Michelle and several of his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers, Letterman moved to Los Angeles, California, with hope of becoming a comedy writer. He started off by writing material for comedian Jimmie Walker. He also began performing stand-up comedy at The Comedy Store, a proving ground for unknown comics.

Letterman appeared in the summer of 1977 on the short-lived ''Starland Vocal Band Show''. He has since joked about how fortunate he was that nobody would ever see his performance on the program (due to its low ratings).

Letterman had a stint as a cast member on Mary Tyler Moore's variety show, ''Mary''; a guest appearance on ''Mork & Mindy'' (as a parody of EST leader Werner Erhard); and appearances on game shows such as ''The $20,000 Pyramid'', ''The Gong Show'', ''Password Plus'' and ''Liar's Club''. He also hosted a 1977 pilot for a game show entitled ''The Riddlers'' that was never picked up. He was also screen tested for the lead role in ''Airplane!'', a role that eventually went to Robert Hays.

His dry, sarcastic humor caught the attention of scouts for ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', and Letterman was soon a regular guest on the show. Letterman became a favorite of Carson's and was a regular guest host for the show beginning in 1978. Letterman credits Carson as the person who influenced his career the most.

NBC

Morning show

On June 23, 1980, Letterman was given his own morning comedy show on NBC, ''The David Letterman Show''. It was originally 90 minutes long, but was shortened to 60 minutes in August 1980. The show was a critical success, winning two Emmy Awards, but was a ratings disappointment and was canceled in October 1980.

''Late Night with David Letterman''

NBC kept Letterman under contract to try him in a different time slot. ''Late Night with David Letterman'' debuted February 1, 1982; the first guest on the first show was Bill Murray. Murray also guested on January 31, 2012 – 30 years later. The show ran Monday through Thursday at 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time, immediately following ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (a Friday night broadcast was added in June 1987. It was seen as being edgy and unpredictable, and soon developed a cult following (particularly among college students). Letterman's reputation as an acerbic interviewer was borne out in verbal sparring matches with Cher (who even called him an asshole on the show), Shirley MacLaine, Charles Grodin, and Madonna. The show also featured comedy segments and running characters, in a style heavily influenced by the 1950s and '60s programs of Steve Allen. Although Ernie Kovacs is often cited as an influence on the show, Letterman has denied this.

The show often featured quirky, genre-mocking regular features, including "Stupid Pet Tricks", dropping various objects off the roof of a five-story building, demonstrations of unorthodox clothing (such as suits made of Alka-Seltzer, Velcro and suet), a recurring Top 10 list, the Monkey-Cam (and the Audience Cam), and a facetious letter-answering segment. The Top 10 list, several "Film[s] by My Dog Bob" in which a camera was mounted on Letterman's own dog (often with comic results), Stupid Human Tricks, Small Town News, and Stupid Pet Tricks (which had its origins on Letterman's morning show) all eventually moved with Letterman to CBS.

Other memorable moments included Letterman using a bullhorn to interrupt a live interview on ''The Today Show'', announcing that he was the NBC president while not wearing any pants; interrupting Al Roker on WNBC-TV's broadcast of ''Live at Five'' by walking into their studio (which occupied the same floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza as Letterman's studio); and staging "elevator races", complete with commentary by NBC Sports' Bob Costas. In one infamous appearance, in 1982, Andy Kaufman (who was already wearing a neck brace) appeared to be slapped and knocked to the ground by professional wrestler Jerry Lawler (though Lawler and Kaufman's friend Bob Zmuda later revealed that the event was staged.) In another memorable exchange, sex expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer included cucumbers in a list of handy sex objects that women could find at home. The following night, guest Ted Koppel asked Letterman "May I insert something here?" and Dave responded "OK, as long as it's not a cucumber."

''Late Show with David Letterman''

In 1992, Johnny Carson retired, and many fans believed that Letterman would become host of ''The Tonight Show''. When NBC instead gave the job to Jay Leno, Letterman departed NBC to host his own late-night show on CBS, opposite ''The Tonight Show'' at 11:30 p.m., called the ''Late Show with David Letterman''. The new show debuted on August 30, 1993 and was taped at the historic Ed Sullivan Theater, where Ed Sullivan taped his eponymous variety series from 1948 to 1971. For Letterman's arrival, CBS spent $8 million in renovations. In addition to that cost, CBS also signed Letterman to a lucrative three-year, $14 million/year contract, doubling his ''Late Night'' salary. The total cost for everything (renovations, negotiation right paid to NBC, signing Letterman, announcer Bill Wendell, Shaffer, the writers and the band) was over $140 million.

But while the expectation was that Letterman would retain his unique style and sense of humor with the move, ''Late Show'' was not an exact replica of his old NBC program. Recognizing the more formal mood (and wider audience) of his new time slot and studio, Letterman eschewed his trademark blazer with khaki pants and white sneakers wardrobe combination in favor of expensive shoes, tailored suits and light-colored socks. The monologue was lengthened and Paul Shaffer and the "World's Most Dangerous Band" followed Letterman to CBS, but they added a brass section and were rebranded the "CBS Orchestra" as a short monologue and a small band were mandated by Carson while Letterman occupied the 12:30 slot. Additionally, because of intellectual property disagreements, Letterman was unable to import many of his ''Late Night'' segments verbatim, but he sidestepped this problem by simply renaming them (the "Top Ten List" became the "Late Show Top Ten", "Viewer Mail" became the "CBS Mailbag", etc.)

Popularity

The main competitor of ''The Late Show'' is NBC's ''The Tonight Show'', which was hosted by Jay Leno for nearly 16 years, but from June 1, 2009, to January 22, 2010, was hosted by Conan O'Brien. In 1993 and 1994, ''The Late Show'' consistently gained higher ratings than ''Tonight''. But in 1995, ratings dipped and Leno's show consistently beat Letterman's in the ratings from the time that Hugh Grant came on Leno's show after Grant's arrest for soliciting a prostitute.; Leno typically attracted about 5 million nightly viewers between 1999 and 2009. ''The Late Show'' lost nearly half its audience during its competition with Leno, attracting 7.1 million viewers nightly in its 1993–94 season and about 3.8 million per night as of Leno's departure in 2009. In the final months of his first stint as host of ''The Tonight Show'', Leno beat Letterman in the ratings by a 1.3 million viewer margin (5.2 million to 3.9 million), and ''Nightline'' and ''The Late Show'' were virtually tied. Once O'Brien took over ''Tonight'', however, Letterman closed the gap in the ratings. O'Brien initially drove the median age of ''Tonight Show'' viewers from 55 to 45, with most older viewers opting to watch ''The Late Show'' instead.

Following Leno's return to ''The Tonight Show'', however, Leno has regained his lead.

Letterman's shows have garnered both critical and industry praise, receiving 67 Emmy Award nominations, winning 12 times in his first 20 years in late night television. From 1993–2009, Letterman ranked higher than Leno in the annual Harris Poll of ''Nation's Favorite TV Personality'' 12 times. For example, in 2003 and 2004 Letterman ranked second in that poll, behind only Oprah Winfrey, a year that Leno was ranked fifth. Leno was higher than Letterman on that poll three times during the same period, in 1998, 2007, and 2008.

Hosting the Academy Awards

On March 27, 1995, Letterman acted as the host for the 67th Academy Awards ceremony. Critics blasted Letterman for what they deemed a poor hosting of the Oscars, noting that his irreverent style undermined the traditional importance and glamor of the event. In a joke about their unusual names (inspired by a similar joke by Woody Allen), he started off by introducing Uma Thurman to Oprah Winfrey, and then both of them to Keanu Reeves: "Oprah...Uma. Uma...Oprah," "Have you kids met Keanu?" This and many of his other jokes fell flat. Although Letterman attracted the highest ratings to the annual telecast since 1983, many felt that the bad publicity garnered by Letterman's hosting caused a decline in the ''Late Show'''s ratings.

Letterman recycled the apparent debacle into a long-running gag. On his first show after the Oscars, he joked, "Looking back, I had no idea that thing was being televised." He lampooned his stint two years later, during Billy Crystal's opening Oscar skit, which also parodied the plane-crashing scenes from that year's chief nominated film, ''The English Patient''.

For years afterward, Letterman recounted his hosting the Oscars, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continued to hold Letterman in high regard and they had invited him to host the Oscars again. On September 7, 2010, he made an appearance on the premiere of the 14th season of ''The View'', and confirmed that he had been considered for hosting again.

Heart surgery hiatus

On January 14, 2000, a routine check-up revealed that an artery in Letterman's heart was severely obstructed. He was rushed to emergency surgery for a quintuple bypass.

During the initial weeks of his recovery, reruns of the ''Late Show'' were shown and introduced by friends of Letterman including Drew Barrymore, including Dr. O. Wayne Isom and physician Louis Aronne, who frequently appears on the show. In a show of emotion, Letterman was nearly in tears as he thanked the health care team with the words "These are the people who saved my life!" The episode earned an Emmy nomination. For a number of episodes, Letterman continued to crack jokes about his bypass, including saying, "Bypass surgery: it's when doctors surgically create new blood flow to your heart. A bypass is what happened to me when I didn't get ''The Tonight Show!'' It's a whole different thing." In a later running gag he lobbied his home state of Indiana to rename the freeway circling Indianapolis (I-465) "The David Letterman Bypass." He also featured a montage of faux news coverage of his bypass surgery, which included a clip of Dave's heart for sale on the Home Shopping Network. Letterman became friends with his doctors and nurses. In 2008, a ''Rolling Stone'' interview stated "he hosted a doctor and nurse who'd helped perform the emergency quintuple-bypass heart surgery that saved his life in 2000. 'These are people who were complete strangers when they opened my chest,' he says. 'And now, eight years later, they're among my best friends.' "

Additionally, Letterman invited the band Foo Fighters to play "Everlong", introducing them as "my favorite band, playing my favorite song." During a later Foo Fighters appearance, Letterman said that Foo Fighters had been in the middle of a South American tour which they canceled to come play on his comeback episode.

Letterman again handed over the reins of the show to several guest hosts (including Bill Cosby, Brad Garrett, Elvis Costello, John McEnroe, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Bonnie Hunt, Luke Wilson and bandleader Paul Shaffer) in February 2003, when he was diagnosed with a severe case of shingles. Later that year, Letterman made regular use of guest hosts—including Tom Arnold and Kelsey Grammer—for new shows broadcast on Fridays. In March 2007, Adam Sandler—who had been scheduled to be the lead guest—served as a guest host while Letterman was ill with a stomach virus.

Re-signing with CBS

In March 2002, as Letterman's contract with CBS neared expiration, ABC offered him the time slot for long-running news program ''Nightline'' with Ted Koppel. Letterman was interested as he believed he could never match Leno's ratings at CBS due to Letterman's complaint of weaker lead-ins from the network's late local news programs, but was reluctant to replace Koppel. Letterman addressed his decision to re-sign on the air, stating that he was content at CBS and that he had great respect for Koppel.

On December 4, 2006, CBS revealed that Letterman signed a new contract to host ''The Late Show with David Letterman'' through the fall of 2010. "I'm thrilled to be continuing on at CBS," said Letterman. "At my age you really don't want to have to learn a new commute." Letterman further joked about the subject by pulling up his right pants leg, revealing a tattoo, presumably temporary, of the ABC logo.

"Thirteen years ago, David Letterman put CBS late night on the map and in the process became one of the defining icons of our network," said Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation. "His presence on our air is an ongoing source of pride, and the creativity and imagination that the ''Late Show'' puts forth every night is an ongoing display of the highest quality entertainment. We are truly honored that one of the most revered and talented entertainers of our time will continue to call CBS 'home.'"

According to a 2007 article in ''Forbes'' magazine, Letterman earned $40 million a year. A 2009 article in ''The New York Times'', however, said his salary was estimated at $32 million per year. In June 2009, Letterman's Worldwide Pants and CBS reached agreement to continue the ''Late Show'' until at least August 2012. The previous contract had been set to expire in 2010, and the two-year extension is shorter than the typical three-year contract period negotiated in the past. Worldwide Pants agreed to lower its fee for the show, though it had remained a "solid moneymaker for CBS" under the previous contract.

On the February 3, 2011, edition of the ''Late Show'', during an interview with Howard Stern, Letterman said he would continue to do his talk show for "maybe two years, I think."

2007–2008 writers' strike

The Late Show went off air for eight weeks during the months of November and December because of the Writers Guild of America strike. Letterman's production company—Worldwide Pants—was the first company to make an individual agreement with the WGA, thus allowing his show to come back on air on January 2, 2008. On his first episode since being off air, he surprised the viewing audience with his newly grown beard, which signified solidarity with the strike. His beard was shaved off during the show on January 7, 2008.

Letterman and Carson

In spite of Johnny Carson's clear intention to pass his title to Letterman, NBC selected Jay Leno to host ''The Tonight Show'' after Carson's departure. Letterman maintained a close relationship with Carson through his break with NBC. Three years after he left for CBS, HBO produced a made-for-television movie called ''The Late Shift'', based on a book by ''New York Times'' reporter Bill Carter, chronicling the battle between Letterman and Leno for the coveted ''Tonight Show'' hosting spot. Letterman would mock the film for months afterward, specifically on how the actor playing him, John Michael Higgins, did not resemble him in the least.

Carson later made a few cameo appearances as a guest on Letterman's show. Carson's final television appearance came May 13, 1994, on a ''Late Show'' episode taped in Los Angeles, when he made a surprise appearance during a 'Top 10 list' segment. The audience went wild as Letterman stood up and proudly invited Carson to sit at his desk. The applause was so protracted that Carson was unable to say anything, and he finally returned backstage as the applause continued (it was later explained that Carson had laryngitis, though Carson can be heard talking to Letterman during his appearance).

In early 2005, it was revealed that Carson still kept up with current events and late-night TV right up to his death that year, and that he occasionally sent jokes to Letterman, who used these jokes in his monologue; according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally (a onetime producer for both men), Carson got "a big kick out of it." Letterman would do a characteristic Johnny Carson golf swing after delivering one of Carson's jokes. In a tribute to Carson, all of the opening monologue jokes during the first show following Carson's death were written by Carson.

Lassally also claimed that Carson had always believed Letterman, not Leno, to be his "rightful successor." Letterman also frequently employs some of Carson's trademark bits on his show, including "Carnac the Magnificent" (with Paul Shaffer as Carnac), "Stump the Band" and the "Week in Review."

Letterman and Oprah Winfrey

On September 10, 2007, Letterman made his first appearance on ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' at Madison Square Garden in New York City. He shared pictures of his son and live-in girlfriend. The so-called feud between Letterman and Winfrey apparently ended in 2005 when Winfrey appeared on CBS's ''Late Show with David Letterman'' on December 2, in an event Letterman jokingly referred to as "the Super Bowl of Love". Winfrey had previously appeared on Letterman's show when he was hosting NBC's ''Late Night'' on May 2, 1989.

Winfrey and Letterman also appeared together in a Late Show promo that aired during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLI in February 2007, with the two sitting next to each other on the couch watching the game. Since the game was played between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears, the Indianapolis-born Letterman wears a Peyton Manning jersey, while Winfrey—who tapes her show in Chicago—is in a Brian Urlacher jersey. Three years later, during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV, the two appeared again, this time with Winfrey sitting on a couch between Letterman and Jay Leno. The appearance was Letterman's idea: Leno flew to New York City in an NBC corporate jet, sneaking into the Ed Sullivan Theater during the ''Late Show'''s February 4 taping wearing a disguise, meeting Winfrey and Letterman at a living room set created in the theater's balcony where they taped their promo.

Response to Internet death threat

On August 17, 2011, it was reported that a Muslim militant had posted a death threat against Letterman on a website frequented by Al-Qaeda supporters, calling on American Muslims to kill Letterman for making a joke about the death of an Al-Qaeda leader killed in a drone strike in Pakistan in June 2011. In his show on August 22, Letterman joked about the threat, saying "State Department authorities are looking into this. They're not taking this lightly. They’re looking into it. They're questioning, they're interrogating, there's an electronic trail — but everybody knows it's Leno."

Appearances in other media

Letterman appeared in issue 239 of the Marvel comic book ''The Avengers'', in which the title characters are guests on ''Late Night''. A parody of Letterman, named "David Endochrine," is gassed to death along with his bandleader named "Paul" and their audience in Frank Miller's ''The Dark Knight Returns''.

Letterman appeared in the pilot episode of the short-lived 1986 series "Coach Toast", and he appears with a bag over his head as a guest on Bonnie Hunt's ca. 1993 sitcom ''The Building''. He also appears in The Simpsons, as himself in a couch gag when The Simpsons find themselves (and the couch) in "Late Night with David Letterman." He had a cameo in the feature film ''Cabin Boy'', with Chris Elliott, who worked as a writer on Letterman's show. In this and other appearances, Letterman is listed in the credits as "Earl Hofert", the name of Letterman's maternal grandfather. He also appeared as himself in the Howard Stern biopic Private Parts as well as the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic ''Man on the Moon'', in a few episodes of Garry Shandling's 1990s TV series ''The Larry Sanders Show'' and in "The Abstinence", a 1996 episode of the sitcom ''Seinfeld''. Letterman also made an uncredited appearance in the first episode of the third season of the sitcom The Nanny.

Letterman provided vocals for the Warren Zevon song "Hit Somebody" from ''My Ride's Here'', and provided the voice for Butt-head's father in the 1996 animated film ''Beavis and Butt-head Do America''.

In 2010, a documentary ''Dying to Do Letterman'' was released directed by Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina featuring Steve Mazan, a stand up comic, who has cancer and wants to appear on the Letterman Show. The film won Best Documentary and Jury Awards at the Cinequest Film Festival. Steve Mazan published a same-titled book (full title, ''Dying to Do Letterman: Turning Someday into Today'' about his own saga.

Other projects

Worldwide Pants

Letterman started his own production company—Worldwide Pants Incorporated—which produced his show and several others, including ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', ''The Late Late Show'', and several critically acclaimed, but short-lived television series for Bonnie Hunt. Worldwide Pants also produced the dramedy program ''Ed'', which aired on NBC from 2000–2004. It was Letterman's first association with NBC since he left the network in 1993. During ''Ed's'' run, the star, Tom Cavanagh, appeared as a guest on ''The Late Show'' several times.

In 2005, Worldwide Pants produced its first feature film, ''Strangers with Candy'', which was a prequel to the Comedy Central TV series of the same title. In 2007, Worldwide Pants produced the ABC comedy series, ''Knights of Prosperity''.

Worldwide Pants made significant news in December 2007 when it was announced that Letterman's company had independently negotiated its own contract with the Writers Guild of America, East, thus allowing Letterman, Craig Ferguson, and their writers to return to work, while the union continued its strike against production companies, networks and studios who had not reached an agreement.

Record company

In late April 2010, several music industry websites reported that Letterman started a record label named Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music and signed his first artist, Runner Runner. Lucy Walsh announced on her MySpace page that she has been signed by Letterman and Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music and is working on her album.

Rahal Letterman Racing

Rahal Letterman Racing (RLR) is an auto racing team that currently races in the American Le Mans Series, and part-time in the Indy Racing League. It is co-owned by 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal and Letterman himself, and is based in Hilliard, Ohio. The team won the 2004 Indianapolis 500 with driver Buddy Rice. Letterman was a pit reporter for ABC in the 1971 Indianapolis 500.

American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming

American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming is Letterman's private foundation. Through it, Letterman has donated millions of dollars to charities and other non-profits in Indiana and Montana, celebrity-affiliated organizations such as Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, universities such as Ball State, and other organizations such as the American Cancer Society, Salvation Army, and Doctors Without Borders.

Personal life

Marriages and long-term relationships

In 1969, Letterman married Michelle Cook; the marriage ended by divorce in 1977. He also had a long-term relationship with former head writer and producer on ''Late Night'', Merrill Markoe. Markoe was the mind behind several ''Late Night'' staples, such as "Stupid Pet/Human Tricks".

Letterman has a son, Harry Joseph Letterman (born on November 3, 2003), with Regina Lasko. Harry is named after Letterman's father. In 2005, police discovered a plot to kidnap Harry Letterman and ransom him for $5 million. Kelly Frank, a house painter who had worked for Letterman, was charged in the conspiracy.

Letterman and Lasko, who had been together since 1986, wed on March 19, 2009, during a quiet courthouse civil ceremony in Choteau, Montana, where he purchased a ranch in 1999. Letterman announced the marriage during the taping of his March 23 show, shortly after congratulating Bruce Willis for getting married the previous week. Letterman told the audience he nearly missed the ceremony because his truck became stuck in mud two miles from their house. The family resides in North Salem, New York, on a estate.

Stalking incident

Beginning in May 1988, Letterman was stalked by Margaret Mary Ray, a woman suffering from schizophrenia. She once stole his Porsche, repeatedly broke into his house, and camped out on his tennis court. Her exploits drew national attention, and Letterman occasionally joked about her behavior in his show, although never mentioning her name. After she committed suicide in 1998, Letterman told the ''New York Times'' that he had had great compassion for her, and publicly expressed sympathy.

Extortion attempt and revelation of affairs

On his October 1, 2009, show, Letterman announced that he had been the victim of an extortion attempt by someone threatening to reveal that he had had sex with several of his female employees, confirming the relationships. He stated that three weeks earlier (on September 9, 2009) someone had left a package in his car with material he said he would write into a screenplay and a book if Letterman did not pay him $2 million. Letterman said that he contacted the Manhattan District Attorney's office, ultimately cooperating with them to conduct a sting operation involving giving the man a phony check. Subsequently, Robert J. "Joe" Halderman, a producer of the CBS true crime journalism series ''48 Hours'', was arrested after trying to deposit the check. He was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted grand larceny on October 2, 2009. Eventually, on March 9, 2010, he pleaded guilty to this same felony and served a 6-month jail sentence, followed by probation and community service.

A central figure in the case and one of the women Letterman had had a sexual relationship with was his longtime personal assistant Stephanie Birkitt who often appeared with him in his show. She had also worked for ''48 Hours''. Until a month prior to the revelations she had shared a residence with Halderman, who allegedly had copied her personal diary and used it, along with private emails, in the blackmail package.

On October 3, 2009, a former CBS employee, Holly Hester, announced that she and Letterman had engaged in a year-long "secret" affair in the early 1990s while she was his intern and a student at New York University.

In the days following the initial announcement of the affairs and the arrest, several prominent women, including Kathie Lee Gifford, co-host of NBC's ''Today Show'', and NBC news anchor Ann Curry questioned whether Letterman's affairs with subordinates created an unfair working environment. A spokesman for Worldwide Pants said that the company's sexual harassment policy did not prohibit sexual relationships between managers and employees. According to business news reporter Eve Tahmincioglu, "CBS suppliers are supposed to follow the company's business conduct policies" and the CBS 2008 Business Conduct Statement states that "If a consenting romantic or sexual relationship between a supervisor and a direct or indirect subordinate should develop, CBS requires the supervisor to disclose this information to his or her Company's Human Resources Department..."

On October 5, 2009, Letterman devoted a segment of his show to a public apology to his wife and staff. Three days later, Worldwide Pants announced that Birkitt had been placed on a "paid leave of absence" from the ''Late Show''. On October 15, CBS News announced that the company's Chief Investigative Correspondent, Armen Keteyian, had been assigned to conduct an "in-depth investigation" into Halderman's blackmail of Letterman.

Awards and honors

Awards

In his capacities as either a writer, producer, performer, or as part of a writing team, Letterman is among the most nominated people in Emmy Award history with 52 nominations, winning two Daytime Emmys and five Primetime Emmys since 1981. His nomination record is second only to producer Jac Venza, who holds the record for the most Emmy nominations for an individual (57). Letterman has been nominated every year since 1984, when he first appeared on late night television as the host of ''Late Night with David Letterman.'' Additionally, he has won four American Comedy Awards. Letterman was the first recipient of the Johnny Carson Award for Comedic Excellence at The Comedy Awards in 2011.

David Letterman Communication and Media Building

On September 7, 2007, Letterman visited his alma mater, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, for the dedication of a communications facility named in his honor for his dedication to the university throughout his career as a comedian. The $21 million, David Letterman Communication and Media Building opened for the 2007 fall semester. It features state-of-the-art recording equipment and facilities. Thousands of Ball State students, faculty, and local residents welcomed Letterman back to Indiana. Letterman's emotional speech touched on his struggles as a college student and his late father, and also included the "top ten good things about having your name on a building", finishing with, "if reasonable people can put my name on a $21 million building, anything is possible."

At the same time, Letterman also received a Sagamore of the Wabash award given by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, which recognizes distinguished service to the state of Indiana.

References

External links

David Letterman's Feb. 24, 1978 appearance on ''90 Minutes Live''

Official ''Late Show'' biography

1999 article on Letterman from Salon.com

Tape of Letterman announcing affairs/extortion attempt on Late Show

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American entertainment industry businesspeople Category:American television talk show hosts Category:Ball State University alumni Category:Daytime Emmy Award winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Indianapolis, Indiana television anchors Category:IndyCar Series team owners Category:People from Indianapolis, Indiana Category:Weather presenters

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name	Mona Best
birth date	3 January 1924
birth place	Delhi, India
death date	October 09, 1988
death place	Liverpool
occupation	Housewife, Club Owner
spouse	John Best
parents	Thomas and Mary Shaw (née Shelverton)
children	Randolph Peter Best, Rory and Vincent Roag Best }}

Mona "Mo" Best (3 January 1924 – 9 September 1988) was born in India, and is best known as the mother of Pete Best (b. 24 November 1941) who was an early member of The Beatles. Mona also had two other sons, Rory (born 1944) and Vincent "Roag" Best (born 1962). It was later confirmed that Roag's father was The Beatles' associate Neil Aspinall, although he was not registered as the father on Roag's birth certificate.

After moving to Liverpool from India, the Best family claim that Mona pawned all of her jewellery in 1954, and used the money to place a 33–1 bet on a horse named "Never Say Die", and used her winnings to buy a house in 1957. Mona later opened The Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the house as a venue for Rock 'n' Roll music. It was planned as a members-only club for her sons and their friends. The club was often referred to as The Casbah Club, or The Casbah.

The Quarrymen—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ken Brown—frequently played at The Casbah instead of the The Cavern Club, which had a jazz-only policy at that time. The Casbah Club cellar—with its original decoration—still exists. In 2006, the property was accorded a Grade II Heritage listing. Mona died in 1988, after a heart attack following a long illness.

India

Alice Mona Shaw was born on 3 January 1924, in Delhi, India, to Thomas (an Irish major) and Mary Shaw. She was the youngest of four children: Brian, Patrick and Aileen. Her first son, Randolph Peter (Pete Best), was born on 24 November 1941—his biological father's name is unknown. Mona was training with the Red Cross when she met Johnny Best, who came from a family of sports promoters in Liverpool that once owned and ran the Liverpool Stadium. At the time of their meeting, Best was a commissioned officer serving as a Physical Training Instructor in India, and was the British Army's middleweight boxing champion. After their marriage on 7 March 1944, at St. Thomas' Cathedral, Bombay, the Bests had one child: Rory Best (b. 1944). In 1945, the family sailed for four weeks to Liverpool on the ''Georgic'', which was the last troop ship to leave India, carrying single and married ranks who had previously been a part of General Sir William Slim's forces in southeast Asia. The ship docked in Liverpool on 25 December 1945.

Liverpool

Being a part of Best's family meant Mona was accorded respect on Merseyside, which included meeting well-known sports personalities of the time and receiving preferential treatment when booking a table in a restaurant, or a seat in the theatre. The Bests lived for a short time at the Best family's large home in West Derby, which was called "Ellerslie Manor", but Mona fell out with John Best's sister, Edna, who resented her brother's choice of wife. The family then moved to a small flat on Cases Street, Liverpool (above Ma Edgerton's public house) but Mona was always looking for a large house—as she had been used to in India—instead of a smaller semi-detached house, which were prevalent in the area. After moving to a three-bedroomed house in Princess Drive, Mona persuaded her parents, Thomas and Mary Shaw, to leave India and live with them in Liverpool.

After moving to 17 Queenscourt Road in 1948—where the Bests lived for nine years—Rory saw a large Victorian house for sale at 8 Hayman's Green in 1954, and told his mother about it. The Best family claim that Mona then pawned all her jewellery and placed a bet on a horse that was ridden by Lester Piggott in the 1954 Epsom Derby, called "Never Say Die", which won at 33–1, and used her winnings to buy the house in 1957. Note: to place the bet, Mona would have had to travel more than 220 miles from Liverpool to Epsom (as bets were only allowed at race tracks at the time) or place the bet with an illegal bookmaker in Liverpool. 8 Hayman's Green had previously been owned by the West Derby Conservative Club, and was unlike many other family houses in Liverpool, as the house (built around 1860) was set back from the road, had 15 bedrooms and an acre of land. All the rooms were painted dark green or brown, and the garden was totally overgrown. Mona decorated the living room in an Oriental style, which reflected her own upbringing in India. She had previously tried to interest her husband in other houses, including a Formby lighthouse, a windmill in St. Helens and a circular house in Southport, which Best disliked and rejected.

During 1961–1962, Neil Aspinall became good friends with Pete and subsequently rented a room in the Best's house. During one of John Best's extended business trips, Aspinall became romantically involved with Mona, who was 17 years his senior. During this period, Aspinall fathered a child by Mona: Vincent "Roag" Best. Roag was born in late July 1962, and just three weeks later, on 16 August 1962, the Beatles dismissed Pete. Roag's birth certificate was registered on 31 August 1962, stating his name to be Vincent Rogue [sic] Best, and his father as being John Best. Mona and Best separated in the early 1960s.

