A Life In The Day: Come Together

EXCLUSIVE: Nicholas Hoult and Jack O’Connell are circling A Life In The Day, the Tony Gittelson script about the life of Brian Epstein, who discovered and managed the Beatles from 1961-1967, before he died of a drug overdose at 32. Justin Chadwick (Tulip Fever) is in talks to direct the project, which David Permut will produce through his Permut Presentations banner along with Dylan Sellers’ Rivers Edge Films...

This is still a fluid situation with no deals set, but if it all comes together, Hoult would play the flamboyant and gay Epstein, with O’Connell the brilliant but troubled John Lennon. The intense relationship between the two men has been the subject of much debate and analysis over the years. As recently as this week, Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono mused about the possibility that Epstein and Lennon had sex with each other. She was quoted in the Daily Beast as saying, “It was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.” ...

Deadline.

Hope this happens (and we get to see Nic in the nip again).

John Lennon: You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

I ask if she [Yoko Ono, obvs] has ever had sex with a woman, or been attracted to them.

“Well, that’s another thing. John and I had a big talk about it, saying, basically, all of us must be bisexual. And we were sort of in a situation of thinking that we’re not [bisexual] because of society. So we are hiding the other side of ourselves, which is less acceptable. But I don’t have a strong sexual desire towards another woman.”

Have you ever? “Not really, not sexually.”

One online satire imagined an affair between Ono and Hillary Clinton.

“It’s great,” Ono laughs. “I mean, both John and I thought it was good that people think we were bisexual, or homosexual.” She laughs again.

What about that old rumor that Lennon had sex with Beatles manager Brian Epstein (which was also the subject of the 1991 film, The Hours and The Times)?

Lennon himself said: “Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.” Later, Lennon’s friend Pete Shotton said Lennon had told him that he had allowed Epstein to “toss [wank] him off.”

“Uh, well, the story I was told was a very explicit story, and from that I think they didn’t have it [sex],” Ono tells me. “But they went to Spain, and when they came back, tons of reporters were asking, ‘Did you do it, did you do it?’ So he said, ‘I did it.’ Isn’t that amazing? But of course he would say that. I’m sure Brian Epstein made a move, yeah.”

And Lennon said no to Epstein?

“He just didn’t want to do it, I think.”

Fake sign - don't write in.

Did Lennon have sex with other men?

“I think he had a desire to, but I think he was too inhibited,” says Ono.

“No, not inhibited. He said, ‘I don’t mind if there’s an incredibly attractive guy.’ It’s very difficult: They would have to be not just physically attractive, but mentally very advanced too. And you can’t find people like that.”

So did Lennon ever have sex with men?

“No, I don’t think so,” says Ono. “The beginning of the year he was killed, he said to me, ‘I could have done it, but I can’t because I just never found somebody that was that attractive.’ Both John and I were into attractiveness—you know—beauty.” ...

From an amusing encounter with Tim Teeman, Daily Beast.

Lennon allegedly beat up a man who suggested he'd had sex with Epstein in Ibiza (Google it y'self).

The Beatles' You've Got To Hide Your Love Away may have been written about Epstein and pre-67 gaydom, but masked by John adding lyrics addressed to a girl. 

Ziggy Changed My Life: Lipstick Traces

Okay, maybe this one doesn't look too good on paper.
A radio documentary about Ziggy Stardust written and presented by Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet fame - but it was pretty good.
Kemp can be a thoughtful writer (I remember Julie Burchill once saying how shocked she was at how good he was) and forty years ago, he was there.
A working-class lad from north London who had his world turned upside down by Ziggy Stardust, Kemp was also a witness to Ziggy's legendary farewell performance at Hammersmith Odeon in 1973.
At times this seemed a bit York Notes; racing through a litany of the influences David Bowie fed off for his greatest creation; Little Richard, Vince Taylor, Lindsay Kemp, Andy Warhol blah blah blah.
Its strength lay in the interviews with a number of Bowie's friends and collaborators, most hilariously Spiders Woody and Trevor, two very straight blokes from Hull wondering how far into poovery they were being taken.
There are also some great little jolts about how threatening many found this at the time, like the TV producer who didn't want "those perverts" on his show.
Kemp is particularly good on how thrilling he found it all, it was, he has written, his "teenage crush".
John Lennon once quipped about Bowie's early 70s model/s; "It's great - but it's just Rock n Roll with lipstick on."
This programme shows why Ziggy Stardust meant so much more than just that.

PS If you're reading this in the not-too-distant future and the above i-Player link has expired, it's being repeated on BBC Radio 2 on June 6th - your actual 40th anniversary of the album's release.