John, Paul, George & Ringo figuring out what's next
...John, Paul, George & Ringo figuring out what's next
...Nothing much happening today.
...On October 29th 1966, Fred Robbins met up with John Lennon in Carboneras, Spain for an interview conducted between takes, on-location during the filming of 'How I Won The War.'
John Lennon was chosen for the role by director Richard Lester who had directed Lennon previously in the Beatles' first two films, 'A Hard Day's Night' in 1964 and 'Help!' in 1965. Lennon makes it clear that he would not have taken on a movie role with any other director.
In this outdoor interview, with the sound of the wind in the microphone, Fred Robbins chatted with Lennon about songwriting, the darker side of the Beatles 1966 Tour, and cutting his hair short for the film role.
John Lennon would write the song 'Strawberry Fields Forever' in Spain during the filming of this movie. In addition to Carboneras, other Spanish locations chosen by Lester for shooting the film included Almeria and Andalucia.
Robbins was originally a television emcee in the 1950's, moving to work with Radio Luxembourg in the 1960's. He later would work for CNN before passing away in 1992.
Q: "Well, so our good friend John Lennon has been shorn. How does it feel?"
JOHN: "It feels quite comfortable out here, you know. It's not too short."
Q: "You look a little like Bob Dylan this way. Have you noticed it? Anybody else say that?"
JOHN: "I dunno. About two people have said it. It's because me hair's standing on end." (laughs)
Q: "It's very becoming, John. Honestly. I think it's easy to get used to, eh?"
JOHN: "It's quite easy to get used to. It's full of sand and old rubbish, you know."
Q: "Do you think it'll take long to grow it back?"
JOHN: "No. It looks quite normal at night when I comb it, if I can get my comb through it. You wouldn't know it wasn't just the back's short and no sideboards."
Q: "This surely must be one of the most unusual locations in the world. I wonder if you could describe it and tell us exactly where we are and what's going on here."
JOHN: "You're asking me where we are! (giggles) Well, as far as I know we're somewhere in Spain. It could be anywhere for all I know, actually. And it's just like, uhh... I dunno. It's like a dump, really. It's like the moon, you know -- just desert and sand and hills and mountains. They're not very nice to look at, but the weather is ok now and then."
Q: "Beautiful weather. What a perfect spot for this picture. This is supposed to represent what?"
JOHN: "North Africa, and I believe it's pretty similar."
Q: "First dramatic role, eh, John?"
JOHN: "Well, dramatic's a good word. (laughs) First ROLE, really. The others were just messing about.:
Q: "How do you take to it? How does it come to you?"
JOHN: "Well, sometimes it comes hard (laughs) and sometimes it comes easy. It depends on the day."
Q: "Do you like it? Do you find it's natural to be an actor?"
JOHN: "Some of it is natural. The most unnatural bits are hard, you know -- the ones that are REALLY out of character for me. It's alright, but it's not the be-all and end-all for me."
Q: "But you do like it? You'd like to do more of it?"
JOHN: "I think I'd do limited amounts of stuff, because I AM limited at what I could do."
Q: "You really don't know until you try."
JOHN: "No, I don't. But I don't want to be trying meself out in films. It's too public."
Q: "That's true. But did you know you could write before you wrote?"
JOHN: "I didn't think about it, because I was always writing, you see, just sort of naturally."
Q: "In other words, the acting thing is still a new thing for you... just trying your wings."
JOHN: "Yes, it's really trying me wings."
Q: "It'll be fascinating to see what happens. Can you tell me about your character? Who do you play?"
JOHN: "It's a Private soldier called Gripweed. He's not particularly nice. He's not TOO horrible, but he's just looking after himself all the time. That's the main thing."
Q: "And what relationship do you have to the other people in the film."
JOHN: "Well, none really. We don't really have much of a relationship. We're not fighting or anything. We don't, sort of, have a lot to say directly to each other. And... well, I'm Michael Crawford's batman. He's Officer Goodbody and I'm meant to look after him, you know. But I spend most of the time not looking after him and trying to dodge it."
Q: "Kind of mess things up a little bit."