The Casbah Coffee Club

Mona came up with the idea of the club after watching a TV report about The 2i's Coffee Bar in London's Soho where several singers had been discovered. She decided to open The Casbah Coffee Club—which was located in her cellar—on 29 August 1959, for young people to meet and listen to the popular music of the day. Mona charged half a crown annually for membership—to "keep out the rough elements"—and served soft drinks, snacks, cakes, and coffee from an espresso machine, which no other club had at that time. The popular records of the day were played on a small Dansette record player, which amplified them through a speaker of .

Mona had booked the Les Stewart Quartet to play the opening night with Harrison on guitar, but they cancelled the booking after Stewart and Brown had a quarrel. Stewart was angry that Brown had missed a rehearsal, because Brown was helping Mona to decorate the club. As 300 membership cards had already been sold, Harrison said that he had two friends in a band called The Quarrymen who would play instead. Lennon, McCartney, Stuart Sutcliffe and Harrison went to the club to arrange the booking, to which Mona agreed, but said she needed to finish painting the club first. All four took up brushes and helped Mona to finish painting the walls with spiders, dragons, rainbows, stars, and a beetle, but as Lennon was short-sighted, he mistook gloss for emulsion paint, which took a long time to dry in the dark, damp cellar. Cynthia Powell, later the wife of Lennon, painted a silhouette of him on the wall, which is also still there.

The Quarrymen played a series of seven Saturday night concerts in The Casbah for 15 shillings each, starting on 29 August to October 1959, featuring Brown, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, but without a drummer, or a PA system. The opening night concert was attended by about 300 local teenagers, but as the cellar had no air-conditioning, and people were dancing, the temperature rose until it became hard to breathe. As there was no amplification, Lennon later persuaded Mona to hire a young amateur guitar player called Harry to play a short set before The Quarrymen, but this was only so they could use his 40-Watt amplifier. After the success of the first night, Mona gave The Quarrymen a residency, and paid the whole group £3 a night. Every Saturday thereafter, queues lengthened onto the street, which was financially good for Mona, as she charged one shilling admission on top of the annual membership fee.

Pete was studying at the Collegiate Grammar School when he decided he wanted to be in a music group, so Mona bought him a drum kit from Blackler's music store and Best formed his own band; The Black Jacks. Chas Newby joined the group, as did Ken Brown, but only after he had left The Quarrymen. The reason for Brown's exit from the group was that he turned up on the seventh Saturday night of The Quarrymen residency at The Casbah with the flu, so Mona ordered him upstairs to the Best's living room to rest. This caused a massive quarrel with the rest of the group when Mona came to pay them, as they wanted Brown's money to be shared amongst the three of them, as Brown had not played. Mona refused, so The Quarrymen angrily cancelled their residency and stormed out. Colin Manley from The Remo Four was also given a booking to play in the club, which was the only venue that young amateur bands could play at the time. Other groups like The Searchers and Gerry & The Pacemakers later played in the club. The Black Jacks became the resident group at The Casbah, although The Quarrymen occasionally played there again and often visited. It was in The Casbah Club that Lennon and McCartney convinced Sutcliffe to buy a Hofner President bass guitar and join The Quarrymen.

Even though the membership list later spiralled to over a thousand, Mona closed the club on 24 June 1962, with The Beatles as the last group to perform. In 2006, the Best's ex-coal cellar was given a "Grade II listed building status", after being recommended by English Heritage. It has now been opened as a tourist attraction in Liverpool, along with McCartney and Lennon's previous homes.

The Beatles

When Pete became a member of The Beatles, Mona repeatedly tried to get the group a lunchtime residency in The Cavern Club by talking to the owner, Ray McFall, but was turned down, as The Cavern had a jazz-only policy at the time. Brian Epstein later wanted to manage the group, and Mona was asked for her advice, and although she had her own plans for the group, she concluded that Epstein would be good for them over time. After The Beatles signed a management contract with Epstein, Mona did not relinquish her control over them, as they had been using her telephone to call agents, and frequently slept over in her living room between concerts. She constantly harassed Epstein about the quality of their bookings, and his management of them, which led to Epstein never referring to her by name, but always calling her "''that woman''". One musician commented that if Mona said it was a Sunday when it was Tuesday, one would be forced to agree with her.

After Best, McCartney and Harrison were deported from Hamburg in November 1960, Mona made numerous phone calls to Hamburg to recover the group's equipment, which she eventually managed to do. Mona wrote to Granada Television in 1961, in an attempt to get the group a television appearance on the programme called "People And Places", but was sent a letter telling her that they would contact her in the future. After her son had been dismissed from The Beatles on 16 August 1962, Mona was later quoted by biographer Hunter Davies as saying: }}

Later years

In 1967, when The Beatles had to pose for the photograph for the ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' cover, Lennon asked Mona if he could borrow the war medals her father had been given in India to wear for the photo session. Although still upset at the way her son was dismissed from The Beatles, Mona agreed, and the medals were then returned, along with a Cash Box trophy that is in the letter 'L' of THE BEATLES flower-sign on the cover. Mona never opened another club, or engaged in another business venture, although she did have paying guests at her house, which she shared with her bed-ridden mother and her sons after she and Best parted. Mona died of a heart attack 9 September 1988, after a long illness.

See also

List of English Heritage properties

Notes

References

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External links

Interview with Pete and Mona Best

An Evening With Pete Best, Part I: The Interview

Best interview with Stephen Cooke - 11 Sep 1996

Rolling Stone on Best's DVD

The medals and Sergeant Pepper

Category:1924 births Category:1988 deaths Category:People from Liverpool Category:English businesspeople Category:People associated with The Beatles Category:People from Delhi

name	Tony Sheridan
landscape	yes
background	solo_singer
birth name	Anthony Esmond Sheridan McGinnity
born	May 21, 1940Norwich, Norfolk
origin	Liverpool, England
instrument	violin, guitar
genre	Rock and roll, rock
occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician
years active	1958–present
label	Polydor
associated acts	The Beat Brothers
website	www.tony-sheridan.de
notable instruments	}}

Tony Sheridan (born Anthony Esmond Sheridan McGinnity on 21 May 1940 in Norwich, Norfolk), is an English rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as an early collaborator of The Beatles, (though the record was labelled as being with "The Beat Brothers"), one of two non-Beatles (the other being Billy Preston) to receive label performance credit on a record with the group, and the only non-Beatle to appear as lead singer on a Beatles recording which charted as a single.

Biography

In his early life, Sheridan was influenced by his parents' interest in classical music, and by age seven, he had learned to play the violin. He eventually came to play guitar, and in 1956, formed his first band. He showed enough talent that he soon found himself playing in London's "Two I's" club for some six months straight, but at the same time he also found himself reduced to sleeping in doorways. In 1958, at 18, he began appearing on the BBC's ''Oh Boy'', playing electric guitar on such early Rock classics as "Blue Suede Shoes", "Glad All Over", "Mighty Mighty Man" and "Oh Boy!". Sheridan was soon viewed as a very promising guitarist and as such was employed backing a number of singers, reportedly including Gene Vincent and Conway Twitty while they were in England. He also played guitar for Cherry Wainer on her recording of "Happy Organ". But his penchant for being late, showing up without his guitar etc., soon got him a reputation for having gone a bit "haywire", and cost him much of his professional standing in England. Providentially his little band was offered a gig in Bruno Koschmieder's "Kaiserkeller" club in Hamburg, Germany. As fate would have it, his bandmates soon packed up and left Germany, but Sheridan remained behind. In a bizarre twist a young Liverpool rock group was then booked by Liverpool club-owner/manager Allan Williams to play in Koschmieder's second club "The Indra", and thus the young, raw Beatles came face to face with "professional" musician Tony Sheridan and his now makeshift band. This face to face contact rapidly grew into mutual great admiration, particularly on the part of young George Harrison, who, as lead guitarist for the Beatles, never missed a chance to corner fellow lead guitarist Sheridan and practise with him endlessly.

While performing in Hamburg between 1960 and 1963, Sheridan employed various backup bands, most of which were really "pickup bands", or simply an amalgamam of various musicians, rather than a group proper. However, in 1961, the young Beatles (with their line-up at the time of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best) who had met and admired Sheridan during their first visit to Hamburg in 1960, and who openly worked with him on their second visit, became even closer. The relationship was largely symbiotic, with the Beatles sometimes backing Sheridan, but with Sheridan often joining the Beatles during their own sets back them playing guitar. When German Polydor producer/A and R man Bert Kaempfert saw the pairing on stage, he suggested that Sheridan and the Beatles make some recordings together. Kaempfert viewed Sheridan as the one with "star" potential, and though they signed the Beatles to play on Sheridan's records their contract with them stipulated that the four Beatles (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Best) only had to play on a minimum of two songs. Of the seven songs recorded during Sheridan's two day-long sessions for Polydor in June 1961, it should be pointed out that at times the band behind Sheridan would be down to only two Beatles, and that conversely only on their two solo songs do all four Beatles play (minus Sheridan), while Sheridan plays on all of his tracks. These sessions produced Sheridan's "My Bonnie" and "The Saints", and the Beatles' "Ain't She Sweet" and "Cry for a Shadow" (formerly titled "Beatle Bop"), plus three other songs. Polydor's beliefs in Sheridan's coming stardom were so strong that they buried the two solo Beatle tracks until much later. And additionally both John Lennon and Tony Sheridan swore that there were several other Beatle tracks that were recorded during the two-day session, but that either they were not preserved OR something else happened to them.

In 1962, after a series of singles (the first of which, "My Bonnie"/"The Saints" made it to #5 in the ''Hit Parade''), the record was released in America on Decca with a black label and also in a pink label for demo play. The record has the distinction of being one of the most expensive collectible 45 rpm with the black label in mint condition selling for $15,000 in 2007 and the pink label selling for $3000. Ringo Starr also very briefly played in Sheridan's backing band during very early 1962, before returning to Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Starr was reportedly unhappy with Sheridan performing songs he had not rehearsed with his band. Ringo thus narrowly missed playing on Sheridan's album debut.

Also in 1962, Polydor released the album ''My Bonnie'' across Germany. The word ''Beatles'' was judged to sound too similar to the German ''Pidels'' (pronounced ''peedles''), the plural of a slang term for penis, hence the album was credited to ''Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers''. After the Beatles had gained fame, the album was re-released in the United Kingdom, with the credit altered to "Tony Sheridan and The Beatles". The Beatles' Hamburg studio recordings, as well as some live recordings from the same period, have been reissued several times over the decades.

