Bob Dylan was dating Joan Baez when he met The Beatles and introduced them to high-class marijuana in a motel outside JFK Airport the night before The Beatles flew home following a triumphant American tour in Sept. 1964.
They became close pals, but from the beginning Dylan warned Lennon to keep his hands off Baez. Lennon fancied her a lot, and she liked him because both were passionate about their opposition to the Vietnam War. Lennon was married to wife Cynthia at the time, but that didn’t stop him from playing the field.
The Beatles had been regular smokers of marijuana since Bob Dylan introduced them to it in a hotel room in August 1964. The drug helped make 1965’s Rubber Soul – which Lennon called the band’s “pot album” –
The Beatles adored Elvis Presley — and I finally trooped along with them when they met the King in the summer of 1965. However, Elvis was jealous of The Beatles. They had knocked him off his top music perch, bu
t worse, he hated grinding out three cookie-cutter movies a year: The Beatles’ first film “A Hard Day’s Night” was considered an instant smash. When we trooped along to Elvis’ Beverly Hills house, it took 30 minutes for them to warm up to each other. Finally, Elvis jumped up: “I’m going to bed … I thought you guys came to jam.” That broke the ice, and Elvis and The Beatles began an impromptu jam session in the living room.
The Beatles were always wary of show business celebs who wanted to meet them to exploit the whole Beatlemania thing. Jayne Mansfield enticed them to show up at the trendy Whisky a Go Go Sunset Strip nightclub. The evening turned into a disaster after a slightly sozzled Harrison t
ossed a drink at a photographer who refused to stop taking pictures. The drink missed the shutterbug, instead dousing movie sex symbol Mamie Van Doren, who was sitting nearby. The Beatles’ favorite drink on tour was rum and coke.
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Lennon overheard Fonda and recalled the instance years later: “[Fonda] kept on saying, in a whisper, ‘I know what it’s like to be dead,’ and we said, ‘What?’ And he kept on saying it. We were saying, ‘For Christ’s sake, shut up! We don’t care, we don’t want to know!’ But he kept going on about it.” Fonda: “[Lennon] looked at me and said, ‘You’re making me feel like I’ve never been born. Who put all that shit in your head?’ ” Roger McGuinn of the Byrds – who described the day as “morbid and bizarre” – recalled Lennon insisting that Fonda leave the gathering.
Lennon’s greatest fear in life was being called up to do military service in Britain. “Elvis was forced to go into the Army — and it almost destroyed his career. If we’d gone into the military
there would have been no Beatles. When John Lennon received an official envelope from British government he was too scared to open it. When he did, he discovered a letter from the British government telling him he’d been awarded an MBE by the Queen.
