MEET THE BEATLES

Miami Herald, The (FL)
July 21, 1991
Author: MEG LAUGHLIN Herald Tropic staff writer

It was summer 1967 in Memphis, Tenn.--a time way into the '60s when the '60s had hardly begun. At the southern university I went to, we marched and slung mud in protest, but not over the war or discrimination, but things like canceled pep rallies. Like most of my fellow students, I was snug and smug, more into fashion and music, than ideology. So, when I saw an ad in the paper from the local department store about a job, I called immediately. Goldsmith's, which carried British-style clothes and played British rock in the junior department, was looking for a "college fashion board" -- six girls with a year or more of college "to model at fashion shows and represent the department store at functions." Sort of like Miss America, I was told when I went to the interview.

But after a week of ecstasy over having been chosen, I started the job, and it became clear we were not Miss Americas at all. We were underpaid sales clerks, working for $1 an hour, hated by the veteran clerks -- stout elderly women in basic black, working on commission. Not only were we not spokespersons; we were home wreckers, draining the old-timers of their rent money.

The regulars snubbed us, and we spent most of our time trying to figure out how to run charge cards through the cash register. Though our pictures appeared in ads in the local paper almost daily as "something groovy at Goldsmith's," we moped around the junior department, falling far short of the mod image we were supposed to project.

So when the sales supervisor called the six of us in, we expected the worst. We sat around her big desk, the air thick as the humidity outside, waiting to be told to walk.

"We want you girls," she said nonchalantly, "to quit selling clothes." Ah, just as we had thought. "We want you to start rehearsing," she said. "In August, we need you to introduce our new Carnaby line. You'll be the opening act at the Coliseum for the Beatles."

It took a while to sink in. We had expected to be laid off. Instead, the world was being laid at our feet. The Beatles, the actual Beatles? We would be backstage with them? Paul, John, George and Ringo? The stars of the world, the heroes of the universe -- we would meet them, hang out with them?

Word spread fast. I became a celebrity with kids I had hardly known in high school. Nan Bailey asked me over for lunch and said I would be so close to Paul I would be able to touch him. She wanted an eyelash. Sandra Cole asked me over and gave me a small photo of Ringo with instructions to get his autograph. Susan Askew told me she wanted John Lennon to know she loved him. Could I give him a note? The requests went on and on.

The six of us rehearsed constantly in a Goldsmith's dressing room, in front of a three-way mirror. It was way before Flash Dance, so we didn't do a lot of jumping around. Mostly, it was Peter Gunn/Steam Heat type of stuff, sliding around with a few steps from the dance of that summer -- The Skate -- thrown in. One of our group, an Ole Miss cheerleader, wanted to end with a back flip, but the rest of us refused to try it. What if we were hospitalized the day of the concert?

No matter how many times I did the dance, I could not get over being nervous. I kept thinking about Paul watching. I was so infatuated with the idea of this that it didn't occur to me that zillions of people in the audience would also be watching. But this did occur to me the day of the concert.

In a VIP station wagon, we zipped through a fenced driveway at the auditorium, past hordes of young women crying and screaming at the gate. We ran in single file through an open door in the back of the building as if we were the Beatles themselves. Once inside, we could hear the crowd: Four packed balconies, towering over the stage. Faces stretching as far as the eye could see.

We waited in a small, stale room, with the door ajar, not to miss anything. Our costumes were multicolored velour miniskirts with hip belts, tucked-in lacy stretch tops and white patent leather boots zipped up to our knees. We did our own hair and makeup: middle parts with big black eyes and no lips. We were all aflutter, trying to practice, trying to spot the Beatles coming in, trying to keep our hair sleek, our eyeliner thick and our lips frosted. No one was making any sense. We were all yelling at each other.

A local group was playing horns on the stage, strutting and bending and knocking themselves out. They sounded muffled and small. For some reason, I thought it would be different when we got out there. George Klein, a deejay who buddied around with Elvis, was the announcer. He thanked Coca-Cola and Goldsmith's over and over. He whispered into the mike that the Beatles were backstage and would be coming out any minute. The crowd roared.

Backstage? Where, we wanted to know. We were backstage and hadn't seen any sign of them. Not even the back flap on a Nehru jacket. We had already figured out that they would have to go by our dressing room to get to theirs. But they were nowhere in sight, and it was already an hour past show time.

To introduce us, George Klein screamed, "Here they are!"

The crowd went into a maniacal frenzy thinking it was the Beatles. At last! At last! Then, the six of us ran out on stage in a neat little row, snapping our fingers. The music, coming off a recording, was small and scratchy. We huddled in the center of the vast stage, meekly going through our routine. Slide. Push. Clap. Turn.

"The spectacular girls from Goldsmith's!" George Klein yelled into the mike. And the crowd yelled back.

"Boo!" they screamed en masse. Boo, over and over. But we kept on. In fact, every time our routine would come to an end, the music would start again, and we'd repeat what we'd just done. The Beatles were running late and we were the foil. It was about the fourth time into the routine that people started throwing things. Ice. Rolls of toilet paper. Cups. Buns. Popcorn.

"Beatles, Beatles, Beatles," they screamed.

When the Beatles -- our co-performers -- finally did come out, we were seated in box seats to the left of the stage. I tried to feel some kind of thrill -- some kind of special connection with one of them -- but couldn't get anything going. Even though everyone around me was screaming wildly, I sat there quietly. Maybe because a big sound box was blocking my view of everything but Ringo's arm. Maybe because I was preoccupied with the relish in my hair. Maybe because I couldn't bring myself to become a part of the noise that had just booed us off stage.

For months, I got introduced by friends, with obvious pride, as someone who had opened for the Beatles. No one seemed to register what had actually happened, and that I was not to be envied. But then no one seemed to notice, either, that the Beatles were off-key during the entire concert.

Outwardly, I just smiled weakly whenever the great event was mentioned. But inwardly, the disillusionment was working on me. I became more and more cynical, seeing fraud everywhere I looked. When I read about something "new and exciting at Goldsmith's," I didn't believe it. Greetings like "How y'all doing?" started to sound hypocritical, and even Miss America herself seemed phony. As it turned out, introducing the Beatles was my introduction to the '60s. When I got back to school, I quit my sorority.

Edition: FINAL
Section: TROPIC
Page: 22
Copyright (c) 1991 The Miami Herald