At a point in the mid-Sixties Sheridan's whole musical style underwent an abrupt transformation, away from his rock and roll roots and towards a more blues and jazz oriented sound. Though these recordings were praised by some, many fans of his earlier work felt disappointed. This change was presaged by liner notes from his 1964 album ''Just A Little Bit Of Tony Sheridan'' where his musical preferences are listed as "jazz and classical" rather than rock. The same 1964 liner notes mention his wanting to go to the southern US "to hear at first hand the original negro music and experience the atmosphere that has been instrumental in creating negro jazz and the spiritual, for which he has a great liking".

Tony Sheridan went on very successfully singing and playing in Hamburg at the same club for quite a number of years, but eventually lost his recording contract with Polydor.

By 1967, Sheridan had become disillusioned with his Beatle-brought fame. As he was more concerned by the Vietnam War, Sheridan agreed to perform for the Allied troops. While in Vietnam however, the band that he had assembled was fired upon and one of the members was killed. Reuters reported that Sheridan himself had died. For his work entertaining the Allies, Sheridan was made an honorary Captain of the United States army.

In the early 1970s, Sheridan managed a West German radio programme of blues music, which was well-received. In 1978, the Star Club was reopened, and Sheridan performed there along with Elvis Presley's TCB Band.

On 13 August 2002, Sheridan released ''Vagabond'', a collection largely of his own material, but also including a new cover version of "Skinny Minnie", a song he had years earlier recorded for his first album. Tony played guitar and sang for the Argentinean rock musician Charly Garcia. The album was called ''Influencia'' and it was released in 2002.

Today, Tony Sheridan lives with his wife Anna in Seestermühe, a village north of Hamburg. In addition to music, he is interested in heraldry and designs coats of arms.

Discography

1961: ''My Bonnie'' with The Beat Brothers/Beatles

1962: single "Ich Lieb' Dich So (Ecstasy)/Der Kiss - Me Song" ("Ecstasy" was co-written by Phil Spector, who turns up in the Beatles' lives much later)

1964: ''Just A Little Bit of Tony Sheridan'' with The Big Six

1964: "Ain't She Sweet" (side 1) with the Beatles, recorded 1961

1965: ''My Babe'' with The Big Six

1966: ''Meet The Beat'' (two versions, on 10" and 12" & CD, but with radically different tracks, sharing only two songs. The 12" features 1966 recordings of "Jailhouse Rock", "Fever", and "Shake, Rattle and Roll")

1974: ''Live in Berlin '73''

1976: ''On My Mind'' (private release)

1984: ''Novus

1986: ''Ich lieb Dich so'

1994: ''Here & Now!'' - features the rhythm and blues classic, "Money Honey", and new recordings of "What'd I Say" and "Skinny Minnie"

1996: ''Tony Sheridan & The Beat Brothers Live And Dangerous'' [band—Howie Casey, Roy Young] - recordings of "Good Golly Miss Molly" and others.

2001: ''Fab Four Collection "with The Beat Brothers" - 1996 recordings of "Johnny B. Goode", "Money", "My Bonnie", "Skinny Minnie"

2002: ''Vagabond''

2004: ''Chantal Meets Tony Sheridan'' - only known recording of the early McCartney/Sheridan song "Tell Me If You Can"

2008: ''...and so it goes'' by Dave Humphries; Sheridan plays on 5 of 11 tracks

References

2007- Sheridan released a CD on Wemo Records (Germany), featuring a live concert performed in Dernbach, Germany in November 2007. A|t that concert an American guitarist Demian Bell joined Sheridan on stage and played several songs in an impromptu performance which was captured on a DVD, also released by Wemo Records.

References

PayBack Productions (2001, 2002) About Tony, retrieved Dec. 28, 2004

http://www.tony-sheridan.de/start/biography.php?lang=en, retrieved Dec. 28, 2004

Daniels, Frank (1998, 2000, 2001) The Beatles with Tony Sheridan, retrieved Jan. 1, 2005

Reference-Books

Thorsten Knublauch und Axel Korinth: Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand – Die Beatles in Deutschland 1960–1970. Books on Demand Gmbh: 2008. ISBN 978-3-8334-8530-5

Eric Krasker, ''The Beatles - Fact and Fiction 1960-1962'', Paris, Séguier, 2009. ISBN 978-2-84049-523-9

External links

Tony Sheridan official website

"Are You Tony Sheridan?" - documentary from RTE Radio, Ireland

Category:English guitarists Category:1940 births Category:Living people Category:People associated with The Beatles Category:British expatriates in Germany

de:Tony Sheridan es:Tony Sheridan fr:Tony Sheridan it:Tony Sheridan he:טוני שרידן nl:Tony Sheridan ja:トニー・シェリダン no:Tony Sheridan pt:Tony Sheridan ru:Шеридан, Тони fi:Tony Sheridan sv:Tony Sheridan

name	Ringo Starr
alt	A man in his sixties wearing sunglasses and a black T-shirt bearing the sequined words "LOVE" and "PEACE". Only his torso is visible, but his left hand appears to be on his hip. His right hand forms a V-shaped peace symbol in reference to his quote "Peace and Love".
background	solo_singer
birth name	Richard Starkey
alias	Ringo Starr
birth date	July 07, 1940
birth place	Liverpool, England, UK
instrument	Drums, vocals, percussion, keyboards, guitar
genre	Rock, pop, psychedelic rock, world
occupation
years active	1957–present
label
associated acts	The Beatles, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, Plastic Ono Band
website	RingoStarr.com
notable instruments	Ludwig Super Classic DrumsetLudwig Black Oyster Pearl Drumset }}

Richard Starkey, MBE (born 7 July 1940) better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in August 1962, taking the place of Pete Best. In addition to his contribution as drummer, Starr featured as lead vocals on a number of successful Beatles songs (in particular, "With a Little Help from My Friends", "Yellow Submarine", and The Beatles version of "Act Naturally"), as co-writer with the song "What Goes On" and primary writer with "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden".

As drummer for The Beatles, Starr was musically creative, and his contribution to the band's music has received high praise from notable drummers in more recent times. Starr described himself as "your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills", technically limited by being a left-handed person playing a right-handed kit. Drummer Steve Smith said that Starr's popularity "brought forth a new paradigm" where "we started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect" and that Starr "composed unique, stylistic drum parts for The Beatles songs". In 2011, Starr was picked as the fifth-best drummer of all-time by ''Rolling Stone'' readers, behind drummers such as John Bonham, Keith Moon and Neil Peart.

Starr is the most documented and critically acclaimed actor-Beatle, playing a central role in several Beatles films, and appearing in numerous other movies, both during and after his career with The Beatles. After The Beatles' break-up in 1970, Starr achieved solo musical success with several singles and albums, and recorded with each of his fellow ex-Beatles as they too developed their post-Beatle musical careers. He has also been featured in a number of TV documentaries, hosted TV shows, narrated the first two series of the children's television series ''Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends'' and portrayed "Mr. Conductor" during the first season of the PBS children's television series ''Shining Time Station''. He currently tours with the All-Starr Band.

Early life

Ringo Starr was born Richard Starkey on 7 July 1940 at 9 Madryn Street, Dingle, Liverpool, England, the son of Elsie (née Gleave) and Richard Starkey, a confectioner. His paternal grandfather was born with the surname "Parkin", and later adopted his stepfather's surname, "Starkey". Starr's parents split up when he was three years old, and his mother subsequently married Harry Graves, who encouraged his interest in music. Starr's family moved when he was three years old to a smaller home at 10 Admiral Grove. Starr attended an Evangelical Anglican church during his childhood. He was afflicted by illness for much of his early years. When aged six, he had appendicitis, which developed complications, causing him to fall into a coma. At thirteen, he developed chronic pleurisy and was admitted to a sanatorium for two years. After this extended hospital visit he did not return to school. The periods of hospitalisation left him behind scholastically, and as a result he was ineligible to attend grammar school or even sit its Eleven plus qualifying examination. Earlier, Starr attended St Silas, a Church of England primary school in High Park Street, close to his home in Admiral Grove; singer Billy Fury attended the school at the same time. Later, Starr attended Dingle Vale Secondary Modern School, leaving in 1955. While there, he showed an aptitude for art and drama as well as practical subjects including mechanics. Starr's health problems had another enduring effect in the form of allergies and sensitivities to food, and when The Beatles travelled to India in 1968, he took his own food with him.

Like John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, Starr became caught up in Liverpool's skiffle craze. In 1957, he and his friend Eddie Miles formed the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. In 1959, he joined the Raving Texans, now adopting the stage name "Ringo Starr" because of the rings he wore and because it sounded "cowboyish", and his drum solos were billed as "Starr Time". By October 1960, the band was renamed Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and while they were performing in Hamburg, Starr met The Beatles. On 16 October 1960 he drummed in Hamburg with Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, recording with them for the first time to back Hurricanes singer Lu Walters.

After returning to the UK, Starr sat in for Pete Best as The Beatles' drummer on 18 August 1961 and 5 February 1962. The Beatles removed Pete Best as their drummer on 16 August 1962, after Best had played in the early recording sessions at EMI Studios.

Starr's first performance as a full Beatle was on 18 August 1962 at a Horticultural Society dance at Port Sunlight. After his appearance at the Cavern Club performance as a full Beatle the following day, Best's fans were upset at his sacking, holding vigils outside Best's house and fighting at the club, shouting 'Pete forever! Ringo never!' George Harrison received a black eye from one of the fans.

When he arrived at EMI Studios for the second time on 11 September, Starr was shocked to find another drummer there, session drummer Andy White who was commissioned by producer George Martin. Using sessions drummers familiar with studio techniques was a normal procedure for studio recordings in those days. Starr's view at the time was that Andy White was brought in because he thought George Martin viewed him as crazy. Of the 4 September rehearsal session, Starr stated, "He [George Martin] thought I was crazy and couldn't play. Because when we were doing 'Please Please Me', I was actually playing the kit and in one hand I had a tambourine and a maracas in the other, because I was trying to play the percussion and the drums at the same time, because we were just a four piece band". Starr also stated, "I thought, 'That’s the end, they’re doing a Pete Best on me.'"

