Biopic of missing stand-in Beatle? Let him be, says son
Jimmie Nicol was given the regulation moptop haircut and the thin-lapel suit required to be in the world’s greatest pop group.
For 13 days in 1964, he lived the dream as a member of the Beatles at the start of their first world tour – but as quickly as fame arrived, it disappeared. The drummer vanished from public view, and was last heard of talking about starting a new life in Mexico.
More than half a century after temporarily replacing Ringo Starr, Nicol will once again be thrust into the spotlight, with plans for a Hollywood film about his life.
However, his son, who has not heard from him for 13 years, says the reclusive musician would be mortified by the global attention.
The film rights to a book about Nicol’s life have been bought by the son of the late singer Roy Orbison. It is a story of ‘‘betrayal, substance abuse, bankruptcy, and an eventual disappearance that has led many to question whether he is dead or alive’’, according to the book’s author.
Nicol was recruited by the Beatles a day before the band departed for a tour of Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, after Starr was taken to hospital with tonsillitis.
When Paul McCartney asked how Nicol was coping with the pressure, the drummer would reply: ‘‘It’s getting better.’’ The phrase inspired the song Getting Better on the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Nicol played eight concerts before Starr rejoined the group in Melbourne. The fame and the girls disappeared, and within a decade so had Nicol, with reports that he was living as a recluse.
His son, Howie Nicol, 58, says he understands his father’s desire to remain undiscovered. ‘‘Imagine what you did when you were 23, 24, it has kind of followed you for the rest of time, whether it be true or untrue.’’
Howie Nicol, who coincidentally won a Bafta for his work as a sound recordist on the 1996 documentary series The Beatles Anthology, said: ‘‘He gave me instructions as what to do when people come knocking. [He] said the best thing you can do is tell people you are dead and they will go away.’’
He is sure that his father would not approve of the film being planned by Alex Orbison and his fellow producer Ashley Hamilton, the son of actors George Hamilton and Alana Stewart.
‘‘He will be mortified if that there is a film which will define him – that will be terrible.
‘‘It is just two weeks in a person’s life. I can understand why historians and fans are interested, and I am interested myself, but it’s an enormous thing to cope with.’’
Howie Nicol says he has no idea of his father’s location, or even if he is still alive. He would now be 77.
The last confirmed sighting of Jimmie Nicol was outside his rented first-floor flat in a rubbishstrewn mews in Kentish Town, north London. A neighbour said this week that Nicol and a woman named Josefina, who he presumed to be the drummer’s wife, had left four years ago, saying they were moving to her native Mexico.
Howie Nicol says the suggestion that his father was married to Josefina is ‘‘quite possibly right’’, and that if the couple are in Mexico, ‘‘I am thrilled for him. He will be doing what he wants to do’’.
Jim Berkenstadt, author of The Beatle Who Vanished, on which the film is to be based, failed to find Nicol.
He was told that in 2011, someone saw the drummer working on a building site in Amsterdam. When asked if he was Jimmie Nicol, the man nodded, signed an autograph and disappeared back into the site without saying a word.