by Bob Spitz
While Brian was still very young, Queenie began indoctrinating him in the things that captivated her most, playing him scores of gorgeous music—from concertos by Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, and Bach—as he lay in his crib. “She put so much emotion into his fairy tales that you thought she was auditioning for the West End,” says a neighbor. “And by the time Brian was five, he could recite a favorite story giving it the same dramatic emphasis as Queenie.”
Normal child play didn’t seem to interest him. He wasn’t particularly athletic or sports-minded, like other boys his age; there was no fascination with dinosaurs, tree forts, or family pets. He rarely played with his brother, Clive, who was almost two years younger. Brian was happiest, his relatives say, when among adults, having adult discussions. To an unnatural degree, he kept up with community chatter—what families argued about, who wasn’t on speaking terms, how people were managing personal crises. His aunt Stella recalls that when she babysat for her nephew, Brian would often ask after her friends, an expression of the most profound interest pasted on his tiny face. “Tell me, Auntie,” he would inquire, gazing at her earnestly, “how is Mrs. Abromowitz? What’s become of lovely Mrs. Shapiro’s son, Harold?” Listening to Brian, Stella thought, “he sounded like a little old man.”
But the little boy in him was frighteningly neglected, an oversight that was devastating to Brian’s development. “Queenie treated him as an equal,” says Rex Makin, a solicitor who lived next door and represented the Epsteins, and later Brian, in a professional capacity. “And this, among other things, made him a very volatile person. He was subject to terrific mood swings, no doubt, to a great degree, because of frustration.”
To make matters worse, the physical geography of Brian’s life was every bit as unstable as the treacherous emotional terrain. The outbreak of war in Europe in 1940, exacerbated by Germany’s relentless bombardment of England, sent northerners scrambling to provide security for their families in areas deemed unlikely targets for bombs. Most Scousers remained rooted at the mercy of the unpredictable nightly air raids, but anyone with the resources escaped the harsh realities of war. The Epsteins were only one of hundreds of families who fled Liverpool for relative safety, moving in with relatives in Southport, just thirty miles up the Lancashire coast but a world apart. On the one hand, the move brought them immediate and effective security, but for Brian the sudden change proved a catastrophic force in his development.
Unlike Liverpool, where he participated in his parents’ active social life and accompanied them to the city’s finest restaurants, Southport was sleepy and unsophisticated—a fringe of tiny, cramped homes bordering the sea. It was the most unlikely place in the world for a boy in love with all the symbols of society.
Upon returning home, in 1945, Brian was disoriented, in more ways than one. He was already “one of those out-of-sorts boys who never quite fit,” and his grades, which were notably inconsistent, slipped even further. He ping-ponged from school to school, angry and unmotivated, unable to focus on his studies or to make friends. Two schools in Southport dismissed him for laziness and poor performance. A residency at Liverpool College ended shortly in his expulsion, along with a stinging censure from the headmaster, branding him a “problem child.” The next stop, at a coeducational prep school, proved even more disastrous—and ever brief. Brian lasted a only month, blaming his strident failure to conform on anti-Semitism. That may indeed have contributed to his discomfort (owing to a strong residue of postwar resentment in the North), but in fact it was only a smoke screen for a deepening alienation of a much darker and devious nature.
“It was at this school… that I can first remember my feeling for other male persons and a longing for a close and intimate friend,” Brian confessed in the pages of a private handwritten journal. As he had grown up in genteel surroundings and under Queenie’s indulgent spell, there was nothing in the way of stimuli to test the inchoate feelings that had always eluded him. Now, undercurrents of homosexuality welled to the surface, coinciding with his own intensifying adolescence. He found it difficult to disguise his preference for other boys. The facade of “normalcy” began to crumble, replaced by fears of inadequacy and dread. No doubt he was unprepared for a confrontation of this sort. Certainly there were no role models to admire, no peers from whom to seek counsel. For a boy who had always been pampered and provided for, he was wildly unsuited to handle such a complicated matter. “Indeed,” he later admitted, “no one had explained to me the facts of life.”
While Brian struggled to cope with the nature of his sexuality, his parents, oblivious to any emotional turmoil, continued shipping him around to a string of less-than-illustrious boarding schools. He spent short, ineffectual terms at “benevolent academies” such as Beaconsfield and Clayesmore, and finally two years at the trivial Wrekin College, in Shropshire, where, out of resignation, despair, or simply an effort to fit in, he joined the track team—called the Colts—to uniformly disastrous results. In a diary entry that year he wrote: “I tried very hard. But did not succeed. I think I was rather insignificant.”
As he approached his sixteenth birthday, Brian sent a long, unflinching letter to Harry, describing his frustration and alienation at school. He poured out his heart, confiding his lack of interest in academics and, in an unexpected turn of events, announcing his intention to become a dress designer and the wish to train in London. A portfolio of eight drawings, each on an individual piece of lined notebook paper, was attached as evidence of his potential—fashionably drawn evening dresses in the style of Chanel, crisply tailored, with asymmetrical collars and calf-length hems. If one overlooks the informal presentation, the drawings themselves display a real gift: a fine precision of line and sensitivity to shape, rhythm, and detail. Harry, a relative recalls, “went up the pole.” In all the years, through the fitful cycle of schools, Brian had barely acknowledged his interest in drawing, much less fashion. The whole proposal sounded so outrageous, so confounding. Harry, after all, expected his son to follow him into the family business, not undertake some poncey scheme designing dresses.
Instead of writing back, Harry and Queenie turned up at Wrekin a week later to lay down the law: it “was impossible” to give Brian’s request their blessing. Furthermore, “it would be stupid,” they advised, “to give up going into the family business and [the] security [that provided].”
Predictably, Brian was incensed. “In a rage of temper,” he threatened to leave school at the end of term, when he turned sixteen. A furious argument ensued, in which his parents demanded that he stay and sit exams, but he refused to listen. “I was stubborn,” Brian admitted later, after dropping out of school, but by that time he realized his obstinacy and its steep price. Without a high school diploma or any visible means of support, the path of his destiny became narrowly clear. A month later, following a summer of unfolding depression, he surrendered to fate and reluctantly “reported for duty” at the family furniture store in Liverpool.
Much to Brian’s surprise, the furniture trade wasn’t the living hell he’d imagined it to be. Seeing an opportunity to perform a task without fumbling—an opportunity, moreover, to win some respect from a much-esteemed man like his father—he seized it with the unmitigated energy of someone on a mission. At the family shop, he could reinvent himself in the image of a young, savvy salesman. As such, he threw himself into the job, bringing more excitement to it than perhaps was called for. He took “a keen interest in display work and interior decoration” that often strayed beyond the scope of necessity. The window sets he redressed were stagy and eye-catching, though somewhat radical and unnerving to the shop’s provincial customers. His grandfather Isaac was neither amused nor tolerant of his grandson’s verve. He demanded that Brian toe the line—his line—and when this met with sulky disapproval, Brian was apprenticed to a rival firm across town.
When he returned to NEMS six months later, it was a gracious, more cooperative Brian Epstein, licked into shape perhaps, but no less ambitious. Not o
nly did he seem to understand his role, he appeared to grow into it—and with appreciable delight. Brian learned how to interact with people in such a way that, while often obsequious and subtle, conveyed the impression of immense refinement. He conducted himself with courtly authority. Even when he helped someone, he assumed a dignified air that placed customers twenty years his senior in a position of subordinacy. Much of that force of personality can be ascribed to heritage. Brian never forgot what class he came from—and how it ennobled him. There is a saying that every Englishman knows his place, and if he forgets, there is always someone there to remind him. Brian Epstein knew his place, and he knew how to remind people of its power.
