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Expenses: •Alfred Lennon worked at the Greyhound Hotel as a porter in Hampton 1964. During a meeting with Alfred, John asked him to leave his address, and John would send $30 a week. John later purchased a home and furnishings for Alfred for £15,000. •Bill Corbett was a driver hired by John for his £5,000
Rolls Royce purchased in 1964. Corbett was a former employee of
a car-hire firm which sent him to drive for the Beatles in an Aston-Martin
(Harry, B. JL Encyclopedia. p. 166). •John spent £20,000+ on renovations, including a pool, for Kenwood, a home he purchased in 1964. He bought the home (£40,000) on the advice of his accountants to buy property with his untaxed income. •As John was in a taxi he decided to stop in a store where he bought a night shirt for Cynthia for £6. He also bought three jackets and one coat for £107. He didn't have any money on him, so the store gave him a blank check. However, John did not remember what branch his account was at. •Julia Baird: Among his collection was a mat black Ferrari, the Rolls, and a lovely all-white Mini with electric windows. •John bought a house for his Aunt Mimi in Bournemouth and a house for his Aunt Harriet in Woolton (Baird). •John eventually bought Pete Shotton a £20,000 supermarket on Hayling island. •The interior designer having done his job of transforming our mansion into a very plush and modern home left, with I'm sure, a very healthy bank balance. It was very beautiful but my mother still couldn't resist buying us more and more junk and the cluttered design grew more like home as the months passed (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist p. 120). •Julian Lennon (commenting on the picture he drew as a child that inspired Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds): I was at Heath House, a private Nursery School in Weybridge, and I was about four years old. One day I painted a picture of my 'girlfriend' Lucy O'Donnell. •John once placed an order with a store for every game they had in stock. He also purchased 20 complete sets of scale electric trains complete with hills, bridges, etc. After several weeks he became disinterested with the trains (Shotton). •John told Yoko, after a conversation between the two in 1967, that she could call his office in the morning to arrange for John to fund her Lisson Gallery show for £5000 ($12,500). The show was titled 'Yoko Plus Me' (Hopkins, p. 66). •During the filming of 'A Hard Day's Night' the only was we could relax and unwind was by going out to dinner en masse at some very expensive restaurant. It had to be expensive, a place where the clientele were protected from the ogling and pestering of the general public (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist p. 98). •John laid down his guitar and casually said, "Alistair, I want you to buy me an island"..."Oh, and it mustn't be more than two hours from London". I went to see some of the big estate agents in London and they hadn't really got anything. I often deal with them--under my own name, because the prices would rise astronomically if they knew that I am acting for the Beatles. {Alistair then found and island, took pictures of it, and brought them to John at Kenwood. When John saw the pictures he told Alistair to go and buy it for him} There was one problem--money. The boys carry very little cash; there isn't much opportunity for them to spend it casually. Neither are their houses riddled with safes, as you might suppose. John's attitude is, "You worry about that, I never carry any". I rang Ireland to see if they would accept a check. They would only accept a check certified by a bank. All the banks were closed...So I rang Clive Epstein, Brian's brother, in Liverpool and we came to a last minute arrangement that his chauffeur would be on Crewe Station with eight hundred pounds as the train drew in. {After getting the money, Alistair had to wait until two o'clock to bid for the island at auction. While visiting the auctioneer the man said, "I like the look of you, so let me give you a tip. My son Michael is the only solicitor in Westport. Let him do the biding for you this afternoon". In the end Alistair did acquire the island for John at £1,550.