I’ll state my bona fides for this posting by telling you briefly about one Peter Brown who heads up my Literacy Partners project, and does so much more for New York City. This Britisher, living in New York, was once a very young aide to the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein. Today, he represents Andrew Lloyd Webber’s interests in the United States. He is a close friend to Barbara Walters and is one of those guys who knows everybody who is anybody – like actual friendships in the British Royal Family for instance.

When Neil Aspinall died of lung cancer last March, Entertainment Weekly did a piece on this onetime driver and road manager who had served as a personal assistant at the height of Beatlemania. In 1968, Neil took over their new record company, Apple Corps, and looked after their interests until 2007. He is credited with masterminding their famous 1995 “Beatles Anthology.”

The Fifth Beatle Cilla Black cuddling with early Beatle aide Peter Brown

But nobody breathed a word about the woman whose picture I am showing you here – cuddling up to the aforesaid Peter Brown. She is none other than Cilla Black, a girl who hung with the Beatles in Liverpool and on through their early days. They adored Cilla and followed her lead.

When the Beatles went on to glory, Cilla did also. But she went her own way as a singer and musician. Eventually she had a big TV show in London that made her “the Barbara Walters of Great Britain.”

She is still slim, trim and dynamic and can sing up a storm. So I nominate Cilla Black for the Fifth Beatle and, you might note, she is a woman and you heard it here first!

P.S. Thank you to all the bright clever readers who corrected me from Cilla’s name "Brown" (wrong) to "Black" (correct). Sorry about that. Grateful to be corrected. Liz  

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