CONEY ISLAND how by Bob Whitaker Gerry & the Pacemakers, Cilia Black and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas. Career-wise, Epstein first entertained becoming a dress designer. But after he was arrested and freed for "importun- ing" a suspected gay man, while taking acting classes at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, he chose to join the family business and began sell- ing records in the music section of his father's store. He set his personal taste for classical music aside, though, upon discovering the Beatles playing the Cavern Club in November 1961. By accepting an offer to manage them, a 27-year-old Epstein embraced entrepreneurship. Yet Epstein's huge dreams and aspira- tions were inconsistent with the think- ing of Britain's stifling middle class, Geller contends. "Coming from the fact that he was an outcast, he did his best to sidestep that notion that you had to conform to lockstep British society or be completely out of it," Geller says. "Managing the Beatles gave him a sort of public and inter- personal strength that he'd never had before. "No British group had ever made it in The new America, and Svengali of pop Brian knew that with producer to be the biggest George Martin. in the world, bigger than Elvis, he had to come here. He was very much in charge and it changed his whole demeanor and sense of himself, as not being this searching, unfulfilled person. "And I don't think Brian managed the Beatles because he was in love with John Lennon, either," she adds about the often speculated liaison that supposedly occurred during a 12-day vacation that Epstein and Lennon took in 1963 to Barcelona. "He's been cast as a dimin- ished figure, and the idea of him and John Lennon has been nasty talk. Obviously, he was interested in John Lennon, but there was so much more to it. According to Geller's research, Epstein's morally compromising sexuali- ty was a trap door that hindered him from ever finding a lasting relationship. And he often put his life in danger, the book's participants recall. 53 LOVE ME Do on page 83 Greek and American Cuisine OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK. 154 S. Woodward, Birmingham (248) 540-8780 Halsted Village (37580 W. 12 Mile Rd.) Farmington Hills (248) 553-2360 6527 Telegraph Rd. Corner of Maple (15 Mile) Bloomfield Township (248) 646-8568 Many Fried traded his drumsticks for a law degree, but not before his band, The Cyrkle, toured with the Beatles. Cyrkle Game Attorney Marty Fried, one-time drummer, for The Cyrkle, recalls his days on tour with the Beatles. MARTIN NATCHEZ Special to the Jewish News I f the Beatles had written a song titled "All You Need is Luck," it would certainly have applied to Marty Fried. In 1965, while pursuing his physics degree at Lafayette College in Easton, Penn., Fried was moonlighting as a drummer in a band called the Rhondells. The group's professionally polished performances of Top-40 songs by the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons and others seized the attention of Nat Weiss, a New York divorce attorney and a close friend of Beatles manager Brian Epstein. Weiss caught the act during a summer engagement at The Alibi, a bar near Atlantic City's famous boardwalk. For Fried, lucky horseshoes weren't clinking so fast. He was strongly cyni- cal about Weiss' offer for him and bandmates Tom Dawes, Don Dannemann and Earl Pickens to come to the Big Apple and be scout- ed for a recording contract. "I was brought up to be skeptical about almost everything," says Fried, 56, now a bankruptcy attorney in the Southfield firm of Goldstein, Bershad, Fried & Lieberman. "[But} I wanted to see it happen. And because of Nat's connections with Brian, he got some record producers to hear us play. "We eventually wound up in a suite at Columbia with [label presi- dent] Clive Davis and met Brian Epstein. He didn't know I was Jewish, and I didn't know if he could tell. We just shook hands, contracts were wheeled in on dollies, a photographer took a couple of pictures, and that was it." From that point on, the Rhondells were no more. Epstein renamed them The Cyrkle — a suggested I.D. by Beade John Lennon — and by July 1966, "Red Rubber Ball," a tune co- written by singer - songwriter Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley of the Seekers, became The Cyrkle's first hit, peaking at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The Cyrkle's surging popularity convinced Epstein to add the band to the list of opening acts on the Beatles' last American tour, which included the Ronettes, Bobby Hebb and Barry and the Remains. The entourage debuted in Chicago, followed by a second stop at Detroit's Olympia Stadium on Aug. 13, 1966, where more than 30,000 Beatles fans paid between $3.50 and $5.50 a ticket to see the Beatles live. But amidst all the hoopla, Fried recalled that he did- n't personally rub shoulders with the Fab Four until the tour's third show at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium. "The first time we met them was in the bowels of the stadium, and it was hot," he remembers. "There were security guards at every turn, and, eventually, we got into this small room, and they were just sitting there, in this dark, ding place. 4763 Haggerty Rd. at Pontiac Trail West Wind Village Shopping Center West Bloomfield (248) 669-2295 841 East Big Beaver, Troy (248) 680-0094 SOUTHFIELD SOUVLAKI CONEY ISLAND Nine Mile & Greenfield 15647 West Nine Mile, Southfield (248) 569-5229 FARMINGTON SOUVLAKI CONEY ISLAND Between 13 & 14 on Orchard Lake Road 30985 Orchard Lake Rd. Farmington Hills (248) 626-9732 NEW LOCATION: 525 N. Main Milford (248) 684-1772 UPTOWN PARTHENON 4301 Orchard Lake Rd. 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