'Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans', it will be published on Nov. 14, 2023, via HarperCollins’ Dey Street Books imprint. The book’s cover art has not yet been revealed, followed by a collection of diaries and manuscripts in 2024. Source (NME - VMZ)
The family of Mal Evans – The Beatles’ longtime roadie, manager and general acquaintance, who featured prominently in Peter Jackson’s docuseries The Beatles: Get Back – have announced the publication of an authorised biography set to cover his storied life and career.
HarperCollins’ Dey Street Books imprint will publish it in 2023, with Evans’ estate working closely with author Kenneth Womack – himself an accredited Beatles scholar and, per his own website, “one of the world’s leading authorities on The Beatles and their enduring cultural influence” – to tell his story in resounding detail.
The book, Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans, is in conjunction with Evans’ family and estate. It will be published on Nov. 14, 2023, via HarperCollins’ Dey Street Books imprint. (The book’s cover art has not yet been revealed.)
Working with full access to Evans’ unpublished archives, Womack conducted hundreds of new interviews, providing readers with a full telling of Evans’ unknown story at the heart of the Beatles’ legend. The book is lavishly illustrated with unseen photos and ephemera from Evans’ archives.
The biography will be followed in 2024 with a sprawling compendium of Evans’ personal archives, which Rolling Stone reports will feature diaries, manuscripts and more. Having obtained The Beatles’ blessing, Evans planned to published those manuscripts himself before his death at age 40 in January 1976.
The Day Beatles Assistant Mal Evans Was Killed by Police
Big but gentle, he made a perfectly imposing presence, and by 1963, he’d come on board as the group’s full-time bodyguard.Mal joined us full-time in 1963. He was our bodyguard, but he was great at it because he would never hurt anyone. He was just big enough to say, ‘Excuse me, let the boys through.’ He was pretty strong. He could lift the bass amp on his own, which was a miracle. He should have been in the circus.
Ringo Starr.Hoernie (a friend) said he found Mal crying, ‘really doped up and groggy’. Mal told him, ‘Please make sure you and Joanne [Lenard, Hoernie’s assistant on the book] finish the book.’ Mal and John Hoernie went to an upstairs bedroom and in the course of Mal’s incoherent conversation, he picked up an unloaded 30.30 rifle. A scuffle ensued, but Mal was a big, powerful man and Hoernie was unable to take the weapon away from him.
The police were summoned to Mal’s apartment, located at 8122 West 4th Street in Los Angeles. Fran called the police and told them, “My old man has a gun and has taken Valium and is totally screwed up.” Four policemen arrived shortly afterward and two of them, David D. Krempa and Robert E. Brannon, went to the upstairs room.
According to the police report, when Mal saw the police officers he turned and pointed the rifle at them. Lieutenant Charles Higbie of the LAPD robbery and homicide division said, ‘Officers directed him to put down the rifle.’ ‘He refused to put down the rifle.’ The cops fired six shots at him, four of which struck Mal, killing him instantly. Mal was an honorary sheriff of Los Angeles County.
“My dad meant the world to me,” Evans’ son Gary said in a statement. “He was my hero. Before Ken [Womack] joined the project, I thought I knew the story of my dad. But what I knew was in monochrome; 15 months later it is like The Wizard Of Oz (dad’s favourite film) because Ken has added so much color, so much light to his story.
It was Ono who, after reading Kutti’s note, immediately contacted Neil Aspinall, Evans’ former counterpart in the band’s circle. In 1976, he was appointed executive director of Apple, the Beatles’ holding company. She urged Aspinall, "We’ve got to do something about this." According to the book, Ono met with Evans’ loved ones in 1989 and shared "a tearful embrace." Ono, whose husband was murdered in 1980, knew how hurtful it was to lose a loved one so suddenly.
“Ken has shown me that dad was The Beatles’ greatest friend. He was lucky to meet them, but they had more good fortune with dad walking down the Cavern steps for the first time.”
Evans remained on the Fab Four’s payroll until his untimely passing; he was hired as a roadie in 1963, and quickly grew close with the band. He continued to work with them in various other capacities, including as their manager, for years after they stopped touring in 1966.