The Beatles: 1962–1970

Vocals

Starr generally sang at least one song on each studio album as part of an attempt to establish the vocal personality of all four members. In some cases, Lennon or McCartney wrote the lyrics and melody especially for him, as they did for "Yellow Submarine" from ''Revolver'' and "With a Little Help from My Friends" on ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. These melodies were tailored to Starr's baritone vocal range. Starr's backing vocals are heard on songs such as "Carry That Weight", and "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill".

Composition

The Beatles used Starr's unusual turns of phrase, or "Ringoisms" as they became known, such as "a hard day's night" and "tomorrow never knows", and turned them into songs. Recalling this, McCartney said, "Ringo would do these little malapropisms, he would say things slightly wrong, like people do, but his were always wonderful, very lyrical... they were sort of magic". As well as inspiring his bandmates' creativity in this way, Starr occasionally contributed his own lyrics to unfinished Lennon and McCartney songs, such as the line "''darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there''" in "Eleanor Rigby". Frustrated at times of being the odd man out in the group in regard to songwriting, Starr commented in ''The Beatles Anthology'' that when he presented a song to The Beatles, it would often sound to the other three Beatles like a popular song of the day. Starr did eventually begin composing, and is credited with "Don't Pass Me By" (on ''The White Album'') and "Octopus's Garden" (on ''Abbey Road'') as sole songwriter.

His disgust with the band's tensions and boredom at waiting around to contribute during the sessions for the ''White Album'' caused him to quit the group temporarily. He spent two weeks with actor Peter Sellers on the latter's yacht, ''Amelfis'', in Piraeus, where he wrote "Octopus's Garden". He did not return for two weeks, even though the other Beatles urged him to come back: Lennon sent telegrams, and Harrison set up flowers all over the studio for Starr's return saying "Welcome home". Starr's name also appears as a co-writer for the ''Rubber Soul'' track "What Goes On" along with Lennon and McCartney, while the songs "Flying" (on the ''Magical Mystery Tour'' album) and "Dig It" (on ''Let It Be'') are listed as being written by the entire group. On issued material after the break-up, Starr wrote "Taking a Trip to Carolina" from the second "bonus" CD of ''Let It Be... Naked'', and received joint songwriting credits with the other three Beatles for "12-Bar Original", "Los Paranoias", "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)", "Suzy Parker" (heard in the ''Let It Be'' film), "Jessie's Dream" (heard in the Magical Mystery Tour (film)) and The Beatles' version of "Free as a Bird".

1964 Illness

In June 1964, The Beatles were scheduled to tour Denmark, the Netherlands, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. On 3 June, the day before the tour, Starr collapsed during an early morning photo session for the ''Saturday Evening Post'' at a portrait studio in Barnes, London. Stricken with a 102-degree fever and tonsillitis, he was rushed to the hospital. This bout with tonsillitis necessitated a stay in hospital and a few days of recuperation at home. During this time, Starr was temporarily replaced for the Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Hong Kong and Adelaide concert dates by 24-year-old session drummer Jimmie Nicol. Beatles producer George Martin suggested Nicol because he had recently recorded at EMI with Tommy Quickly and recently became familiar with Beatles numbers while drumming on a recording session for an album called ''Beatlemania''. At first, Harrison did not want Starr to be replaced and refused to go on the tour without Starr, but Brian Epstein and George Martin convinced Harrison to begin the tour. Starr was discharged from the hospital on 11 June, and he rejoined the group in Melbourne on 15 June 1964. Ultimately, Starr had his tonsils removed during The Beatles' Christmas vacation period later in the year. Starr would later admit that he feared that he would be permanently replaced during his illness.

Drumming skills

While Starr himself has been the first to acknowledge the technical limitations of his drumming for The Beatles, the overall effect of his contribution has received high praise from notable drummers. Starr said, "Whenever I hear another drummer I know I'm no good. I'm no good on the technical things [...] I'm your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills. The fills were funny because I'm really left-handed playing a right-handed kit. I can't roll around the drums because of that." Martin's version was, "Ringo hit good and hard and used the tom-tom well, even though he couldn't do a roll to save his life", although Martin later added, "He's got tremendous feel. He always helped us to hit the right tempo for a song, and gave it that support – that rock-solid back-beat – that made the recording of all The Beatles' songs that much easier." In 1968, Martin praised Starr's drumming on ''Sgt. Pepper,'' calling him "probably ... the finest rock drummer in the world today." Lennon, when asked if Starr was the best drummer in the world, jokingly replied, "He's not even the best drummer in The Beatles!", but also said, "Ringo's a damn good drummer. He always was a good drummer. He's not technically good, but I think Ringo's drumming is underrated the same way as Paul's bass playing is underrated." McCartney sent Starr a postcard on 31 January 1969 (the day after the band's performance on the roof of Apple Studios) stating: 'You are the greatest drummer in the world. Really.' This postcard is included in Starr's book ''Postcards from the Boys''.

Drummer Steve Smith extolled Starr's qualities beyond the technical, in terms of his musical contribution as drummer: Phil Collins, the drummer for Genesis, who was himself influenced by Starr, said:

In September 1980, John Lennon had this to say about Starr:

Many drummers acknowledge Starr as an influence, including Steve Gorman of The Black Crowes, Dave Grohl of Nirvana, Jen Ledger of Skillet, Max Weinberg of the E Street Band, Danny Carey of Tool, Liberty DeVitto of Billy Joel's band, Nicko McBrain of Iron Maiden, Eric Carr of Kiss, Phil Rudd of AC/DC, Orri Páll Dýrason of Sigur Rós, the former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, Pedro Andreu of Heroes del Silencio and others.

In his extensive survey of The Beatles' recording sessions, Mark Lewisohn confirmed that Starr was both proficient and remarkably reliable and consistent. According to Lewisohn, there were fewer than a dozen occasions in The Beatles' eight-year recording career where session 'breakdowns' were caused by Starr making a mistake, while the vast majority of takes were stopped owing to mistakes by the other three members.

Starr drummed on all but five of the band's released tracks that feature drumming. For the band's second recording session with Starr as a member on 11 September 1962, producer George Martin replaced the studio-inexperienced Starr with session drummer Andy White to record takes for what would be the two sides of The Beatles' first single, "Love Me Do" backed with "P.S. I Love You". Starr played tambourine on "Love Me Do" and maracas on "P.S. I Love You" for this session. McCartney took over the drums on "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence" from the ''White Album'' (1968) after Starr had walked out, and also played the drums on "The Ballad of John and Yoko", recorded on 14 April 1969, since only he and Lennon were immediately available to record the song. Starr commented that he was lucky in being "surrounded by three frustrated drummers" who could only drum in one style.

After the Beatles

1970s

After the announcement of the break-up of The Beatles on 10 April 1970, Starr released two albums before the end of that year. ''Sentimental Journey'' featured Starr's renditions of many pre-rock standards and included the arranger talents of Quincy Jones, Maurice Gibb, George Martin and McCartney, among others. His next album, ''Beaucoups of Blues'', put Starr in a country context, and included renowned Nashville session musician Pete Drake. He scored hit singles with "It Don't Come Easy" (1971) (US #4) and "Back Off Boogaloo" (1972) (US #9), the latter of which was his biggest UK hit, peaking at #2. He achieved two No.1 hits in the US, with "Photograph" (co-written with Harrison) and "You're Sixteen" (written by the Sherman Brothers of ''Mary Poppins'' fame).

He participated in ''The Concert for Bangladesh'' organised by Harrison in 1971, as well as drumming on Harrison's ''All Things Must Pass'' and ''Living in the Material World'', Lennon's ''John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'', and Yoko Ono's early solo work. Starr then made his debut as a film director with the T. Rex documentary ''Born to Boogie''. Starr became firm friends with T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan and during the period of filming the documentary, Starr released the single "Back Off Boogaloo".

In 1971, he started a furniture company with designer Robin Cruikshank. Starr's own avant-garde designs included a flower-shaped table with adjustable petal seats and a donut-shaped fireplace.

The 1973 album ''Ringo'', produced by Richard Perry, with participation by the other three former Beatles on different tracks, was commercially successful. The album ''Goodnight Vienna'' followed the next year and was also successful. Hits and notable tracks from these two albums included "Photograph" and "You're Sixteen" both reaching number one on the US charts, "Oh My My" (US #5) and "I'm the Greatest" (written by Lennon) from ''Ringo'', and "Only You (And You Alone)" (US #6) and "No No Song" (US #3) from 1974's ''Goodnight Vienna''. In late 1975, these singles and others were collected for Starr's first greatest hits compilation, ''Blast from Your Past'', which was the last album to be released on Apple Records. During this period he became romantically involved with Lynsey de Paul. He played tambourine on a song she wrote and produced for Vera Lynn, "Don't You Remember When", and he inspired another De Paul song, "If I Don't Get You the Next One Will", which she described as being about revenge after he missed a dinner appointment with her because he was asleep in his office.

Starr's recording career subsequently diminished in commercial impact, although he continued to record and remained a familiar celebrity presence. Starr signed with Atlantic Records in the mid-1970s, and in 1976 the album ''Ringo's Rotogravure'' was released. Although yielding two minor hit singles, "A Dose of Rock 'n' Roll" (US #26) and a cover of "Hey! Baby" (US #74) the album achieved moderate sales but reached a respectable #28. This caused the label to revamp Starr's formula; the results were a curious blend of disco and '70s pop. The album ''Ringo the 4th'' (1977) was a commercial disaster, reaching no higher than No.162 on the charts. Afterward, Starr soon signed with Portrait Records. His stint with Portrait began on a promising note: 1978 saw the release of ''Bad Boy'', as well as a network TV special. However, neither were very popular, with ''Bad Boy'' reaching a disappointing No.129 on the US charts. Consequently, Starr did not release another album with Portrait Records.

