Pattie Boyd 1961-1962 (Elizabeth Arden, Cherry Marshall and Norman Parkinson)

I couldn’t find much detailed information about lovely Pattie from 1961-1962, so I decided to put together this long form post. Please, do let me know if I’m missing anything. Thanks!

- June 1961, Pattie leaves school with three GCE O Level passes and is living at home in Wimbledon, with her single mother and four siblings

- Late 1961, Pattie’s mother pulls some strings and gets her daughter a job at the Elizabeth Arden hair salon in London

“After school, I got a job at Elizabeth Arden in Bond Street, London - because I wasn’t qualified to do anything and my mum knew the CEO there.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

- In the new year, Pattie moves to London and begins working as a ‘shampoo girl’ / ‘trainee beautician’ on a small wage of £4.50 per week - which roughly translates to £97.53 as of 2023

“I thought: ‘I must get out, I must try and be independent’ - so I got a job and shared a flat with about five other girls.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I shampooed people’s hair and took their coats. I was a general dogsbody, but I must say that it was terribly glamorous because it was where I first saw fabulous magazines - like Vogue, Tatler and Harper’s Bazaar.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“The job at Elizabeth Arden was deadly boring. I was training to be a beautician, but my heart wasn’t in it and I’m not sure I would have made the grade. Elizabeth Arden herself came in one day and berated me for my makeup. She didn’t like the black pencil under my eyes; it was not the ‘Elizabeth Arden’ look, she informed me.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- Early 1962, Pattie had been working at the salon for roughly two months, until a Cherry Marshall Model Agency staffer took a special interest in her look

“A client who worked for Honey magazine asked me if I’d ever thought of becoming a model.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“Imagine my excitement when a client came into the salon one day and asked if I had ever thought of being a model. I said: ‘No, but I certainly could.’” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- The following day, Pattie was scheduled for a test shoot

“When I arrived, she had arranged for her in-house photographer, Anthony Norris, to take some test shots of me. He had set up some lights in a little studio and she gave me a couple of outfits to wear - I remember a beret and having to look sultry, smoking Gitanes. [a French brand of unfiltered cigarettes] They were black and white, moody shots, with a bit of a Parisian feel.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- Anthony Norris sends Pattie along to a secretary at Cherry Marshall Model Agency and a personal meeting with Cherry Marshall herself is arranged - Pattie was signed to a modelling contract the very same day

“A successful model has just got to be strict with herself and lay off all fattening foods. That means no bread, butter, spaghetti or sweets! Watch out for ‘puppy fat spread’ - eat proper meals at regular times, with lots of lean meat and green vegetables.” - Pattie Boyd (April, 1965 - Letter from London)

“My fairy godmother phoned Cherry Marshall, who then ran one of the top model agencies and she said she was sending me to her. Anthony Norris went with me and told Cherry he thought she should take me on.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“My secretary brought Pattie’s picture into me and told me Pattie was waiting outside. ‘I’ll see her’ I said - and there was Pattie, a shy 17-year-old who when she spoke, bubbles with impish charm. It would have been a mistake to change a thing about her. All we needed was to groom her rebellious hair and slim down her puppy fat. She started training immediately, the following Monday.” - Cherry Marshall, 1964

“She was shy until she started talking and then she bubbled over with enthusiasm, as she spoke of her ambition to be a model: ‘I know I’m a bit plump - but I can’t stop eating sweets!’ I said: ‘Pattie, from now on you cut out all sweets - and I want you to report on Monday at the school for training’. I wanted her rebellious hair groomed into a straight gleaming bob and she had to be taught how to apply photographic make-up. Nothing else should be changed. The name was right, the look was right and it would have been crazy to do anything to subdue her sparkling personality.” -  Cherry Marshall, 1978

- Pattie attends Cherry Marshall’s modelling school - graduating within three short months

“So that’s the advice that I’d pass on to all of you who dream of becoming models: train at a school that has proved itself - not just one of those places that give you a paper diploma and nothing else - and don’t try to sell yourself when you have qualified. Let your agent do that.” - Pattie Boyd (April, 1965 - Letter from London)

