What’s this going these days? Some rare, unpublished, until now unseen photos of celebrities suddenly see the light of day. First we saw recently revealed photo of Princess Diana as teenager, set to go at RR Auctions of Amherst, New Hampshire, from Jan. 17 to 24, and now unseen photos of the Beatles’ first US tour also go under the hammer at Omega Auction on March 22, which is also the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ first album, Please Please Me.
Some 65 unpublished color photographs dating from 1964 and the Fab Four’s first tour of the US show the stars on stage, during press conferences and in informal meetings, including George Harrison with his legendary red Rickenbacker guitar and close-up portraits from a Las Vegas Sahara Hotel press conference and Las Vegas Convention Centre gig, and from a private party at the Beverly Hills mansion of Alan Livingston, then president of Capitol Records.
In the 1960’s, colour film was expensive and most images of the group, as well as films were in black and white, so this photos are even more rare.
According to the British Beatles Fan Club spokesperson quoted by the BBC, “new photographs that emerge of The Beatles are always of interest to the fans. With the majority of photographs from this tour in black and white, it is a delight to see colour photographs from that historic tour.”
The photos were taken by award-winning physicist Dr. Robert Beck, who died in 2002 and left them in an archive of photographs and slides in his Hollywood home.