In December 1952, on the cusp of a new year and all that it promised, Brian was drafted, as a clerk, into the Royal Army Service Corps and eventually posted to the Regent’s Park barracks in London. It was a shock of immense consequences. Overnight, every personal stride he’d made came undone. From the very start, military life was an evolving disaster. The charmed life of a privileged furniture heir, concerned only with the expedience of sales and service, had not given Brian the tools that soldiering required. He had learned to conduct himself with authority, not subservience. But military discipline was the least of Brian’s troubles. For years Brian had been able to deny—or suppress—what he called his “latent homosexuality.” There was nothing in his pervading attitude that compelled him to either acknowledge or act on it. Or perhaps he’d become adept at masking his indecisiveness as indifference. Once in the army, however, it all rushed to the fore. “Within the first few weeks,” he wrote, “I met all sorts of young men who little by little revealed the strange homosexual life in London. [And] I became aware of homosexuals wherever I went.”
Oddly, this realization made Brian more alone and “confused” than ever. Having no one with whom he could share his feelings or even glean the facts of life—his life—he became unnaturally high-strung, panicked. His fellow cadets must have sussed out his secret, inasmuch as they ostracized him from their inner circle. Officers, he recalled, “mercilessly” picked on him. Depressed, fretful, insecure, Brian must have radiated weakness. About the same time, he was robbed on a midnight train from Liverpool, an obvious target for bullies and predators.
In his autobiography, Brian invents a dramatic version of his subsequent premature discharge from the army. He claims to have returned to base one night in a fancy car and dressed in a three-piece suit, whereupon the guards mistook him for an officer. In the fading light, they threw him a crisp salute, for which he was remanded to solitary confinement.
Such was the story he decided to tell in 1964, when homosexuality was still a criminal act. In fact, his discharge was a much simpler affair. Sometime before the first of the year, he plunged into a deep depression that left him all but immobilized. Fearing a breakdown, army psychiatrists began delving into Brian’s past and, when they hit upon the source of his disorder, recommended early discharge, which was issued “on medical grounds.”
Brian was understandably relieved. He was no longer a misfit in uniform. Finally, he could get back to Liverpool and concentrate on his career. His old job at NEMS was waiting for him; in his absence, brother Clive had joined the firm.
Once back in Liverpool, Brian was no longer able to ignore his adult feelings. Without a great deal of caution, he plunged into the shadow world of “homosexual life and its various rendezvous.” It must have been a lonely, frightening experience, not at all like today’s accommodating scene, with its sense of community and support groups. The conditions in Liverpool were absolutely degrading, giving rise to solitary, clandestine assignations in seedy haunts that, however intimate or satisfying, he was unable to reconcile. “My life became a succession of mental illnesses and sordid unhappy events,” he concluded in a haze of confusion.
At twenty-one, he was appointed a director of NEMS, but even an endorsement of that magnitude failed to bring some clarity to his life. He lived in terror that someone would discover his dark secret, that it would embarrass—even destroy—his family. By September 1956, that pressure became too much for Brian to bear. Without any warning, he packed, gave notice at work, and left home for an extended visit to London. He’d arranged to meet a friend there for the pursuit of undisclosed leisure, but before the first day was out a familiar incident recurred. He was robbed again; this time, all his personal effects were stolen—his passport, birth certificate, checkbook, wristwatch, all the money he’d brought with him. Afraid to tell his parents the truth, he wangled a job as a department-store clerk until he earned enough to cover a ticket back to Liverpool. He intended to stay only long enough to grab some clothes and cash a few checks, but he was made so distraught by the experience that he suffered a near-physical collapse.