JOHN: "Uhh, it's a bit like that."
Q: "That's a different connotation of the word batman. In America we have a television series..."
JOHN: (giggling) "Oh, I know. We got it in Britain, too."
Q: "But it really means an 'aid' here, or 'helper.'"
JOHN: "Oh yeah. That's just the usual Army term for the fella that crawls about, looking after the officer. You know, 'Yes sir, no sir, certainly sir.'"
Q: "And you're right here with your old buddy Dick Lester again."
JOHN: "Yes, yes. He's alright." (laughs)
Q: "He certainly established a style, with you fellas."
JOHN: "Yes, hasn't he."
Q: "I mean, the individuality of you guys, as well as his uniqueness as ...
John Lennon: I'm trying to do something else. I have tried to paint and write. Now I'm having a bash at a straight acting rôle. It's fun.
...The Beatles doin' their own thing
...The Beatles doing their own thing again.
...Nothing noteworthy happened. Unless anyone can think of something?
...The Beatles making music somewhere.
...Just doing their own thing again.
...George Harrison and his wife Pattie had flown to India on September 14, 1966 to study yoga and the sitar in Bombay (Mumbai).
On this day they returned to England, arriving at London Airport.
...
Almería, Spain
On location…The Beatles’ John Lennon (left) chats with fellow Beatle Ringo Starr during a break on the set of his new movie here. Lennon is appearing in How I Won the War, in his first straight acting role.
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1 |
Jim Reeves |
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2 |
The Four Tops |
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3 |
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich |
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The Troggs |
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The Who |
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The New Vaudeville Band |
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The Sandpipers |
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The Rolling Stones |
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The Supremes |
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The Hollies |
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Dusty Springfield |
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The Seekers |
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Sonny & Cher |
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Georgie Fame |
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Roy Orbison |
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Peter & Gordon |
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Herman's Hermits |
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The Walker Brothers |
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Los Bravos |
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The Four Seasons |
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Cliff Richard |
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Bobby Hebb |
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David Garrick |
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Sandy Posey |
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The Temptations |
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Elvis Presley |
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The Mike Sammes Singers |
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Paul Jones |
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Bobby Darin |
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Yellow Submarine / Eleanor Rigby |
The Beatles |
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The Beach Boys |
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The Spencer Davis Group |
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The Small Faces |
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Lee Dorsey |
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Andy Williams |
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Wilson Pickett |
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Frank Sinatra |
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Cilla Black |
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Cat Stevens |
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Cliff Bennett & the Rebel Rousers |
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David & Jonathan |
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Manuel |
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Cher |
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Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band |
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Cream |
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Dermot O'Brien |
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The Mindbenders |
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The Searchers |
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Junior Walker & the All Stars |
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Adam Faith |
...
The Beatles just doing their own thing....
...Jimi Hendrix in London - and the Beatles
...
No news on this day 50 years ago.
...The Beatles doing their own thing
...October 15, 1966 - "Brian Epstein" flies to "America" with "Georgia Fame" to find a co-star for "Fame's Christmas Show" at "London", produced by "Brian Epstein".
...The Beatles doing their own thing.
...The Beatles were doing their own thing
...Nothing much happening in the news today.
...John Lennon still filming "How I Won" The War in various locations in Carboneras, Spain.
...The Beatles were probably just doing their own thing.....
...John Lennon and Cynthia spent much of September and October 1966 in Almería, Spain, where he acted in Richard Lester's film How I Won The War.
The couple settled in a villa named Santa Isabel, where they were joined by Ringo Starr and his wife Maureen Starkey. Also staying at the villa were actor Michael Crawford, his wife Gabrielle, their baby and its nanny.
On this day Lennon celebrated his 26th birthday. Close to a beach named El Zapillo was a restaurant, El Manzanilla. It was here that Lennon and his friends celebrated his birthday.
Cynthia, Maureen & Ringo watch as John films scenes of ''How I Won the War''
...
