{"id":927515,"date":"2026-10-14T06:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T06:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/927515\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T06:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T06:28:08","slug":"hes-terrified-panicked-cant-sleep-the-tragic-lonely-death-of-beatles-manager-brian-epstein-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/927515\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018He\u2019s terrified, panicked, can\u2019t sleep\u2019: the tragic, lonely death of Beatles manager Brian Epstein | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

The email from Sotheby\u2019s might easily have gone unread. Despite his deep appreciation for the musical heroes who came before him, Gary Kemp<\/a> is not a collector of rock memorabilia. But there, among the auction lots, was something that caught his eye: a 160x100mm black Twinlock binder that once belonged to the Beatles\u2019 manager, Brian Epstein.<\/p>\n

The listing detailed 57 pages containing 404 entries, many handwritten by Epstein himself, cataloguing the social and business network of the Liverpudlian impresario in 1967, the year of his death. Kemp immediately recognised this was much more than simply an address book: it was a who\u2019s who of 60s London at its swinging peak, from David Bailey and David Frost to most of the Rolling Stones. \u201cI just thought, \u2018I\u2019ve got to have this. I\u2019ve got to hold it,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s got DNA on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markHis contract was up with the Beatles \u2013 and they\u2019d stopped playing live, which gave him less purpose<\/p>\n

On the day of the auction, Kemp, the songwriter and guitarist of Spandau Ballet, was in a recording studio bidding by phone. As the price quickly soared, so too did his determination. \u201cI\u2019m still pressing the yes button,\u201d he remembers, \u201cthinking, \u2018My wife\u2019s going to kill me for this!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After bidding \u00a310,710, Kemp became the book\u2019s fifth owner. After Epstein\u2019s death, it had passed to his brother, then his nephew, and then one more sale before reaching the auction at Sotheby\u2019s. For Kemp, owning it felt like the culmination of a lifelong fascination with the Beatles and a long-held admiration for Epstein, the man who discovered the group at The Cavern in late 1961.<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s such a strong sense of the gay community in his book\u2019 \u2026 Gary Kemp. Photograph: Simon Emmett<\/p>\n

Kemp is talking from his study in an elegant five-storey Georgian townhouse he attributes, in part, to the inspiration and opportunities the Beatles gave him. \u201cIf it hadn\u2019t been for Paul meeting John, I wouldn\u2019t be living in this house,\u201d he says. \u201cBut really, if it hadn\u2019t been for Brian walking down those steps that November lunchtime, I wouldn\u2019t be in this house either.\u201d<\/p>\n

One visitor to Kemp\u2019s home shortly after he\u2019d acquired Epstein\u2019s address book was art film-maker Simon Halfon, a friend since the 90s. He was just leaving when Kemp thought to show him his latest purchase. \u201cI was obviously thrilled to look at it,\u201d says Halfon. \u201cAn address book in many ways is a very personal thing. It\u2019s not a diary, but it tells you who your friends are, your family, your business acquaintances, the places you hang out. It\u2019s quite telling of an individual\u2019s personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halfon was an auspicious person to show it to. He had spent years fascinated by Epstein, developing a biopic of the manager with Jude Law attached to star, but it never came to fruition. Now, confronted with Epstein\u2019s address book, and the revelatory list of contacts within, he saw a different story waiting to be told. \u201cI called him on the way home,\u201d says Halfon. \u201cI said, \u2018Christ, Gary, this is a book.\u2019 And he was up for it straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI realised,\u201d says Kemp, \u201cthe only way to do this is to tell Brian\u2019s story through his contacts. This was Brian 360.\u201d<\/p>\n

What followed was an exhaustive piece of detective work. Name by name, Kemp scoured books, newspapers, magazines and online archives, trying to establish not only who each person was, but why they had crossed paths with Epstein. Meanwhile, Halfon was tasked with sourcing corresponding imagery. Some names proved straightforward, while others were little more than shadows they\u2019d futilely chase.<\/p>\n

The result is 1967: The World of Brian Epstein and the Beatles \u2013 not a biography in the traditional sense, but an alphabetical list of fragments that, read in sequence, reveals an unexpectedly intimate picture of a complex man unravelling in the last months of his life. Through the people he knew, it captures Epstein juggling the increasingly elaborate business affairs of the Beatles within an international set of artists, managers and lawyers, while wrestling with the more tormenting aspects of his own life. And because these are the people who surrounded him in 1967, the book also depicts the circumstances closing in around him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really a key year for Brian,\u201d Kemp explains. \u201cHis contract is up with the Beatles. And the Beatles have stopped playing live, which gives him less purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