} Apparently the island has the finest grazing land in Clew Bay, so everybody was offering me money to allow their animals to graze! (Taylor, A. p. 64). •The merchandising deal with Nicky Byrne gave the Beatles 10% of revenue from licensed products. Byrne and his partners set up offices in New York and began making millions of dollars (Gunby, G. Hello Goodbye, p. 80). •Cynthia on the house in Surrey (St. George's Hill Estate area): It was obvious that it would need a great deal of cash spending on it but at that time the Beatles success story had put behind us all the money worries we had ever had. Money was no object and it was worth anything to find peace and privacy from the frantic mobs that seemed to follow our every move. Once the contract had been signed we packed our belongings and left the city for the refreshing green and space of the country (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist p. 115). •John sponsored Yoko Ono's Half Wind art show in 1967 (Harry, B. Lennon Encyclopedia, p. 303). •At a music shop in Greece 1967: "Ah, the Beatles! Welcome to my little shop. What can I do for you? Would you like to this beautiful new guitar--a Les Paul? Or perhaps this Super Gibson?" "No thanks", said John. "I can get one of those at home. I want to buy one of these", and he picked up a humble looking bouzouki. The shopkeeper just couldn't believe that John wasn't interested in any of his expensive electric guitars and he looked at the bouzouki as if he was ashamed of his native instrument. I think he should listen to the next few Beatles records--he'll probably hear that bouzouki being played! (Taylor, A. p. 88). •Liverpool Echo: John Lennon took delivery of his rainbow colored Rolls yesterday. His £11,000 car has been painted mainly yellow with bunches of flowers on the door panels, blue, red, green, and white have been used in the color scheme. The work was doing by a firm of coach builders and paint sprayers at Chertsey, Surrey. Mr. Fallow, aged 50, the firm's managing director said: "It took about five weeks to do". He refused to reveal the cost. •John soon afterwards bought, for a whim and twenty thousand pounds, two small uninhabited islands know together as Dornish off the northwest coast of Ireland. At considerable expense he had the colorful psychedelic horse-drawn wooden Sgt. Pepper wagon shipped to Dornish. It was the only standing structure on either island. John visited the islands once, traveling by helicopter to conduct a job interview with a potential manager of Apple. It was John's idea to hold the interview there. He later gave Dornish to a hippie commune (Flippo, p. 242). •John saw an ad in The Times for an island for sale. John said, "Go and buy it Al." Alistair said he'd need £2000 to buy do that. John said that Alistair would have to sort that out because he didn't keep money like that around the house. Alistair said, "You're joking aren't you. It's 4 o'clock and the banks are closed. John put his arm around Alistair and told him that he could do it and to make whatever phone calls he needed to. He said to take Lesley on the trip too. The Irish would not accept a personal cheque. It had to be cash or certified cheque. Alistair called Clive Epstein who said that he could come up with £800 but didn't know how to get it to him. They decided that Clive's chauffeur could bring it to the train station. Alistair introduced himself to the auctioneer who then said that his (the auctioneer's) son should do the bidding for him. The auction took a long time until the auctioneer's son walked in as the auctioneer asked, "Any more bids?" The son said, "One thousand five hundred and fifty pounds." Browne slammed down his gavel, "Sold!" The other bidders were up in arms but the deal had been done. For tax reasons John was unable to visit the island for six months (Gunby, G. Hello Goodbye, p. 106). •John also sent Alistair to buy a place where The Beatles could escape to. He sent Alistair and Alex Madras to Greece to look. They found an eighty-acre island for £90,000. (Gunby, G. Hello Goodbye, p. 92). •Paul sponsored an art exhibition by Jonathan Hague: "One day I took my paintings over to John's house and spread them all over the floor in his sitting room. He liked them, hence the exhibition. He dragged Paul in on it, but I don't think he was very keen, although he didn't mind putting up the money" (Harry, B. JL Encyclopedia. p. 302). •John purchased an island (Dornish Island) for £ 1,550 on March 17,1967 and planned to build a holiday home there. The home was never built and a group of hippies, led by Sid Rawle, were given permission to live on the island. The harsh winters, however, prevented the new residents from staying on the island. The island was formerly owned by Westport Harbour Commissioners. (Harry, B. JL Encyclopedia. p. 166). •Cynthia referring to the accommodations for her and John during the filming of 'How I Won the War': The villa was owned by a baron somebody or other who charged exorbitant rent. The property was damp, tatty, and very depressing. It was only when Maureen and Ringo decided to come out and join us that we decided to find ourselves somewhere more comfortable, large enough to house us all for the remainder of the filming. After scouring Almaria for days we settled on an enormous villa. It had everything. (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist p. 137).