In 1975, Starr founded his own record label called Ring O'Records, and four albums were released on the label between 1975 and 1978 (''Startling Music'' by David Hentschel, ''Graham Bonnet'' by Graham Bonnet, ''Restless'' by Rab Noakes and a re-release of an Apple Records album, ''The Whale'' by John Tavener) as well as 16 singles by artists such as: Bobby Keys, Carl Grossman, Colonel Doug Bogie, David Hentschel, Graham Bonnet, Suzanne, Johnny Warman, Rab Noakes and Dirk & Stig (the last being names of characters from The Beatles' pastiche band "The Rutles", created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes).

1980s

In 1980, Harrison wrote "All Those Years Ago" for Starr to sing on his album ''Can't Fight Lightning'' which was later released as ''Stop and Smell the Roses''. Harrison sang a rewritten version himself, including it on his 1981 album ''Somewhere in England'' following Lennon's murder. Starr, along with Paul and Linda McCartney, played on Harrison's version. Ronnie Wood from The Rolling Stones also collaborated with Starr while recording ''Stop and Smell the Roses'', at Cherokee Studios, adding guitar, bass, saxophone, keyboards, and back-up vocals. Starr was interviewed by ''Rolling Stone'' and ''Musician'' around this time. ''Stop and Smell the Roses'' was a well-regarded album, but again did not sell particularly well. During recording of "Stop and Smell the Roses", Lennon had offered Starr a pair of songs to use on ''Roses'': "Nobody Told Me" and "Life Begins at 40". However, following Lennon's murder, Starr did not feel comfortable recording them; the former was released posthumously under Lennon's name on the album ''Milk and Honey'', while the latter's painfully ironic lyrics kept it unissued until 1998's ''John Lennon Anthology''.

After Lennon was murdered in 1980, Starr and his girlfriend Barbara Bach flew to New York City to comfort Lennon's widow Yoko Ono.

In 1984 and 1986, Starr narrated the children's series ''Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends'', a Britt Allcroft production, which was first shown on Central Television and subsequently across the ITV network. He was unsure about taking the role at first, having never previously read the books by Reverend Awdry, and at the time he felt that children would be more interested in "dinosaurs with lasers." Nevertheless, he had a change of heart and took the role, narrating the first two series. Starr also portrayed the character Mr. Conductor in the programme's American spin-off ''Shining Time Station'', which debuted in 1989 on PBS. Starr left after the first season.

In 1985, he performed, with his son Zak Starkey, as part of Artists United Against Apartheid on the recording ''Sun City''.

In 1987, Starr drummed on the George Harrison song "When We Was Fab" from his album ''Cloud Nine''. The song, co-written by Harrison and Jeff Lynne, charted in the Top 30 in both the UK and the USA. The same year, Starr, Harrison, and Lynne joined Eric Clapton, Elton John, Phil Collins, and Ray Cooper in a performance for the Prince's Trust charity.

In October 1988, Starr and Bach attended a detox clinic in Tucson, Arizona, each receiving a six-week treatment for alcoholism. Starr later complained that it had been difficult to recover with the "press flying overhead" on a constant basis. On 23 July 1989, 'Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band' gave their first performance to an audience of ten thousand in Dallas, Texas. The band consisted of Starr and a varying assortment of musicians who had been successful in their own right with popular songs at different times. The concerts interchanged Starr's singing, including selections of his Beatles and solo songs, with performances of each of the other artists' well-known material, the latter incorporating either Starr or another musician as drummer. The eighth All-Starr Band tour took place in 2003.

In 1989 Starr and his daughter Lee appeared together in a TV ad as part of the "New Generation of Olds" campaign featuring the catchphrase "This is not your father's Oldsmobile."

1990s

The success of the initial All-Starr tour led to the release of ''Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band'', a compilation of live performances from the tour, in the fall of 1990. In the same year, Starr recorded a version of the song "I Call Your Name" for a television special marking the 10th anniversary of John Lennon's death and the 50th anniversary of his birth. The track, produced by Jeff Lynne, features a supergroup composed of Lynne, Tom Petty, Joe Walsh and Jim Keltner.

In 1991, he made an animated appearance as himself on ''The Simpsons'' episode "Brush with Greatness" and contributed an original song, "You Never Know", to the soundtrack of the John Hughes film ''Curly Sue''. Starr released his first studio album in nine years, 1992's ''Time Takes Time''. The album was produced by four of the top producers in music: Phil Ramone, Don Was, Jeff Lynne and Peter Asher, and featured guest appearances by various stars including Brian Wilson and Harry Nilsson. In 1995, Starr appeared with Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork of the Monkees in a Pizza Hut commercial. In the commercial, he claims he is trying to reunite "the lads." The commercial ends with the three Monkees joining Starr. He looks into the camera and says "wrong lads."

In 1997, Starr guested on drums on two songs on the McCartney album ''Flaming Pie''. McCartney had written a song about Starr's ex-wife Maureen Starkey Tigrett ("Little Willow") and asked Starr if he'd play on another ("Beautiful Night"). The day after the "Beautiful Night" session, the two recorded a jam session which developed into another ''Flaming Pie'' song, "Really Love You", notable for being the first song ever credited to McCartney/Starkey and officially released on an album. In 1998, he released two albums on the Mercury label. The studio album ''Vertical Man'' marked the beginning of a nine-year "partnership" with Mark Hudson, who produced the album and, with his band the Roundheads, formed the core of the backing group for the album. In addition, many "famous guests" joined on various tracks, including Martin, McCartney, and—in his final appearance on a Starr album before his death—Harrison. Most of the songs were written by Starr and the band. The Roundheads and Joe Walsh joined Starr for his appearance on ''VH1 Storytellers'', which was released as an album under the same name. On the show, he performed greatest hits and new songs, and told anecdotes relating to them.

2000s

In 2000, he appeared in a television commercial for Charles Schwab Investments. As he sits with a group of young musicians trying to find a word that rhymes with "elation", Ringo suggests such financial terms as "dividend reinvestment participation", "market capitalisation" and "asset allocation". As the song "Money" plays in the background, the musicians stare at him in confusion. He finally says, "What? Too many syllables?"

In 2002, Starr was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame joining an elite group of percussive inductees, which includes Buddy Rich and William F. Ludwig, Sr. and Jr.

On 29 November 2002 (the first anniversary of George Harrison's death) , Starr performed "Photograph" and a cover of Carl Perkins' "Honey Don't" at the ''Concert for George'' held in the Royal Albert Hall, London. According to the official ''Concert for George'' website, "Ringo Starr caught everyone with a tear in their eye with a rendition of 'Photograph', a composition he wrote with George, which seemed to sum up how everyone felt." The song includes the lines, "Every time I see your face / it reminds me of the places we used to go / But all I've got is a photograph / and I realise you're not coming back any more".

In 2003, Starr formed Pumkinhead Records with All-Starr Band member Mark Hudson. The label was not prolific, but their first signing was Liam Lynch, who produced a 2003 LP entitled ''Fake Songs''.

Starr was an "honorary Santa Tracker" and voice over for the London stop in Santa's annual Christmas Eve journey in 2003 and 2004 as depicted in the annual NORAD tracks Santa program. According to NORAD officials, he was "a Starr in the east" who helped guide North American Aerospace Defense Command's Santa-tracking tradition.

In September 2005, Liverpool City Council decided they would bulldoze 9 Madryn Street, Starr's birthplace, as it had 'no historical significance', despite a previous reprieve back in July. The LCC later announced that the building would be taken apart brick by brick and preserved after all.

In 2006, Starr featured on the Jerry Lee Lewis duet album, ''Last Man Standing''; he performed a cover, with Lewis, of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen". It was also announced he would be the star in a Pow! Entertainment animated film and comic book produced by comics creator Stan Lee.

In the 24 December 2007 issue of ''Time'' (European edition), Starr was profiled in a three-page article focusing on his happiness in life and his music. The article mentioned the ''Liverpool 8'' album, but only briefly. It also stated that Starr and Dave Stewart were collaborating on writing a musical, to be called ''The Hole in the Fence'', and discussed Starr's then-upcoming performance in Liverpool on 11 January 2008.

In January 2008, the studio album ''Liverpool 8'', produced by Dave Stewart, Mark Hudson and Starr himself, was released. Mark Hudson was the initial producer of the record but was replaced by Stewart after a falling out with Starr. (The album's production credits read, "Produced by Ringo Starr and Mark Hudson; Re-Produced by Ringo Starr and David Stewart." All of the songs but one were written with members of the Roundheads, although Stewart also has several co-writing credits.) Starr's attorney Bruce Grakal told journalist Peter Palmiere that the partnership between Hudson and Starr was over and they would never work together again. This happened after Hudson dropped out of the 2006 tour as musical director to do the TV show ''The One: Making a Music Star''. According to Palmiere, Hudson now claims that the split was over Starr's insistence on using synthesised sounds, for which Stewart is known, whereas Hudson wanted real guitars, pianos, strings etc.

On 10 October 2008, Starr posted a video on his website stating that he will not be signing autographs after 20 October 2008. He stated that he is too busy and that anything after that date sent to any address will not be signed.

On 4 April 2009, Starr reunited with McCartney at the David Lynch "Change Begins Within" Benefit Concert at Radio City Music Hall. After separate performances from Starr and other artists, McCartney's set came last, and towards the end he announced "Billy Shears", whereupon Starr joined him to perform "With a Little Help from My Friends" and, with all performers, "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Cosmically Conscious". In late May 2009, it was announced that Starr will collaborate with Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney to record some new tracks to record an entire album.

Starr appeared on-stage at Microsoft's 1 June 2009 E3 press conference with Yoko Ono, McCartney and Olivia Harrison to promote ''The Beatles: Rock Band'' video game.

Starr remains the only Beatle not to top the UK singles charts as a solo artist, although he did chart two number one singles in the US. He is also the only Beatle not to top the UK album listings, his highest position being #7, achieved in the UK with both ''Sentimental Journey'' and ''Ringo''; the latter reached No.2 in the US charts, giving Starr his highest album position there. In the USA, Starr's Apple singles fared rather well. Of all four members of The Beatles- in their respective solo careers- he has the second most consecutive top ten singles in the US with seven in a row: "It Don't Come Easy" (#4), "Back Off Boogaloo" (#9), "Photograph" (#1), "You're Sixteen" (#1), "Oh My My" (#5), "Only You (And You Alone)" (#6) and "No No Song" (#3). McCartney has the most with eight in a row.

