Meet 20 Other Cast Members From the Beatles’ ‘A Hard Day’s Night’
July 6 holds an extra special place in Beatles history.
For starters, it was on that date in 1957 that a 16-year-old John Lennon met a 15-year-old Paul McCartney in a church auditorium in Liverpool, where Lennon was performing as a member of his school skiffle band, the Quarrymen. Had the two never crossed paths on that day, it's impossible to say what may have become of the Beatles, if anything at all.
But they did cross paths that day, and exactly seven years later on July 6, 1964, the Beatles' very first film debuted at the London Pavilion, A Hard Day's Night. It was met with much praise — The Village Voice famously described it as "the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals" – and earned two Academy Awards, one for Best Screenplay (Alun Owen) and one for Best Score (Adaptation) (George Martin).
READ MORE: Nine Movies That Almost Starred the Beatles
Certainly none of the Beatles were trained actors, but they were, of course, entertainers by profession, more than accustomed to putting on a show for people.
"It was very hard to just learn a line and say it, because we've never done that sort of thing before," McCartney said in a 1964 press conference the band gave in promotion of the movie. "We've always just thought of something and said it, rather than actually read something on a piece of paper. But I think towards the end of making the film, we got the hang of it a little bit more. At first, it was very frightening, you know. It was nerve-wracking trying to say these things as though we meant them — 'cuz that takes training as an actor, I reckon. So you know, we had to try and make it look convincing without having any experience."
But while the focus was on the Fab Four, the rest of the cast was round out by several accomplished actors and actresses, without whom the film's plot would have fallen apart. Below, we're taking a look at 20 Other Cast Members From the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night.
Meet 20 Other Cast Members From the Beatles' 'A Hard Day's Night'
Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp