Was Pete Best the best-looking Beatle?
He was The Beatles’ original drummer, the one who got replaced by Ringo Starr and missed the ride to music immortality. Which might also make him the disgruntled Beatle.
But was Pete Best the best-looking Beatle?
Recently discovered in The Palm Beach Post’s archives is this November 1965 photo by Miami News photographer Charles Trainor. The Miami News was The Post’s sister paper. At the time, Best was spending the weekend with a disc jockey in Coconut Grove. It was about one year after the Fab Four conquered America, visited the Sunshine State and performed in Miami Beach on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Tastes differ — some prefer Paul McCartney, the “cute one,” or the spiky appeal of John Lennon. Some even prefer the offbeat charms of George Harrison and Starr.
But this photo proves that Best, with his wavy Beatle bangs and beefcake muscles, was a striking guy.
And he knew it, too. It may have gotten him in trouble with the band.
“The truth is that I was getting too much attention from the kids in the early days,” Best told Miami News reporter Ian Glass. “None of the group talked to me again after they fired me.”
Best also discounted the idea that his playing wasn’t sharp.
“They put it about that my drumming wasn’t good enough,” he said. “But I can hold my own against Ringo anytime.”
Years later, in 2001, Best returned to South Florida to play at West Palm Beach’s Irish Fest (even though he wasn’t Irish). By then, he was more sanguine about the most famous sacking in rock history.
“My outlook is, if something has been taken away, something will replace it,” he says. “I still have my health, a good family life, all of those things compensate. I don’t think of myself as being misfortunate. I’m lucky.”