Income: •In His Own Write had sold 120,554 copies in the U.S. in its 6th printing. •Beatles Monthly book reports John is selling his Ferrari with 1,000 miles on it but he is keeping his black Rolls Royce. •The Beatles had several other sources of revenue prior to 1967. Their most significant collective investment was Subafilms, the NEMS-run film company that controlled the group's share of the Beatles' film projects, responsible for producing the Beatles' promotional films (in the days before videos) for television (Granados, p. 3-4. Those Were the Days). •Interviewed as part of an ongoing series of American interviews
by Larry Kane •John: "No, we enjoy it! We always try to get a copy of these people that do our songs. The thing about the 'Chipmunks' and the 'Boston...' they do it so differently from us and from each other-- it's very interesting. And also we, Paul and I, get alot of money when they make these so it's very good for us, you know." •Q: "There is a cut in it for you when they do record
these songs." •Beatles Press Conference. Los Angeles, California. August
29th, 1965. •John: "I don't think it's anything like that, but it's just that the papers changed their tune. We noticed in 'The Daily Worker' in Britain, at first they were saying we were capitalist things, and then they changed and said we were sort of raising the workers up to fight against capitalism. So they've changed their tune a bit. That's the way we found out. The 'Daily Worker' is the British communist paper, you see."
Financial Offers: •A Texas tycoon offered John $3 million for the rights to open "Beatleburger Palaces". John stated to Pete Shotton that for that kind of money he didn't care who used their name (Shotton).
•How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This by Maureen Cleave. London Evening Standard, March 4 1966. 'I want the money just to be rich. The only other way of getting it is to be born rich. If you have money, that's power without having to be powerful. I often think that it's all a big conspiracy, that the winners are the Government and people like us who've got the money. That joke about keeping the workers ignorant is still true; that's what they said about the Tories and the landowners and that; then Labour were meant to educate the workers but they don't seem to be doing that any more.' He has a morbid horror of stupid people: 'Famous and loaded as I am, I still have to meet soft people. It often comes into my mind that I'm not really rich. There are really rich people but I don't know where they are.' •How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This by Maureen Cleave. London Evening Standard, March 4 1966. 'Famous and loaded' is how he describes himself now. 'They keep telling me I'm all right for money but then I think I may have spent it all by the time I'm 40 so I keep going. That's why I started selling my cars; then I changed my mind and got them all back and a new one too. •The trip to Tahiti must have cost us a fortune but by this time money really didn't come into our conversations (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist p. 127). •In 1967 John stated "...What next? More money? More fame? We were traveling all over the world-and couldn't move outside our hotel" (Harry. JL Encyclopedia, p. 751). •Denis O'Del: This caused [Brian] some trepidation, as he did not like the idea that the press or other hangers-on would wait around and collect the hair clippings to sell them off to fans (referring to John getting his hair cut in the presence of others for How I Won the War) (O'Dell, Dennis. At the Apple's Core. p. 51). •Denis O'Del: John wanted out as soon as possible and was itching to get on the next plane to London [after filming wrapped up on How I Won the War]...if one scene needs to be shot later on, the potential costs are enormous, and any delays caused by absent stars can make for further, sometimes crippling financial and logistical complications, so stars are usually not released before these are checked...I was reluctant to let him go, but in the end I agreed, on condition that if anything was wrong with the dailies he would be on the first plane back to Almeria (O'Dell, Dennis. At the Apple's Core. p. 51). •It was a fact that Brian and The Beatles were loaded. Everything that was bought and paid for was on account, actual cash never changed hands and John just never did carry money around with him at all. I don't think he even had a checkbook. It all went down on the bill without a second thought. (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist p. 127). •How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This by Maureen Cleave. London Evening Standard, March 4 1966. He bought a giant compendium of games from Asprey's but having opened it he could not, of course, shut it again. He wondered what else he should buy. He went to Brian Epstein's office. 