On the evening of Saturday, October 8, 1966, John Lennon celebrated his 26th birthday in an apartment in Almeria, Spain. Officially, he was 26 on Sunday, October 9th, but the party took place the night before because John was about to move to a new location. At the time, we had been in Spain just over three weeks for location work on the Richard Lester movie, How I Won The War, in which John plays the part of Corporal Gripweed—a faithful, slovenly and slightly cowardly servant/“batman” of Lieutenant Goodbody (Michael Crawford) of the British Army.
The entire production unit for the movie got an open initiation to the birthday shindig and, believe me, it was quite a wild night! Almeria is a pretty remote spot—minus most forms of conventional night life, so that party was one of the few really successful social occasions of the month.
John and Cyn had become very friendly with Michael Crawford and his wife, who were renting an apartment nearby. Already the Crawfords were finding themselves a bit cramped, because they had their lovely little six-months-old baby with them and a nanny. And Ringo had arrived with Maureen for a holiday three days before the birthday party!
“You know what we ought to do?” John suggested one evening, just after we’d heard that Ringo and Maureen were coming to Spain. “We should all get together and rent one of those fantastic old villas outside the town.”
The Crawfords loved the idea and the move was organized without delay. The apartments were very attractive and comfortable—with a wonderful view looking out over the sea. But everyone wanted more space to move around in and larger “get-together” rooms for entertaining. So, on the Sunday of John’s birthday, we moved into the Villa Corjo-Romera, a magnificent, rambling old Spanish villa standing on a hill outside the town.
“It’ll take days just to explore this place,” John declared, as we walked from room to room on the initial tour of the villa. We admired all the heavy woodwork, the superbly decorated ceilings and the majestic main hall.
“Just like something out of a film,” Ringo decided. “You expect all kinds of heroes with swords to come swinging ’round the corner on a chandelier! And what a great place for parties!”
“That’s it,” replied John. “A party! It’s my birthday. We should have one.”
“We did that last night,” I put in weakly.
“Well we’ll do it again tonight,” John said. “It can be called a villa warming if you like.”
“Hey you’ve got a game room,” Ringo said. Let’s have a go at table tennis later.”
That night’s “villa warming” party coincided with one of the worst storms Almeria had ever experienced in living memory. Normally, the locals expected no more than about five days of rain each year. This storm took everybody by surprise. The rain was torrential and it was accompanied by a fierce wind. The party was just getting underway when the all the lights went out, so we rushed ’round trying to find where the fuses were located. We needn’t have bothered. The electricity supply cables for the entire area had been damaged by the storm. And the telephone lines were down, too. Finally, we found enough candles to light the place. In the end, the candlelight added to definitely romantic atmosphere to the party, and the power cut had turned out to be a novel advantage rather than a disaster.
It goes without saying that there was no film work done on Monday. The location set had been washed away by the rain. (After all, this was the desert sequence—and floods just don’t happen in deserts!) The water supply for the villa came from a well, but the pump was worked buy electricity. It wasn’t until late Tuesday afternoon that electric power was restored. So we spent Monday devising ways of eating and existing comfortably without the use of water or electricity.
The restoration of the power coincided with the arrival of our cook. So at about three o’clock Tuesday afternoon we all sat down to a late breakfast of sausages and eggs.
“This, I am really looking forward to,” said John, and the girls put on a look of mock annoyance. “Not that I’m saying a word against your cooking, but even you two can’t work wonders without water.”
John and I had left for Germany to begin work on How I Won The War less than a week after the Beatles’ American tour. By now it must be a matter of well-known historical fact that John’s ceremonial haircutting took place at the unearthly hour of 7:30 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, September 6, 1966! The “operation” was supervised by the film’s producer/director, Richard Lester, and carried out by 28-year-old German hairdresser Klaus Baruch, of Hamburg. He came to our small vacation-type hotel in the forest of Luneberg Heath to perform his grave task. John’s familiar fringe was swept back and greased down a bit to transform him into Corporal Gripweed. The addition of the grubby old army greatcoat plus a pair of very plain specs completed the change from Beatle to “batman.”
Don’t believe any claims peo...
Nothing much happening today - that we know of.
...The Beatles doing their own thing...............
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