BRIAN EPSTEIN
Died: 27 August, 1967, London, England
The Beatles' manager between 1962 and 1967. Arguably Epstein's commitment and imaginative management were as crucial to the Beatles' success as their music and collective personality.
In 1959, Epstein was involved with the family music business, Northern England Music Stores (NEMS). Given a new branch store to manage, he reorganised the store and opened a record department, taking great care to keep it comprehensively stocked. A genteel man, he was drawn to classical music and knew nothing of rock 'n' roll. When a Liverpool youngster asked for a German recording by a local group called the Beatles, Epstein became curious. He arranged to drop by the nearby Cavern Club to see the group perform. From that moment, he was obsessed with the idea of becoming their manager.
Epstein convinced the group that he could make them "bigger than Elvis". He exchanged their leathers for Pierre Cardin suits, their humour for cuddly innocence and their onstage mayhem for polite bows. The Beatles' following grew.
Epstein formed NEMS Enterprises in June 1962 to administer the Beatles' affairs and soon acquired a stable of pop groups including Gerry and the Pacemakers and Cilla Black. Success, however, did not bring Epstein happiness. As he tried to build upon his initial success, he found his empire crumbling ever as it grew. The acts he plucked from Liverpool's beat clubs couldn't match the Beatles in talent or marked potential and he grew bored with being the world's most successful, but nonetheless one time, starmaker. Pills and thrill seeking threatened to replace the Beatles as the focal point of his life.
By the mid-1960s Epstein's personal habits had become untenable. He fought bouts of depression through a roller coaster of professional triumphs and crises, handling them publicly, but grew increasingly less competent. He succumbed to an overdose of barbituates in August 1967. His death was ruled as accidental.