'Any presents?' he asked eagerly; he observed that there was nothing like getting things free. •Melody Maker magazine reported that John had stated that the Beatles would be finished as a money making group by '67. John refuted this statement. •With NEMS so thoroughly involved with managing their finances, the four Beatles made very few financial investments during the peak years of Beatlemania (Granados, p 3. Those Were the Days). •John on his MBE: "I reckon we got it for exports and the citation should have said that". •Question: Which do you like more. The fans or the money? •"On his way out of the gallery (Indica) John picked up an apple from another pedestal, and after smiling at the £200 ($500) price tag, he took a bite and replaced the apple on the pedestal "(Hopkins, p. 63). •John: "Mimi's often implied I was just struck lucky with the Beatles, like winning the pools, or something. But I think she may be actually be beginning to see how hard we've worked" (Baird). •John in '67: The main thing is to not think about the future or the past, the main thing is to just get on with now. We want people to do that with these academies. We'll make a donation and we'll ask for money from anyone we know with money, anyone that's interested, anyone in the so-called establishment who's worried about kids going wild and drugs and all that... •September 4, 1964. BEATLEMANIA The High Price of Success. "People ask me why I've never bought a car," added John Lennon. "It's hard enough to get into one." Star-Gazing ...with Sandy Gardiner, music reporter for The Ottawa Journal (courtesy of www.beatles-thelostgig.com). •How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This by Maureen Cleave. London Evening Standard, March 4 1966. He shops in lightning swoops on Asprey's these days and there is some fine wine in his cellar, but he is still quite unselfconscious. He is far too lazy to keep up appearances, even if he had worked out what the appearances should be-which he has not. •How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This by Maureen Cleave. London Evening Standard, March 4 1966. John swept past the objects in which he had lost interest: 'That's Sidney' (a suit of armour); 'That's a hobby I had for a week' (a room full of model racing cars); 'Cyn won't let me get rid of that (a fruit machine). In the sitting room are eight little green boxes with winking red lights; he bought them as Christmas presents but never got round to giving them away. •How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This by Maureen Cleave. London Evening Standard, March 4 1966. He paused over objects he still fancies; a huge altar crucifix of a Roman Catholic nature with IHS on it; a pair of crutches, a present from George; an enormous Bible he bought in Chester; his gorilla suit. •One feels that his possessions-to which he adds daily-have got the upper hand; all the tape recorders, the five television sets, the cars, the telephones of which he knows not a single number. The moment he approaches a switch it fuses; six of the winking boxes, guaranteed to last till next Christmas, have gone funny already. His cars-the Rolls, the Mini-Cooper (black wheels, black windows), the Ferrari (being painted black-puzzle him. (How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This by Maureen Cleave. London Evening Standard, March 4 1966). •Reporter: What does your wife think about your traveling
all the time? •John: "People say we're loaded, but by comparison with those who are supposed to talk the Queen's English that's ridiculous. We're only earning. They've got capital behind them and they're earning on top of that. The more people you meet, the more you realize it's all a class thing. •Reporter: Why do you think you got the medal? •Reporter: Would you like to walk down the street without
being recognized? •John told Pete Shotton "All the money and fame doesn't seem to make a lot of difference when I've still go to drag meself out of bed in the morning, get meself washed...There's no way to get out of that no matter how much f***ing money you've got (Shotton). •John: If we can find out which one [candidate] takes the least tax, I'll vote for them (Kansas City, Sept '64). •When asked if money was his motivation and if he was really having as much fun as he seemed, John replied: Well, when I look as though I'm having fun, I am. When I'm not, I'm not usually (Seattle '66). •When asked if they did anything for free, John replied: Yeah, charity shows (Kansas City, '64). •A reporter asked if there was a deal with the IRS to pay taxes in the UK and how much they would make on this (first U.S.) tour. John stated: "They just tell us what we get in the end, you know?". •Mimi gave an interview stating that John had poor math skills. A reporter asked John how he counted his money if he was poor at math. John stated that he weighed it. •John lent Pete Shotton £2000 to open a betting shop. At first Shotton protested, but John offered "you'd do the same for me wouldn't you?". So Pete accepted (Shotton). •At first Shotton was concerned that Brian would be opposed to the idea of the £2000 sponsorship by John. John replied, "It's my f****ing money, and I'll do what I f***ing like with it" (Shotton). •Pete Shotton spent most of the money that John had given him for the betting shop. John replied, "Hell, I'd have done the same thing if I had two grand in me pocket. John then told Shotton to try to find "something good" to invest in. Shotton still wanted to open a betting shop, and John didn't agree but suggested a different money making venture (Shotton). •John being asked what he does with his money: "We pay a lot of taxes". •John objected to Cynthia's idea to buy a Porsche because they were too fast and dangerous (Shotton). •In 1967 John paid off Pauline Lennon's £10 debt to Her Majesty's Government for her attempt at seeking repatriation from France. •If everybody was all rich and happy and each country had all they wanted, they'd still want the next bit (Pritchard, 174). •Cynthia Lennon quotes John referring to Yoko: "[She's] just another nutter wanting money for all that avant-garde bullsh** ". •"He [Yoko's husband Tony] would give her freedom if she signed an agreement giving him fifty percent of everything she got from John" (Hopkins, p. 78). •"Our two favorites, of course, are 'What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?'