ALL THESE PLACES HAD THEIR MOMENTS
THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW
I’ve heard that while the show was on there were no reported crimes, or very few. When The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, even the criminals had a rest for ten minutes.
– George Harrison
The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan appearances have now gone down in history as among the most influential moments in 20th-century broadcasting history. Even Billy Graham, the world’s most famous evangelist, broke his own tradition of no television on the Sabbath to watch the Fab Four. In advance of the New York show, 50,000 fans applied to get their hands on one of the 728 tickets.
Ringo dances as the band rehearse for The Ed Sullivan Show in Miami Beach. Getty Images
On the night before the band played, Ed Sullivan read out a telegram from Elvis Presley wishing them the best of luck – a baton passed. It was less than ten years ago that Elvis had made his first appearance on the same show, famously filmed from the waist up.
A staggering 73 million people watched The Beatles on 9 February 1964. They played, live, ‘All My Loving’, ‘Till There Was You’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.
A week later, in Miami, 75 million people watched their second live appearance, the setlist ‘She Loves You’, ‘This Boy’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘From Me To You’ and ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.