- Pattie attends test shoots and works to build her portfolio - unpaid

“I knew I had a winner - everyone in the office agreed with me and they immediately swung into action. New pictures were taken, photographers and magazines informed, casting agents bombarded, press alerted. Here, we told them with absolute confidence that Pattie Boyd was the girl for the swinging sixties.” - Cherry Marshall, 1978

“Finding an agency was easy; finding a job was the hard part.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“We were too experienced to expect things to happen overnight, but we were impatient because Pattie was already seventeen and that wasn’t the youngest anymore. All we needed was to get one top photographer mad about her and she was made, but few of them would risk using an absolutely new girl on a job. They’d take test shots to find out what she was like and give her pictures for her portfolio, but no money. It was invaluable experience, but Pattie had to earn her living and we didn’t have much time.” -  Cherry Marshall, 1978

“My agent would phone me last thing in the afternoon and tell me my jobs for the next day and my diaries would be quite full. But not to begin with - I had to work quite hard, going around to photographer’s studios and showing them my portfolio.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

[Rayment Kirby, 1962]

“Everyday I would go out with a list of photographer’s names and addresses and trudge around with my portfolio, hoping they would like what they saw and use me on a job. And if one did, I would try very hard to get him to give me some prints at a low rate, so that I could add them to my portfolio. I must have travelled on every bus and tube in London and when I was out of money, I walked. My diary for those days is full of IOUs for the odd fiver.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“Within three months her diary began to fill up and she (Pattie) was in constant demand.” -  Cherry Marshall, 1978

“If I had a job, I had a big, tall bag - no wheels in those days - with dark shoes, light-coloured shoes, all sorts of jewellery, wigs and hairpieces.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I was lucky. The trekking around worked and soon my diary was full of jobs. Modelling was fun. I loved trying on clothes and fiddling with my hair and makeup. We had to do it ourselves - there were no hair stylists or makeup artists and certainly no chauffeur-driven cars to ferry us around. We were not celebrities in the way that today’s top models are. For advertising jobs, we even had to bring our own accessories. I have my old appointment diaries about what I had to take to a shoot. Usually, it was light and dark court shoes, flatties, gloves, costume jewellery, hats or caps, boots, makeup, wigs and hair pieces. You could spot a model a mile off from the heavy bags that she was carrying.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“I went on to do lots of lovely shoots, although I never enjoyed posing for Freeman’s catalogues. They’d book you in for three or four days in a row, which meant lots of money, but the clothes were hideous and far too big - they had to have clips on the back.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I rang Norman Parkinson, the king of them all - and asked if he’d see her. A model had to be really good before he could be approached, particularly as he was not impressed by an agent’s idea of who was photogenic. We knew that, superficially, Pattie had certain drawbacks - she was un-modelly in the accepted sense, her face was too round and she had a gap in her front teeth. She came back to us in tears, eyes swimming with disappointment, all set to give up. She finally blurted out: ‘He asked me if it’s fashionable these days to look like a rabbit!’” -  Cherry Marshall, 1978

“One day I went to see the great Norman Parkinson. He looked at my book, then looked at me and said: ‘Come back when you’ve learned how to do your hair and makeup properly’ I felt so humiliated.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“Seeing myself in magazines was so exciting. I couldn’t wait to show my mother and she was totally amazed, saying: ‘How on earth did you do that?’ - she had no idea that I’d been trampling the streets trying to get jobs and hopping on buses and trains to persuade photographers to take pictures of me.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

- Pattie starts dating her very first boyfriend

“My first boyfriend was a photographer, Jean-Claude. He was handsome and encouraged me to be a model. We only kissed and he left me for another girl. We are still friends.” - Pattie Boyd (May, 2018)

- Late 1962, Pattie began working for Honey magazine, which led to many other opportunities…

I will try to make a Pattie Boyd 1963-1964 long post soon! :)

Happy 85th birthday to Klaus Voormann!

I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

Dear sweet gods above and below and sideways. Where is my Nopetopus?!

Never ever EVER give anybody worldwide rights to anything of yours. EVER. Gaaaaaaahhhh.