. The other is 'What are you going to do with all the money you're making?'. •Bob Dylan: The last time I went to London, I stayed at John Lennon's house. You should see all the stuff Lennon bought: big cars, a stuffed gorilla, and thousands of things in every room of the house, which obviously cost a fortune. When I got home I wondered what it would be like to have all those material things. I figured I had the money and I could do it, and I wondered if it would feel like anything real. So I bought all this stuff, filled my house with it and sat around in the middle of it all. I felt nothing. •Brian wanted to cancel the '66 American tour because he was worried about the consequences to the boys emotionally and physically. Nat Weiss told him it would cost a million dollars to cancel, and that he'd have to refund the prices of the tickets to the promoters. Brian offered to pay for these costs out of his own funds. Weiss convinces Brian not to cancel the tour but to have John apologize for his remarks. John was to tell Brian, then, that he'd rather cancel the tour than apologize (Lipack, p. 36). •John was reportedly upset over the expense of Magical Mystery Tour (£75,000) and called it "the most expensive home movie ever made" (Coleman). •"The class thing is just as snobby as it ever was. People like us can break through a little - but only a little. Once, we went into this restaurant and nearly got thrown out for looking like we looked until they saw who it was. 'What do you want? What do you want?' the headwaiter said, 'We've come to bloody eat, that's what we want,' we said. The owner spotted us and said, 'Ah, a table sir, over here, sir.' (Look Magazine 12 - 13 - 1966. Leonard Gross). •In 1964 September John granted permission for one of his drawings, The Fat Budgie, to be used on a Christmas card. Over 500,000 are printed. •Action For Crippled Children receives a Christmas card design donated by John. •The Daily Express reported that John had refused to let his wife, Cynthia, hire a nanny for Julian. •Beatles/Playboy Interview 1965 •All John could think of was his music and a home finished and ready to live in as quickly as possible. The designer went wild with his new found freedom and no limit to cash supplies (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist p. 115). •Cynthia intended to hire a nanny (Sally Bullock) to look after Julian when he was five, but John prevented it and claimed that a child should be raised by the mother (Harry, B. JL Encyclopedia. p. 136). •Cynthia on John and their chauffeur: [John] gave Jock full
charge of the car and let him have full use of it when off duty.
It was only by chance that we discovered why he was such a mess
and why the car stank of stale ciggies and booze when he rolled
up at the house. •How I Won the War: United Artists agreed to put up about £1 million, but when we came to work out a prospective budget we couldn't get them below £1.25 million. The foreign locations and military equipment required were not going to come cheap. We needed another quarter-million, and if we didn't;t get it the film was not going to get made. It might be a longshot, but I thought it might be worth asking Brian Epstein for some investment. Brian was in great spirits when I arrived, "No problem, Denis. We'll put up the rest of the money...as it turned out we didn't need Brian's money as I managed to make some crucial savings later in the production stage." (O'Del, Dennis. Apple's Core, p. 50.) •(How I Won the War) Denis O'Del: Neil and I racked our brains over the film's distribution problems. I suggested that we arrange its release in the USA ourselves by hiring an agent and renting the picture to universities and colleges on a one-day unlimited screening basis, and some time later this plan was put into action. It resulted in a very substantial box office return in the order of $2 million-which just goes to prove that the young know best (O'Del, Dennis. At the Apple's Core, p. 72). •John: "No, the Germans are the only ones that won't buy you in English. You have to kowtow to the Germans. But after you've made a couple of records they'll buy anything." (Beatles Ultimate Experience Database). •John: And then she [Yoko] said, "Well give me five
bib to knock a nail in." Sol said, "Well I'll give you
an imaginary five shillings and knock an imaginary nail in."
(McCabe/Schonfeld p. 62. For the Record). |
•John
was visiting the island with Alistair and he pointed to a spot down
by the bay and told Alistair that he could have it. It was to be
Alistair's plot and he could build a house on it for himself and
Lesley. Alistair never took him up on the offer (Gunby, G. Hello
Goodbye, p. 108).