This sense of unease permeates the book. Struggling to keep pace with his expanding empire, that January Epstein merged his NEMS Enterprises with Robert Stigwood\u2019s agency to ease the workload, causing friction with the Beatles. \u201cHe\u2019s terrified,\u201d says Kemp. \u201cHe finds these boys who he transforms into the biggest phenomenon the world has seen, but then it starts to run away from him. And we\u2019re at this stage now where he is panicked. He can\u2019t sleep. He\u2019s taking uppers and downers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018It was nice to push Brian to the foreground\u2019 \u2026 at Abbey Road in 1967. Photograph: David Magnus\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Epstein\u2019s drug use exacerbated an already precarious mental state. The book traces his encounters with addiction doctors, the gambling dens he frequented, and his stints in rehab at The Priory in London. His Jewishness often made him feel like an outsider, and he was gay at a time when it was still a criminal offence \u2013 part of the complicated landscape he privately navigated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s such a strong sense of the gay community within the book,\u201d says Kemp, \u201cwhether it\u2019s Brian\u2019s lawyer, David Jacobs, the people he brought down from Liverpool \u2026 or people in the book, like Robin Maugham, Somerset Maugham\u2019s nephew, who all had gay relationships that were quite open in that they lived together.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s striking about this book is that despite reconstructing the remarkable breadth of Brian\u2019s orbit, he emerges as a lonely, isolated figure. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t find a relationship,\u201d says Kemp, who uncovers in these pages a handful of likely liaisons \u2013 men who passed briefly through Brian\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

The most disturbing of these is John \u201cDizz\u201d Gillespie, an aspiring American actor with whom Brian had a volatile, on-off affair. The last time they\u2019d met, in August 1966, Dizz had stolen Brian\u2019s attache case from his Los Angeles hotel room, making off with $20,000, contracts, incriminating photographs, and \u2013 perhaps \u2013 his previous address book. The betrayal, distress and persistent threat of blackmail and\/or exposure sent Brian into a downward spiral.<\/p>\n

It is startling, therefore, to find Dizz\u2019s name here at all, whether Brian included it out of guilt, desperation or lingering hope. Gillespie left almost no trace of himself. \u201cThere\u2019s not even a mugshot,\u201d says Halfon, \u201cwhich you\u2019d think there would be, because he was a bit of a villain in his own way.\u201d Finally, Halfon discovered a signed copy of John Lennon\u2019s A Spaniard in the Works, inscribed to Dizz with a characteristically acerbic note. \u201cThat was at least something,\u201d he continues, \u201cto prove his existence and interweave it into Brian\u2019s world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein was alone when he died, aged just 32, of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills, on 27 August. He\u2019d spent the bank holiday weekend at his country house in Sussex, but a guest he\u2019d hoped to see failed to show, and a disappointed, drunk Epstein drove home to London that same night, locking himself in his Chapel Street bedroom.<\/p>\n

Kemp imagines Epstein there, withdrawn and despondent, reaching for his address book in need of friendly reassurance. \u201cIt was almost certainly on his bed when he was found dead,\u201d Kemp says, \u201cbecause he was calling people, and he would have been calling people using that book.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reward for months of scrutiny into Epstein\u2019s short life was, for Kemp, a closeness with the man himself. \u201cI came out knowing him more. I felt I\u2019d walked with him down different streets,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause the book has addresses in it, you see it geographically as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lonely, isolated figure \u2026 Brian Epstein in 1966 when homosexuality was still illegal. Photograph: C Maher\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Those locations are vital in bringing the physical world Epstein inhabited so vividly alive in the book. London sparkles with references to its clubs, offices, restaurants and homes, while further afield, the feverish nightclub culture of New York and the glamorous Hollywood scene (via Dean Martin, Colonel Tom Parker, Orson Welles) crackle with the same electricity. Epstein feels present throughout, fluttering through the worlds of music, theatre, business and bohemia, constantly making new connections along the way.<\/p>\n

Together, those details create an evocative, three-dimensional portrait of a man often overshadowed by the towering legends of his most famous charges. \u201cIt\u2019d just be nice to push Brian slightly to the foreground,\u201d says Halfon. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to stand in front of the Beatles in a way, as a character, because they\u2019re so larger than life. But people can say, \u2018Well, this was the guy who made their dream come true.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But what of the Fab Four themselves? Anyone flicking through the pages expecting to spot John, Paul, George or Ringo\u2019s names will be sorely disappointed. Their exclusion, Kemp suggests in the introduction, may be down to security reasons \u2013 particularly in light of Dizz Gillespie\u2019s thieving. But appearances, as readers will find out, can be deceiving.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a voyage of intrigue that Kemp seems reluctant to end. \u201cMaybe I\u2019ve started a thing now,\u201d he laughs. \u201cFrank Sinatra\u2019s got an address book out there somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

1967: The World of Brian Epstein and the Beatles by Gary Kemp and Simon Halfon (HarperCollins, \u00a325) is published on 13 October<\/p>\n

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The email from Sotheby\u2019s might easily have gone unread. Despite his deep appreciation for the musical heroes who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-927515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}