(There are also about ten other things wrong with that contract that are BAD EVIL HORRIBLE NOISOME AND VILE. But if I get started enumerating them right now, before I do something about my blood sugar, it'll turn me into a pissed-off person for the rest of the day. Sweet THOTH on his e-bike but these people are fucking shameless.)

(starts rummaging around on the desk for the text of the Excommunication Curse against the Reivers to pronounce it against these schmucks)

...GAAAAAH. :/

George Harrison & Jackie Lomax

I keep seeing posts about these individually but I must know

i feel sick

“Astrid and The Beatles became even closer when she invited them to her home in Altona. For the first time since arriving in Hamburg, the five boys were able to enjoy some home comforts and escape the desperate privations of their hovel like accommodation at The Bambi Kino. They also enjoyed some sorely missed English food: “They loved visiting my house. For their first visit, my mother asked me what they liked to eat, and so she cooked them mashed potatoes, steak and peas – the first proper English meal they’d had since arriving in Germany. She even got them some strawberries, and made tea with milk and sugar. John and my mother got on like house on fire – even though they did not understand a word each other was saying. It was lovely to see. The boys had a good time – they had a bath and enjoyed looking through our records and books. It was to be the first of many such visits.”

Through such occasions, Astrid was able to get to know The Beatles as individuals. 

“Paul is still like he was then, very lovely, deeply modest, and very well mannered. He nearly broke his tongue talking German to my mother. He had his phrase book with him. He always tried to be the translator, because he had these three or five words of German that he knew. George was the sweet one. He was just 17, and he would sit and look at things, politely asking “Can I please look at that book, that magazine?” He is one of my closest friends. I am so pleased to know that he is in England watching over me. He had had tough times recently, and so I am pleased he has his family and his religion to help him. He lost John, his parents, he was almost killed during that terrifying attack, and he had that bad cancer, but through all these tragedies he is still the George he has always been; kid, helpful and full of love for his friends. He is very caring toward me.

…

John was the strong one, always asking questions. All that anger that people associate with him and that was showing the film “Backbeat” in several scenes, where he shouts “It’s all dick!” at everyone and anyone - including me – was not the John I knew. That’s fiction, I never heard him say that. We got on every well – he was never hostile towards me.

“And Stuart!!! Well, by the time they visited my home we really had a crush on each other, so we just sat gazing into one another’s eyes, as the rest carried on. Neither of us actually made the first move, it was both of us - like magnets. At that time, Klaus was my boyfriend, but he sensed what was happening. He saw it and, in a way, forced it, which is strange to understand now, but Klaus always wanted me to be happy. He knew I wasn’t happy in our relationship. He and I were great friends, we shared the same tastes, the same sense of humour, but we just could not live together as lovers, that was impossible. So he encouraged Stuart and me a little bit.”

Astrid Kirchherr on the personalities of The Beatles. Interviewed by Colin Hall for Get Rhythm, August 2001

“Astrid and The Beatles became even closer when she invited them to her home in Altona. For the first time since arriving in Hamburg, the five boys were able to enjoy some home comforts and escape the desperate privations of their hovel like accommodation at The Bambi Kino. They also enjoyed some sorely missed English food: “They loved visiting my house. For their first visit, my mother asked me what they liked to eat, and so she cooked them mashed potatoes, steak and peas – the first proper English meal they’d had since arriving in Germany. She even got them some strawberries, and made tea with milk and sugar. John and my mother got on like house on fire – even though they did not understand a word each other was saying. It was lovely to see. The boys had a good time – they had a bath and enjoyed looking through our records and books. It was to be the first of many such visits.”

Through such occasions, Astrid was able to get to know The Beatles as individuals. 

“Paul is still like he was then, very lovely, deeply modest, and very well mannered. He nearly broke his tongue talking German to my mother. He had his phrase book with him. He always tried to be the translator, because he had these three or five words of German that he knew. George was the sweet one. He was just 17, and he would sit and look at things, politely asking “Can I please look at that book, that magazine?” He is one of my closest friends. I am so pleased to know that he is in England watching over me. He had had tough times recently, and so I am pleased he has his family and his religion to help him. He lost John, his parents, he was almost killed during that terrifying attack, and he had that bad cancer, but through all these tragedies he is still the George he has always been; kid, helpful and full of love for his friends. He is very caring toward me.