It was during subsequent treatment by the family psychiatrist, he recalled, that “I confessed everything to my doctor.” It all came pouring out—the robberies, the homosexuality, the sordid trysts, the self-loathing. To alleviate the crushing anxiety, the doctor suggested to Brian’s parents that he leave Liverpool as soon as possible. In the course of analysis, it was discovered that Brian yearned to be an actor. His parents, who considered the acting profession barely a notch above window dressing, were in no mood to oblige. But now, with the doctor as his advocate, Harry and Queenie allowed him—quite reluctantly—to audition for a place in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Incredible as it may seem, Brian impressed the school’s no-nonsense director, John Fernald, who admitted him for the forthcoming term, in the late fall of 1956. Peter O’Toole, Albert Finney, and Susannah York had graduated just ahead of Brian and won instant recognition. His own class boasted a galaxy of young meteors whose names would light up the West End’s marquees in a few years. Brian was mesmerized by the energy of the work, but by the spring of 1957, the gilt had worn off the novelty. “The narcissism… and the detachment of the actor from other people” left him cold. Besides, instructors had marked him as “a second male lead” with little chance—or talent enough—for greater stardom. Still, he might have stayed on at RADA and graduated had not the edge of self-destruction prevailed, rerouting the course of his life.
Loneliness was partly to blame. Stranded in London between semesters, Brian found part-time work at a bookshop, but there was no one around with whom he could spend those difficult chunks of downtime. On the evening of April 17 he took in a play at the Arts Theatre Club, then stopped for coffee at a nearby bar. Depressed, he took the tube home to Swiss Cottage. It was late, approaching midnight. Coming out of the station, Brian stopped in a public lavatory, where he encountered a tough-looking young man framed in the doorway. They gave each other the once-over. Something unspoken passed between them. They played cat and mouse for five minutes along a deserted stretch of Finchley Road while Brian worked up the nerve to make a move. Another man appeared out of the darkness. Two of them! He hadn’t anticipated that kind of situation. Brian’s “mind went in great fear”; he began sweating profusely. Frantically, he paused in front of a drugstore window for—what? To allow his suitors an opportunity to introduce themselves? To brush up casually against them? He wasn’t sure. It was their move, but when it finally came, it wasn’t the move Brian expected. They were undercover cops. “[And] after a few minutes,” he recalled, “they arrested me for ‘persistently importuning.’ ” Miraculously, a family solicitor helped bury the arrest and quietly return Brian to Liverpool, where he slipped into a routine of work and seclusion. A few months later another disturbance occurred that in many ways mirrored the London incident. This time, he got involved with an ex-guardsman named Billy Connolly, who was on probation for his involvement in the death of a friend. An encounter between them on the docks turned violent. In the course of it, Brian was badly beaten and his expensive watch stolen.
The plot got complicated a few days later when Connolly called, demanding money in exchange for the watch—and his silence. Brian confided in his solicitor, who promptly marched him around
to see detectives at the Dale Street station house. “They arranged for a drop,” the lawyer recalls. “The man was to call at Brian’s shop at a certain time for the watch to be redeemed and the money handed over.” It all came off like a charm; Connolly was apprehended, “proper restitution was made.” But it was customary, when a person was robbed in this manner, to protect his identity in the press by providing a generic alias, “Mr. X.” And while Brian’s anonymity was preserved, enough people knew the details so that the unfortunate label dogged him for years to come.
The only positive—and, to Brian, heartening—thing to come out of this was the support of his family. There has always been speculation about whether they knew he was gay. It was never acknowledged by either Harry or Queenie, but, in fact, both these episodes left no doubt of their awareness. There had been shame aplenty to warrant their rancor, even estrangement. And yet, readily enough, they rallied to his side. Harry, especially, found compassion for his son. Those close to the family felt that “he was oblivious” to Brian’s homosexuality or that he chose to ignore it rather than confront a subject outside his grasp. And yet, it was Harry who steadfastly came to his son’s emotional rescue, Harry who supported Brian through each successive mess.
What’s more, it was Harry who now decided that Brian needed some kind of stabilizing influence to ensure against his son’s further unhappiness. Brian was already beating himself up over the Mr. X affair. To keep his son’s spirits up, Harry suggested expanding the small record department they’d opened in the Great Charlotte Street store and letting Brian manage it in any way he saw fit. Clive, in turn, would take over the appliance department, thereby establishing a clear division of responsibility.