Flashback 2000: The Beatles Still Rule

(1/2/01, 7 a.m. ET) - If you thought there was a new Beatles story 
every day this year, you're not that far off. It actually started December 
30, 1999 when George Harrison was nearly stabbed to death in his 
suburban London home by an attacker who found a way around the guitarist's 
$400,000 security system. While Harrison was recuperating, the world 
learned that, just a week before the assault, an intruder had been arrested 
in his Hawaiian home on burglary and theft charges in an unrelated 
incident.

Harrison hired two former military men as full-time bodyguards after 
the incidents. 

While the Hawaiian intruder got off with a year's probation, the man 
who tried to kill Harrison was found not guilty by reason of insanity. 
According to his doctors, the attacker felt the Beatles were witches and 
that he was possessed by Harrison. The doctors added that the man was a 
risk to society, and the judge sent the attacker to a mental hospital 
"without time restriction." Harrison is said to have completely 
recovered from his injuries.

The other legal news surrounding the Beatles this year was that Mark 
David Chapman, the man who shot and killed John Lennon 20 years ago, 
became eligible for parole. As his parole hearing approached, Chapman told 
interviewers that his father never loved him, and that he thought 
Lennon would forgive him and want to see him set free. 

Based on its meeting with him, the parole board denied Chapman's bid.

Thankfully, those were pretty much the only dark clouds surrounding the 
Beatles this year. The real focus seemed to be on the music, the 
history, and the future, whether as members of the band or on their own.

Early in the year came word that the surviving Beatles -- Paul 
McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Harrison, along with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono--had 
finally put the finishing touches on The Beatles Anthology book that 
fans had been waiting for since the Anthology TV shows had aired back in 
1995.

LAUNCH asked Starr what took so long. "It's like everything else--it 
should have come out, but it didn't, you know what I mean?" he replied. 
"Things get in the way, things happen. It's a perfect life if everything 
would have come out, but if we'd have waited for the book, then the 
actual TV show wouldn't have been out. Some things take longer than 
others, and you start off with the premise that, 'Oh, it'll all happen 
together,' but it just didn't."

Of course, The Beatles Anthology shot to the top of the New York Times 
non-fiction hardcover bestseller list its first week out, and McCartney 
told LAUNCH that he was very happy both with the book itself and with 
people's reaction to it. "It's beautiful, yeah," McCartney said. "I'm 
very proud. I think it was really good. It was nice, you know, 'cause the 
Anthology's a huge sort of affair, and it's nice that it's a reasonable 
price so it's kinda quite accessible to people. I've had a lot of good 
feedback off it, a lot of people who really love it."

Among its highlights are that Lennon was actually the first member of 
the band to leave, although McCartney was the first to go public with 
his departure. The book also details some of the members' more adult 
adventures as young men on the prowl in Hamburg, Germany, the meeting 
between the "Fab Four" and "The King," Elvis Presley, and debunks the myth 
that the Beatles smoked pot in Buckingham Palace before accepting their 
MBE awards from Queen Elizabeth II in 1965.

Even though relations have been strained among band members throughout 
the years, The Beatles Anthology includes statements from both Starr 
and Harrison indicating there are no lasting rifts among the three 
surviving Beatles. Starr refers to them as "the closest friends I've ever 
had," adding, "We had many laughs together. . .I loved it. I loved those 
guys."

Harrison said, "The Beatles can't ever really split up, because as we 
said at the time we did split up, it doesn't really make any difference. 
The music is there, the films are all there. Whatever we did is still 
there and always will be."

McCartney demonstrated another side of himself this year: gentleman 
painter. The book Paul McCartney Paintings was published, featuring about 
100 of his roughly 500 canvases, and exhibitions of his artwork were 
held in Bristol, England, and New York, following his gallery debut in 
Siegen, Germany, in 1999. He told LAUNCH that painting is an ongoing 
creative outlet for him, one he began some time ago.

"Been painting now for about 18 years," he said. "I never really wanted 
to publicize it too much because I didn't really like that thing--you 
know, 'the celebrity who also paints'--'cause it seemed to belittle the 
painting a bit, so I didn't really show. But then some guy in Germany 
persuaded me to do it and said, you know, 'I want to take your work very 
seriously, et cetera,' and so I did it."

Starr hit the road this summer for one of his regular outings, this 
time joined by Jack Bruce, Simon Kirke, Eric Carmen, Dave Edmunds, and 
Mark Rivera. Asked about the continued success he and his fellow 
All-Starrs enjoy, and he said, "We're blessed we're still alive, and we're 
blessed that people would like to come and see us, you know? And it's a 
privilege to be able to do what for me was a dream at 13, and I'm still 
doing it."

Starr filmed a commercial for Century 21, the real-estate company that 
sponsored the tour, and he also did a spot for investment broker 
Charles Schwab earlier in the year. 

When asked about ever-increasing corporateness impinging on rock music 
and whether he has any qualms about accepting sponsorship money, he 
responded, "I think when we were all 20, we were really anti-establishment 
and now it's part of the business. It's not the business as it was when 
I started, but now very few acts go on the road unless they're 
supported by somebody."