"SO YOU'RE SELLING SHIT NOW..."

a few pages in honour of
HILARY GERRARD (1933-2023)
music biz guru and book expert

- PART ONE -

www.aeric.nl

 

Hilary Lester Gerrard (1933-2023) became ex-Beatle Ringo Starr's business manager and Apple Corps board director in the early 1970's and remained so until well into the 2010's.

He also was a collector of c.q. dealer in rare books and ephemera; as a client, adviser, confidant and friend he became an important part of my personal and professional life.

A few weeks after his death on January 11th 2023, I stumbled upon a newly published book titled THE TASTEMAKER, my Life with the Legends and Geniuses of Rock Music by Tony King, another maverick from the music business.

I checked the index, had myself directed to page 97 and read the following:

Ringo had this very eccentric guy who looked after him called Hilary Gerrard.
I would often walk upstairs to Ringo's office to talk to Hilary. I would go in, but though I could hear his voice, I couldn't see him.
Then I'd notice the telephone wire working its way down under his desk, where Hilary was set. "I'm under the desk today," he'd say. "I can't cope."
Hilary had a bearded wild-man-of-the woods look to him.
He had a flat opposite Lord's cricket ground with filthy windows, apart from a circular hole he'd cleaned in them so he could watch the cricket through a telescope.
He had a wonderful, long, beautifully manicured cocaine fingernail, on which he would offer you coke. Ringo was very fond of him.


I put the book down and could only think: ATTABOY!

This unintended "epitaph" was topped by Bernie Taupin, Elton John's brilliant lyricist.

In his book SCATTERSHOT, Life, Music, Elton and Me, published a few months later, he wrote:

I did spend some time in the company of Ringo [...] and his genial advisor, Hilary Gerrard.
[...] No question about it [...], we were all alcoholics in the textbook sense [...].
Ringo was a jovial drunk, loved to sing, loved to stay up late, and loved his brandy Alexanders.
Hilary was more level in his embibing. The straight man in the comedic duo, he was quircky and bright in a sort of artsy Gandalf way.
Sensibly, he drank his brandy with milk because he had an ulcer!


Well, now I come to think of it: every now and then Hilary Gerrard did indeed remind me of Gandalf.

Or was it Dumbledore?

One thing is for sure: there was much more to the man than is supposed to meet the eye of the reader of books like these.

I would like to tell you "all" about it here.

Eric Schneyderberg - September 2024


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Hilary Gerrard has once [1] been described as secretive and perhaps the most enigmatic character in the entire Beatles' story.

Quite rightly so, I think.

If Hilary had wanted the world to know more about him he would have told it all himself.

But he didn't.

I had the pleasure of knowing him, that is: of knowing him as well as he allowed.

As Hilary literally told me, collecting books was his way of escaping the madness of the rock 'n' roll world, for me - on a smaller scale - it was the other way around.

Over the years Hilary told me about his life and adventures, in colourful bits and bizar pieces, but it is not up to me to repeat these things, is it?

At least not now.

So, where and when did Hilary Gerrard actually meet Richard Starkey and why was he chosen for the job [2]?

I simply don't know, I never asked.

But it was all clear to me that Hilary had what it took to handle the business affairs of the brand new career of a former member of one of the greatest rock acts the world has ever seen.

Clear, also, that he had what it took to enjoy life and to embrace people (or scare the hell out of them if necessary).

And in the end none of those involved have been let down, far from it.

Ringo Starr's new business manager was subtly presented to the public in 1973: Hilary is depicted on the cover of Ringo's first proper solo album (zoom in), strategically overseeing the stage his friend and patron has just climbed; the rest of the mob to his left.
 


 
Frightfully symbolic, especially the worry beads in his hand, or is that just me?

Hilary's name, by the way, has been misspelled in the album credits; this became a nagging habit on many future occasions, including several of Ringo's albums (and Harry Nilsson's, for instance).

His first public performance, however, took place a full year earlier: a cameo, credited as Hilary Bluebyrd, in BORN TO BOOGIE, a 1972 movie directed by Ringo Starr, featuring Ringo, Marc Bolan and Elton John.

Do check him out, he's the bearded nun, you can't miss him.

While Ringo's career blossomed (and withered and blossomed again), Hilary managed to keep himself out of the limelight, minding his own - and Ringo's - business.

He refused to give interviews, laughed off the idea of a biography; he wouldn't have any of it.

But he could not prevent his name from occasionally popping up in books and other publications or on the internet; but it will come as no surprise that not all of these 'revelations' were equally true or relevant.

I will show you some of the results: try to connect the dots, try to paint yourself a picture.

May Pang, in Loving John, The Untold Story (1983), an account of John Lennon's notorious "Lost Weekend" from 1973/74 [3]:

John had a brainstorm. There should be an asylum somewhere for aged rock 'n' rollers. "Let's open an asylum. We should all rent a house and live together [...]".
John told Harry [Nilsson], who loved the idea.
Before I knew it John and Harry invited Ringo, Keith Moon, Hilary Gerrard, and Klaus Voormann and his girlfriend, Cynthia Webb, to live with us.


Or, as the late great Harry Nilsson had put it, in MIX Magazine (1980):

We had the wildest assembly of that part of history in that house. It makes the Round Table look like a toadstoal.

Albert Goldman's version, from the "biography" The Lives Of John Lennon (1986), reads:

Here on April Fools' Day gathered the inmates of Dr. Winston O'Boogie's rock 'n' roll asylum.
In addition to John and May, the patients included Harry Nilsson; Klaus Voorman with his hefty black girlfriend Cynthia Webb, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr and his business manager, Hillary [sic!] Gerard (who looked like a California biker - one of those tattoo and gold tooth types, with a bald pate and long, lank hair framing his satanic visage).


A pearl in Hilary's crown, there were more to come.

A guy called Alan Clayson, who wrote the respectfully titled Ringo Starr, Straight Man or Joker (1991):

To those outsiders who twigged that he was Ringo's manager and not merely some companion, Gerrard's name, would be for years as synonymous with that of his flamboyant charge as Colonel Parker's with Elvis.

Comparing Hilary Gerrard to Colonel Parker, how desperate must this author have been...!

And how ignorant, claiming Hilary stopped representing Ringo in 1989, while he actually resigned in 2015.

Ringo, With A Little Help (2015), a second unauthorised biography, written by Michael Seth Starr (no relation, the author always hastens to add) contains another curious description:

Hilary is so tall and so thin, he always reminded me of Rasputin for some reason.
Hilary doesn't look like Rasputin, but he wore his hair pulled straight back, with rubber bands or little ties holding a little ponytail.
And he wore a black velvet coat.


It's only a quote, we can't blame the author, but I wonder what Keith Allison, Ringo's close friend and musical collaborator (honorary member of the Hollywood Vampires) must have thought when he saw his words in print.

Fortunately enough this book also delivers a keen observation by former Apple-employee Chris O'Dell (of George Harrison's Miss O'Dell fame):

Hilary is someone who doesn't want to be known, he wants to be in the background.
He was with Ringo all the time. I would say he was probably Ringo's best friend during many of those years.
He is an incredibly intelligent man who found himself, in some ways, miscast in rock 'n' roll yet he seemed to have his own place in it, because of his eccentricity.


In her book Miss O'Dell: My Hard Days And Long Nights With The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, And The Women They Loved (2009), Chris O'Dell briefly but lovingly remembers her long-lasting friendship with Hilary (worry beads [4] and all).
 


 
Back to business now:

A few more quotes from Peter Doggett's You Never Give Me Your Money, the Battle for the Soul of the Beatles (2015):

The most mysterious of the four [ex-Beatles] support networks was Starkey's.
It revolved around the secretive Hilary Gerrard, plus an unshakeably loyal secretary who could dispatch unwelcome enquiries with the rigour of Miss Jean Brodie, and fiendishly expensive lawyers in London and Los Angeles.


I have been in touch with Miss Jean, she was very nice.

The guardian of Starkey's new career was his business manager Hilary Gerrard.
The son of a European emigre to London who adopted the surname after finding himself in Gerrard Street, he is perhaps the most enigmatic character in the entire Beatles' story, and has rarely been photographed.
Charming or abrupt as the occasion requires, his manner has been compared to an East End cabbie, albeit with the discreet ponytail and ear stud of a music business maverick.


Fairly well put, if you ask me, except for the cabbie-bit, I suppose.

I will finish this little survey [5] with a peculiar observation made by Canadian guitar ace Randy Bachman, one of the members of the 1995 line-up of Ringo's All Starr Band, in his book Takin' Care of Business (2000):

Ringo travelled with his own minder, a very British, Rutles-like "Leggy Mountbatten" type named Hilary Gerrard - Ringo's confidante from Apple.
He was an eighty-year-old [sic!] tax expert dressed in a striped button-down shirt, vest, tweed suit, cane, breeches.
He was a very cool guy, a proper English gentleman, who advised Ringo when to move from house to house to avoid taxes.


A respectful description, I must say, but I'm not too sure about the wardrobe, not too sure about the age either: in 1995 Hilary was 62 years old, not 80.

Now, I don't know if you noticed, but during the years we have been confronted with more than a few conflicting statements:

California Biker versus East End cabbie.

Gandalf versus Leggy Mountbatten.

Wildman-of-the-Woods versus Proper English Gentleman.

Colonel Parker versus...

Well, never mind, Hilary Gerrard did not want to be known; I think he succeeded.

 


 


The next page contains a couple of thoughts on Hilary Gerrard as I knew him.

Read about books and rock 'n' roll (and probably even about worry beads and Harry Nilsson) on PAGE TWO.

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NOTES

[1]
Peter Doggett in You Never Give Me Your Money, the Battle for the Soul of the Beatles (2015), possibly the best source for the subject so far.

[2]
Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking Hilary Gerrard was Ringo Starr's general manager.
He wasn't, Ringo didn't need a manager; his businesses did.
Covering the continuing succes of Ringo's latter day career, British newspaper The Independent reported the following on October 28th 1995:

Ringo can be so confident because he has a quartet of trusted aides running his life: his long-term personal assistant, Joan Woodgate; a financial adviser, Hilary Gerrard, who sits on the Apple board for him; and the two lawyers who help Gerrard run Starr's interests, Bruce Grakal in Los Angeles and John Hemingway in London [...].
The quartet are famously protective, and their affection for Starr is palpable.
Starr rarely speaks to the press now [...] and his four aides generally follow suit.


The article, simply titled RINGO, is still online and could provide the visitor of my webpages with some background information on Ringo Starr's life and career to date.

[3]
The events have been revisited in Instamatic Karma, photographs of John Lennon, May Pang's second book from 2008, which also reveals Hilary Gerrard's presence (due to Ringo's absence) during the signing of the so-called Beatles agreement, New York Plaza Hotel, December 1974.
This contract led to the official dissolution of the Beatles.

[4]
Miss O'Dell in Miss O'Dell:

Hilary carried a strand of amber beads in his right hand, each the size of a large marble, and when he wandered off, a slight frown creasing his forehead, I asked Ringo if the beads had some kind of meaning or significance [...].
"Oh, they're Hilary's worry beads, Ringo chuckled, obviously very fond of this rather eccentric man. "He must be very worried today because he's clutching his largest beads."


Now that we're on the subject of Ringo, worries and beads:
In her book A Dose of Rock and Roll (2008), Nancy Lee Andrews, Ringo's girlfriend from the late 1970's, recalls a troublesome flight in a small airplane from Yucatan, Mexico:

The pounding storm forced us to fly so low that the bottom of the plane was brushing against the tops of the trees [...].
Hilary Gerrard, Ringo's manager, was holding Tibetan prayer beads up against his third eye, furiously chanting and wishing for a cigarette.
While everyone was frantic and on the verge of breaking down, Ringo was as calm as could be.
He said very matter-of-factly "Don't worry, it's not my time to go, so we'll all be fine."


Nancy Andrew's book, by the way, also contains two full page portraits of Hilary.

[5]
I could have mentioned a couple of more books, but they generally only deliver more of the same:
John Green's Dakota Days (1983), Tony Fletcher's Dear Boy, the Life of Keith Moon (1998), Keith Badman's The Beatles After The Break-Up, 1970-2000 (1999), Geoffrey Giuliano's Lennon in America (2000), Ken Mansfield's: The White Book, The Beatles, The Bands, The Biz (2007), Stan Soocher's Baby You're A Rich Man, Suing the Beatles for Fun and Profit (2015) and Joe Godden's Riding so High, The Beatles and Drugs (2017).
Of course I might have missed a few, feel free to correct me.

I had hoped Alyn Shipton's NILSSON, The Life Of A Singer-Songwriter (2013) would have shed some light on Harry Nilsson's friendship with Hilary, but although he is mentioned several times, this is hardly the case.

On another level: The Count in Monte Carlo, an Insider's Look at Casino Life (2008) by Barry Sinkow.
The former casino host describes a 1976 chance meeting in a nightclub with two unknown guys who introduced themselves as Hilary Gerrard of the London Gerrards, my purpose in life is to watch Richard, and Richard from Liverpool, who claimed he watched Hilary.

British writer and documentarist Iain Sinclair's chapter on London cult figure David Litvinoff, the "real life Jumping Jack Flash", in Rodinsky's Room (1999) includes a rather curious description of Hilary as a book collector.
But that's a subject that will be dealt with on seperate pages.

Nowadays, searching the internet (pay attention to the spelling or rather misspelling of the name!) will cause even more confusion, but can also lead to a few pleasantly surprising articles, posts and photographs.

The complete picture, however, still remains largely out of sight.

As suggested before: here's PAGE TWO.

 


 

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