By Larry Mcshane, Associated Press
The 40th anniversary of the Beatles' arrival in America is next month, and fans of all ages are preparing a variety of tributes.
Standing outside the Plaza Hotel in 1964, a young girl playing hooky from school hoisted a handwritten sign: "Elvis is dead. Long live the Beatles."
Forty years later, Beatlemania endures.
Organizers held a Manhattan news conference Friday to promote the events marking the Fab Four's Feb. 9, 1964, appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." An estimated 73 million Americans tuned in to see the musicians from Liverpool in their U.S. debut.
The band split up more than three decades ago after becoming the most popular group in the world.
"They changed hair, they changed fashions, they changed attitudes," said Beatles historian Martin Lewis. "The '60s began when the Beatles came to America."
Anniversary events include the DVD release of the Beatles' four Sullivan appearances, featuring 11 songs from rarely seen performances; retrospectives at the Smithsonian Gallery, the American Film Institute , and the Museum of Television and Radio; and a special screening of "A Hard Day's Night" at Lincoln Center and at the American Film Institute's Silver Theater and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Md.
Members of The Fab 40 Committee, a loosely knit group of Beatles fans and friends, said they tracked down some obscure but semi-important people from Fab Four history.
They include the Maryland woman responsible for getting "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" played for the first time on American radio, the official greeter for Pan Am who met the band at Kennedy Airport, and the woman who held up the sign outside the Plaza, a now middle-aged Irene Feldman.
The news conference featured a somewhat unlikely early Beatles booster — Dr. Joyce Brothers, who had predicted the band's British success would translate on this side of the Atlantic.
"We were ready for teenage rebellion, true teenage rebellion," Brothers recalled. "There was this idea that you can't trust anyone over 30."
As proof, a then-35-year-old Brothers brought her teenage daughter to see the Beatles in Queens. Brothers recalled being overwhelmed by the howling fans. And she remembers what her daughter said to her as the Beatles played:
"Mom, you're embarrassing me."
Beatlemaniacs Ready to Mark U.S. Invasion
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