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The Museum presents It Was Forty Years Ago Today...The Beatles in America

Thursday, January 1, 2004

New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA—The Museum of Television & Radio presents It Was Forty Years Ago Today...The Beatles in America, gallery exhibits and a radio listening series that celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Beatles' inaugural performance on American television. Opening at both the New York and Los Angeles Museums on February 6, 2004, the exhibit will include photographic collections in each city of rare and never-before-seen images as well as radio recordings celebrating the most popular, influential, and enduring rock group of all time. 

The Museum will exhibit two rarely seen collections of photographs in its New York and Los Angeles locations from February 6 to May 2, 2004. The New York Museum will present the New York debut of The Beatles! Backstage and Behind the Scenes, an exhibit from the CBS Photo Archive and the work of veteran LIFE photojournalist Bill Eppridge featuring candid shots of the band members at work and play, taken on the occasion of the Beatles' arrival in the United States and first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. The infrequently seen seventy-one pictures reveal a fresh-faced quartet of young men in the first bloom of staggering international fame and adulation. The Museum's exhibit will also include an additional thirteen never-before published images from Bill Eppridge's personal archive not part of the regular traveling exhibition.

The Los Angeles Museum will feature The Mad Day: Summer of '68, a recently unveiled photographic collection of the Beatles by British photographer Tom Murray, never before displayed in California. These photos, taken in London on a summer afternoon in 1968, border on the hallucinatory: the intensity of the colors, the whimsical (at times prophetic) attitudes struck by the musicians, and the ephemeral seat-of-the-pants compositions are in stark contrast to the iconic images so familiar to fans of one of the most exhaustively photographed groups of young men in the world. Only recently made available for public view, the "Mad Day" photographs have been shown at select galleries and museums around the world to great wonder and acclaim. 

In the listening rooms, the Museum will present The Larry Kane Interviews, a series of radio interviews by Emmy Award-winning journalist Larry Kane, the only American reporter in the Beatles' touring entourage during their historic U.S. tours in 1964 and 1965. Granted unlimited access to the band, Kane developed a close rapport with the musicians that allowed him to cover topics including their personal lives, songwriting, and social issues of the day. Many of these interviews have not been heard since they were originally broadcast over thirty years ago. The listening series will run from February 6 to June 20, 2004, in both cities. 

Admission to It Was Forty Years Ago Today...The Beatles in America and the gallery exhibits is included with the Museum's suggested contribution: Members free; $10.00 for adults; $8.00 for senior citizens and students; and $5.00 for children under fourteen. Admission is free in Los Angeles. 

The Museum of Television & Radio, with locations in New York and Los Angeles, is a nonprofit organization founded by William S. Paley to collect and preserve television and radio programs and advertisements and to make them available to the public. Since opening in 1976, the Museum has organized exhibitions, screening and listening series, seminars, and education classes to showcase its collection of over 100,000 television and radio programs and advertisements. In 2001 the Museum initiated a process to acquire Internet programming for the collection. Programs in the Museum's permanent collection are selected for their artistic, cultural, and historic significance. 


The Museum of Television & Radio in New York, located at 25 West 52 Street in Manhattan, is open Tuesdays through Sundays from noon to 6:00 p.m. and until 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays. The Museum of Television & Radio in California, located at 465 North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, is open Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 5:00 p.m. Both Museums are closed on New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Suggested contribution: Members free; $10.00 for adults; $8.00 for senior citizens and students; and $5.00 for children under fourteen. Admission is free in Los Angeles. The public areas in both Museums are accessible to wheelchairs, and assisted listening devices are available. Programs are subject to change. You may call the Museum in New York at (212) 621-6800, or in Los Angeles at (310) 786-1000.  Visit the Museum's website at www.mtr.org.