In November 2009, Starr once again performed the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine for "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley". This is the first No.1 UK hit Starr has been involved in since The Beatles disbanded in 1970 (not counting guest appearances on other singles by other artists).

2010s

On 12 January 2010, he released his fifteenth studio album ''Y Not''. On 13 January 2010, Starr and his band performed "Walk With You" from the album on ''The Daily Show with Jon Stewart'' and closed out the show with a rousing rendition of "With a Little Help from My Friends". Starr also appeared on ''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'', performing with Ben Harper. Starr was also featured on ''The Jay Leno Show'', where he played "The Other Side of Liverpool". On 22 January 2010, Starr appeared on ''Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief'' as a Celebrity phone operator. Starr appeared at the 52nd Grammy Awards with Norah Jones to present 'Record Of The Year' to Kings Of Leon on 31 January 2010 .

On 11 April 2010, Starr appeared on ''Weekend Wogan'', a live radio show on BBC 2 Radio presented by Sir Terry Wogan, to promote his album ''Y Not'' in the UK and on 12 April 2010 he appeared on ''Loose Women'', a lunchtime chat show on ITV. On 13 April 2010 Starr appeared on CNN's ''Connect the World'' on CNN International. On 7 July 2010, Starr celebrated his 70th birthday at Radio City Music Hall, New York with another All-Starr Band concert, topped with friends and family joining him on stage including Yoko Ono and his son Zak, and Paul McCartney as a surprise guest.

On 13 May 2011, Starr appeared on The One Show on BBC One, where he announced that he was working on a new album featuring a song called "In Liverpool".

Starr has recently contributed a cover of Buddy Holly's "Think It Over" for the upcoming tribute album, ''Listen to Me: Buddy Holly'' to be released on 6 September 2011.

Personal life

Starr married Maureen Cox in February 1965, and they had three children Zak (b. 13 September 1965), Jason (b. 19 August 1967), and Lee (b. 11 November 1970); the couple divorced in 1975, and Cox died in 1994. In 1980, on the set of the film ''Caveman'', he met actress Barbara Bach, well known for her role as Major Anya Amasova (female lead and main 'Bond girl') in ''The Spy Who Loved Me''. They were married on 27 April 1981, just a few weeks after the release of ''Caveman''. In 1985, Starr was the first of The Beatles to become a grandfather upon the birth of Zak's daughter, Tatia Jayne Starkey.

Zak Starkey is also a drummer, who until August 2008 was a semi-official member of Oasis—one of the many bands influenced by The Beatles. Starr arranged for Zak to receive drumming instruction from Zak's idol, The Who's drummer Keith Moon, who was Zak's godfather and a close friend of Starr's. Zak also performs with the Who live (such as during the Super Bowl XLIV Halftime show in 2010) and sometimes in the studio. Zak has performed with his father during some All-Starr Band tours.

Like fellow ex-Beatle McCartney, Starr is a vegetarian, albeit for different reasons. McCartney is vegetarian for ethical reasons, but in Starr's case it is because of stomach problems he had in the past. As a child, Starr was left-handed until he became ambidextrous when his grandmother helped him learn to write with his right hand.

In the Sunday Times Rich List 2011 Starr was listed at number 56 with an estimated personal wealth of £150m.

Like many drummers, Starr collects percussive instruments from around the world and has the largest Wobble board collection outside of Australia.

Films

Aside from The Beatles' films ''A Hard Day's Night'' (1964), ''Help!'' (1965), ''Magical Mystery Tour'' (1967), ''Yellow Submarine'' (1968), ''Let It Be'' (1970), Starr has acted in several films such as ''Candy'' (1968), ''The Magic Christian'' (1969) (alongside Peter Sellers), ''Blindman'' (1971), ''Son of Dracula'' (1974) and ''Caveman'' (1981). Starr directed and appeared in ''Born to Boogie'' (1972), a concert film featuring Marc Bolan and T.Rex. For the 1979 documentary film on the Who, ''The Kids Are Alright'', Starr appeared in interview segments with fellow drummer Keith Moon. He starred as Larry the Dwarf in Frank Zappa's ''200 Motels'' (1971). His voice is also featured in Harry Nilsson's animated film ''The Point!'' (1971). He appeared in ''The Last Waltz'', the Martin Scorsese film about the 1976 farewell concert of The Band, a favourite of The Beatles. He co-starred in ''That'll Be the Day'' (1973) as a Teddy Boy. He played 'The Pope' in Ken Russell's ''Lisztomania'' (1975), and a fictionalised version of himself in the Paul McCartney-penned ''Give My Regards to Broad Street'' in 1984.

Awards and recognition

In the Queen's Birthday Honours of 12 June 1965, Starr and the three other Beatles were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE); they received their insignia from Queen Elizabeth II at an investiture at Buckingham Palace on 26 October. He and the other Beatles were cumulatively nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer for their performances in the 1964 film ''A Hard Day's Night''. The Beatles won the Academy Award for 'Best Original Song Score' for the 1970 film ''Let It Be''. Each Beatle received an Oscar statuette.

The minor planet 4150 Starr, discovered on 31 August 1984 by Brian A. Skiff at the Anderson Mesa Station of the Lowell Observatory, was named in his honour. Starr was nominated for a 1989 Daytime Emmy Award for 'Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series' for his role as Mr. Conductor in the television series ''Shining Time Station''.

All four of The Beatles were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when the group was inducted in 1988. Since then, Lennon (1994), McCartney (1999), and Harrison (2004) have been inducted for their solo careers as well. Starr remains the only Beatle not to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his solo career. However, it was announced on 5 September 2007 that Starr would be on the ballot for membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. If Starr is inducted, it would be the only time both a rock group, and each of its individuals members, were inducted separately.

During the 50th Grammy Awards, Starr, George Martin and Giles Martin accepted the Best Compilation Soundtrack award for ''Love''.

On 9 November 2008, Starr accepted a Diamond Award on behalf of The Beatles during the 2008 World Music Awards ceremony in Monaco.

On 8 February 2010, Starr was honoured with the 2,401st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. It is located at 1750 North Vine Street, in front of the Capitol Records building, as are the stars for Lennon and Harrison.

Discography

;Studio albums

''Sentimental Journey'' (1970)

''Beaucoups of Blues'' (1970)

''Ringo'' (1973)

''Goodnight Vienna'' (1974)

''Ringo's Rotogravure'' (1976)

''Ringo the 4th'' (1977)

''Bad Boy'' (1978)

''Stop and Smell the Roses'' (1981)

''Old Wave'' (1983)

''Time Takes Time'' (1992)

''Vertical Man'' (1998)

''I Wanna Be Santa Claus'' (1999)

''Ringo Rama'' (2003)

''Choose Love'' (2005)

''Liverpool 8'' (2008)

''Y Not'' (2010)

Filmography

''The Beatles Come to Town'' (1963) (short subject) – with The Beatles

''A Hard Day's Night'' (1964) – with The Beatles

''Help!'' (1965) – with The Beatles

''Reflections On Love'' (1966) (short subject)

''Magical Mystery Tour'' (1967) – with The Beatles

''The Beatles Mod Odyssey'' (1968) (short subject) – with The Beatles

''Yellow Submarine'' (1968)- with The Beatles

''Candy'' (1968)

''The Magic Christian'' (1969)

''Let It Be'' (1970) (documentary) – with The Beatles

''Music!'' (1971) (documentary)

''200 Motels'' (1971)

''Blindman'' (1971)

''The Point!'' (1971) (Narrator on Home Video release)

''Did Somebody Drop His Mouse?'' (1972) (short subject)

''The Concert for Bangladesh'' (1972) (documentary)

''Born to Boogie'' (1972) (documentary) (also director)

''That'll Be the Day'' (1973)

''Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'' (1973) (documentary)

''Son of Dracula'' (1974)

''Lisztomania'' (1975)

''The Day the Music Died'' (1977) (documentary)

''The Beatles and Beyond'' (1977) (documentary)

''Sextette'' (1978)

'' Ringo (1978) TV Movie

''The Last Waltz'' (1978) (documentary)

''The Kids Are Alright'' (1979) (documentary)

''Caveman'' (1981)

''The Cooler'' (1982) (short subject)

''Give My Regards to Broad Street'' (1984)

''Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends'' (1984–1986) (Narrator)

''Water'' (1985) (Cameo)

''Alice in Wonderland'' (1985)

''Sun City/The Making of Sun City'' (1986) (documentary)

''Queen: The Magic Years'' (1987) (documentary)

''Walking After Midnight'' (1988) (documentary)

''The Return of Bruno'' (1988)

''Shining Time Station'' (1989) (Mr. Conductor)

''The Beatles Anthology (1995) (documentary) – with The Beatles

''Concert for George'' (2003) (documentary)

''Oh My God'' (2009) (documentary)

== All-Starr Band editions ==

: ''For a detailed list of bands and members, see: Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band''

To date, Starr has toured with eleven versions of his All-Starr Band, where "everybody on stage is a star in their own right." The band has consistently toured for over a decade, and, in similar fashion to Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings, rotates its line-up depending on the musicians' projects at a given time.

References

Bibliography

External links

Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band

Ringo Starr's Drummerworld profile

Ringo Starr Artwork

Press Conference with Ringo Starr on The BackStage Pass internet radio show

The art of Ringo Starr

NYTimes interview for his 70th birthday

Ringo Starr (Paris Le Palais des Sports 2011)

Category:The Beatles members Category:Academy Award winners Category:Actors from Liverpool Category:Apple Records artists Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:British expatriates in the United States Category:English baritones Category:English film actors Category:English rock drummers Category:English vegetarians Category:E1 Music artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Living people Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:Mercury Records artists Category:Music from Liverpool Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Plastic Ono Band members Category:Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends Category:World Music Awards winners Category:1940 births

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