…

John was the strong one, always asking questions. All that anger that people associate with him and that was showing the film “Backbeat” in several scenes, where he shouts “It’s all dick!” at everyone and anyone - including me – was not the John I knew. That’s fiction, I never heard him say that. We got on every well – he was never hostile towards me.

“And Stuart!!! Well, by the time they visited my home we really had a crush on each other, so we just sat gazing into one another’s eyes, as the rest carried on. Neither of us actually made the first move, it was both of us - like magnets. At that time, Klaus was my boyfriend, but he sensed what was happening. He saw it and, in a way, forced it, which is strange to understand now, but Klaus always wanted me to be happy. He knew I wasn’t happy in our relationship. He and I were great friends, we shared the same tastes, the same sense of humour, but we just could not live together as lovers, that was impossible. So he encouraged Stuart and me a little bit.”

Astrid Kirchherr on the personalities of The Beatles. Interviewed by Colin Hall for Get Rhythm, August 2001

One of the most interesting quotes I’ve read from John about the dynamics of the band, just had to share!

— The Daily Mirror: The one that bites – Donald Zec dissects Mr J. Lennon. (March 1965)

George Harrison: Isn’t It a Pity.

Alan Freeman: How we break each other’s hearts.

George: That’s about me. I’m breaking everybody’s heart.

Freeman: In what way, George?

George: [laughs] I don’t know. Any way you care to mention.

-- Jim Keltner, Jim Keltner on George Harrison: “He gathered a community around him”, Uncut (17 April 2023)

PSA Regarding Hateful Anons

Tumblr recently made it a requirement for you to be logged in to send asks anonymously. If you receive a hateful ask, don’t publish it - report it to Tumblr. It can be traced back to the user that sent it and with enough reports that person’s account will be suspended.

Share to raise awareness but also to make the clowns who think this behaviour is acceptable think twice before acting brave behind the guise of invisibility.

Useful information for everyone!

The Beatles behind the scenes of Help! (Nassau Beach Hotel, 1965)

Colin Hanton left the Quarry Men because of a gig at the Finch Lane Busmen's Sports and Social Club. It was a club George's dad was a member of, and he he was the one who'd got them the gig. He and George's mum were both in the audience. The Quarry Men went on, played four songs, beautifully, and took their bow. But the curtain didn't close:

They proceeded to get very drunk.

What nobody had told Colin was that they were expected to play a second set.

The curtain guy and the MC both told them how they'd themselves down, and were politely disappointed in them. But John and Paul continued to find it all hilarious and make jokes. It slowly dawned on Colin that the manager of another venue, the Pivvy, had also attended specially to see them because he'd been interested in booking them for regular gigs at the bingo hall. Obviously he decided not to hire them after all and tried to be polite about it, while Paul and John made jokes about him. Pete Shotton was the one to explain all this to Colin.

Paul and John continued joking and cracking up on bus on the way home, putting on stupid voices.

At this point Pete grabbed Colin by the arm and told him it was their stop and hurried him off the bus. It wasn't their stop, but it was the end of Colin's Quarry Man days. He simply didn't bother getting back in touch with them, or them with him. He put his drums away and put it all behind him.

Quotes from Pre:fab! by Colin Hanton and Colin Hall.

George Harrison recording in Bombay (January 1968)

Please Please Me, The Beatles’ debut album, was released on March 22, 1963.

"I wasn't there because ahead of the Quarry Men's evening performance I'd gone home for a bite to eat. I only lived a ten minute walk away and hadn't eaten since breakfast, so after coming off the church field and putting my kit in place ready for the evening's performance I'd nipped home for my tea and in the process I missed that historic audition."

- - - Colin Hanton

"I must have nipped out to the toilet because I have no memory of the greatest meeting in rock n roll history."

- - - Rod Davis

"I noticed Paul while we were playing. He was standing with Ivan... but I don't remember him carrying a guitar."

- - - Eric Griffiths

Pre:Fab! - by Hanton and Hall.

-

History quietly shifting itself into place, while half the quarry men are looking the other way. More notes about this day and its shaky shaky memories, under the cut: