Who knew that Ringo’s mommy looked liked Ringo in drag? Just a very sweet, very down to earth woman that befriended the Beatles secretary and Fanclub President Frida Kelly in the early 1960s, invited Frida in for eggs and chips when Ringo asked Frida to help his parents with all the fan mail.
Frida was friendly with all the Beatles parents, except for Aunt Mimi of course, Paul’s daddy tried to teach her ballroom dancing and George’s parents reveled in their sons success. Paul’s dad is such a gentlemanly looking fellow, really old school, and George’s Mum would nvite fans who arrived at their doorstep into their home.
If these snippets are for you so is Ryan White’s wonderful and moving documentary about the 11 years Frida worked for the Beatles first as the head Of the beatles fanclub. Brian Epstein’s personal secretary and then at Apple, “Good Ol’ Frida”. The Beatles story isn’t Rashomon any more, it is a Rubiks Cube where we keep on moving the sides around to see the pattern and every bit of new information brings us closer. Frida, who has held her tongue for over 40 years about her job, reveals some things here. Not much, she doesn’t betray the Beatles and the endorsement by Ringo Starr at the end testifies to that, but enough to have you peer in at the tic toc.
Some of it is a bit like you kinda knew that, Eppy had a lousy temper, Lennon was moody, Paul was sweet, George fan friendly (actually, I didn’t know that) and Ringo really the newcomer at first. But as we travel through those years with Frida, Frida herself emerges as a person.
A secretary in the early 1960s, Frida went one lunch to see the band at the Cavern and figures she then caught em there an additional, she never missed a show after that. So first a fan, chatting with the band after the show, she got recruited to help their fanclub President, a girlfriend of hers, and when her friend lost interest took over the position. After Brian became the Beatles manager, he needed a secretary and offered the position to Frida.
What Frida gave to the band, at least the way the documentarian Ryan White puts it, is a connection with their past. She is such a Liverpudlian, so discrete and private, such a normal person for them while there is so much going on around.
In 1971, with her second child on its way, Frida resigned and George Harrison closed down the Beatles Fanclub.
Frida tells her story so clearly and caringly, and at the end there is a role call of all those inner circle Beatles who died, and Frida, not an easy cry, seems to be collapsing into the past.
Frida’s son also died a couple of years ago and Frida explains that she wants to tell her story, however discretely it might be said, for her Grandson. “It’s now or never” she claimed.
And what of us, Beatle fans. Well, Frida fired an assistant for putting in her own hair to a fan requesting a lock, “I can’t trust you so you can’t stay here”. In 1974, Frida gave away all her memorabilia to various Beatles fans and whereas she could have made enough money retire if she sold them, she didn’t sell them. She works as a secretary to this day.
If you love the Beatles it is just wonderful to see another piece of the pattern emerge. Especially, the Beatles parents. Gods and Beatles walked amongst them, and there was Good Ol’ Frida all the way through it.
Grade: A-