The garden party was planned for August 24, 1964, the day after the Beatles performed at the Hollywood Bowl in front of thousands of screaming fans. Alan Livingston was president of Capitol Records and had signed the Beatles that same year. Livingston was married to Sunset Boulevard actress Nancy Olson, and Nancy’s mother offered to host a fund-raiser for a hemophilia charity at her home.
According to Nancy Olson: “The Hemophilia Society and fundraising organization invited Alan Livingston to organize a fundraising event. Alan assigned this to me, and it was the first time I tried working for a non-profit. It’s all about money, but you won’t get it unless you organize some attractive event. Of course I knew the Beatles were going to be a fantastic lure, the question was what would attract them to want to be involved. I think we came up with a brilliant idea.
“My mom had a big house, almost an estate, with a beautiful garden in Brentwood Park that was completely surrounded by greenery. I asked her if she would like to invite the Beatles in the afternoon to visit her, as well as the children and their parents. We’ll treat everyone to lemonade and biscuits, and the kids could meet the Beatles. My mom said she wanted to invite them to visit, and when we walked into the garden, she said, ‘I have the perfect place to put four chairs, one for each of the boys. We’ll put them under the Himalayan cedar.’
“Then we reassured the Beatles that they wouldn’t need to perform. We will only invite our friends with children and charge them $100 for each adult and $25 for each child. All proceeds will go to the fund of the hemophilia society. Something about that invitation intrigued them, and they agreed. They seem to have been happy to do it for Alan and his son Peter, who has hemophilia.”
Warren Cowan, the cofounder of Rogers & Cowan, a publicity firm that once counted Hollywood legends like Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, Natalie Wood, and Elizabeth Taylor as clients, was in charge of the guest list. The company added the Beatles to that list during the band’s first trip to America. All Cowan had to do was invite his roster of clients and the event would be crawling with celebrities and their offspring.
On the day of the event, guests paid $100 each to bring their kids to see the Beatles; kids got in for $25 a head. The guest list included Tony Curtis; Dean Martin, Lloyd Bridges, Stan Freberg; Eddie Fisher; John Forsythe; Edward G. Robinson; Dominick Dunne, and Warren Cowan’s then-wife, actress Barbara Rush. Many of them brought their now famous kids.
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