The Beatles – The First U.S. Visit

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Beatles first visit to the US, Apple Corps released a DVD of the the band’s first US visit in February 1964. Today, ten years later we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Beatles arrival in New York. Days later the band made their first Florida visit and for Flashback Friday we look back on the Florida portion of that first US visit.

The Beatles visited New York, Washington and Miami on the group’s first trip stateside between February 7th and 22nd, 1964. After performing on the Ed Sullian Show in New York and giving two concerts first in Washington and then in New York, the band traveled south.

The group arrived in Miami on February 13th to screams from young girls and nearly 8,000 onlookers at Miami International Airport. Soon after they were yachting around Biscayne Bay.

People were lending us yachts, anything we wanted. There were two great things in Florida. One: I was taken to my first drive-in in a Lincoln Continental by two very nice young ladies. Two: a family lent us their boat and let me drive. It was a sixty-foot speedboat, which I proceeded to bring into port head-on, not really knowing much about driving speedboats.

– Ringo Starr in The Beatles Anthology

On February 14th the group had a photo shoot for Life Magazine. Paul McCartney recalled:

We’d told Brian (Epstein, the Beatles Manager) we wanted a pool, and a guy from a record company had one. Looking back, it was quite a modest little pool for Miami. Not a huge affair. We would go round there in the afternoon and not get bothered. It was great – four Liverpool lads, you know: ‘Get your cozzies on.’ Life magazine was taking photos of us swimming.

– In The Beatles Anthology

The Beatles were staying  at the Deauville Hotel (at 67th and Collins) on Miami Beach and Don Rickles the famous comedian was providing the entertainment at the hotel’s bar. Rickles routine struck the Beatles as unusually cruel.

Probably everyone has heard of Don Rickles now, but we hadn’t in those days, and he was playing in the Deauville Hotel where we stayed. He was a vicious type of comedian. He would say, ‘Hello, lady, where are you from?’ and she’d say, ‘Oh, I’m from Israel.’ He’d go to another table, ‘Where are you from?’ They’d say, ‘Germany,’ and it’d be: ‘Nazi, get out! What the hell is this?’

– Ringo Starr in The Beatles Anthology

The Beatles continued to enjoy the fun and sun of Miami the next day while rehearsing for the Ed Sullivan show, the band’s second live US TV appearance. Then they appeared live on the Ed Sullivan Show the night of February 14th.

The February 16th Ed Sullivan Show filmed at the Deauville. The show was watched by an estimated 70 million  domestic viewers over a third of the US population at the time. The group had been a sensation in the UK since late 1962, but it took the single “I want to Hold Your Hand” to break through in the US. The rest of course is history.

The DVD The Beatles – The First U.S. Visit has some great scenes of Miami circa 1964. For anyone interested in Florida History and the growth of the state the DVD is worth it even just for the high quality preserved video of the Sunshine State’s signature city in those days.