Merle Frimark

Original Air Date: July 23, 2023

When she was just a teenager, Merle Frimark was a fly on the wall as The Beatles put the finishing touches on “Come Together” for the “Abbey Road” album.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,Conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Gracie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to someone I've had the privilegein honor of working with over the years.
Meryl Frymark heads her own international marketing, public relations and artists representation company

(00:25):
here in New York, and she'srepped hundreds of Broadway, Off Broadway and
touring productions. And the reason sheis joining us today is that this is
a very special anniversary for Meryl FryeMark. It is fifty four years to
the day. You take it away, Meryl, What were you doing fifty

(00:48):
four years ago today? Well,I was in London and fifty four years
ago on Hey to say the Number. On July twenty third, nineteen sixty
nine, I was lucky enough togo into EMI Studios now called Abbey Road

(01:08):
Studios, and I took pictures ofthe Beatles during their they were putting the
final touches on the song Come Togetherfor the Abbey Road album. Now,
how did that happen? How onearth does this New York girl get to
be a fly on the wall ofhistory? Queens, Queens. Grew up

(01:32):
in Queens, born in Brooklyn.Well, I was, even though I've
spent in many decades working in thetheater here and internationally, I was always
a rock and roll baby. AndI had been to London, of course

(01:55):
in my mid teens, because Iwas an angle. But I happened to
hear or find out that the Beatleshad an office in Manhattan. And I
was in Queens, and I wascurious, and I was always a good
sleuth, you know, So Iventured in and the office was at fifteen

(02:16):
oh one Broadway, very famous addresseven today. And I went up to
the eighteenth floor and there was adoor that said an Emperor Artists, Beatles
USA Limited, Brian Epstein, NathanM. Weiss. It was very quiet.

(02:38):
I don't know what I expected.I was a kid. How old
were you? How old were sixteen? Wow? I was a kid.
I went there one day after school. So I knocked on the door and
I went in and there was ayoung woman sitting in a cuppy hole a
reception and she said to me,are you here to be interview? I

(03:00):
said sure. You know I wasn'texactly shy even at that age. You
know, I used to go asa teenager thirteen on the subway at five
o'clock in the morning to go toBrooklyn to see the murder the Gate shows.
Okay, so they were looking tohire kids to work part time to

(03:24):
deal with all the sacks and sacksand sacks of fan mail that came in
because their US fan club was workedwas done out of that office, out
of nat Weiss's office. Now natWeiss was a lawyer, but he was
Brian Epstein's business partner here in theUS, so they hired me. There

(03:47):
was nobody there. It was justfate. I truly believe it was fate.
So after school I would get onthe subway and go there and work
for about four hours and do stuff. And then they saw something in me,
and as people left a very smalloffice, as people left, they
kept giving me more and more responsibility. Ultimately I was responsible for because even

(04:13):
though the Beatles stopped touring in nineteensixty six, they still were releasing records,
as we all know, and Ihad to every Monday, I would
call Billboard, cash Box and RecordWorld and get the chart reports for each
song or whatever. Then, youknow, in those days, we didn't

(04:38):
have faxes or emails or fault nothing. We had a telex machine and the
telex machine was right to the leftof where I sat at my desk,
so I would telex the chart reportsto the London office and it went right
into Apple in Salvo Row. Butof course Apple hadn't been formed yet when

(05:00):
I started to work there, andso you know, that was part of
my job, and it was itwas amazing. You know, I was
a kid, but then I graduatedhigh school and they offered me a full
time job. All of this withthe blessing of my parents. My parents
were really supportive and it was anincredible experience. And so it was it

(05:31):
part of your job to then goto London. Well, no, I
went. I decided in July nineteensixty nine to go to London for my
two week holiday vacation. And Ilet the office know in London that I

(05:54):
was coming because I dealt with themall all the time, and I you
know, basically paid my own way, my flight, my hotel, and
I did already have a few likepen pal friends from when I was younger,
you know, And when I wasthere, I also worked with Frieda.
Kelly Frieda was the Beatles, thefamous Beetles secretary and if you haven't

(06:20):
seen her documentary, it's called GoodOld Frieda and I believe it's still on
Netflix. And I'm still friends withher to this day. And I've been
to visit her many many times,and I was I was there. I
went up to Liverpool to see her. She was very close to Ringle's parents,

(06:42):
his mom Elsie and his stepfather Harry, so she took She was very
close to them, so she tookme to meet them. They were lovely
and I was waiting a few daysbefore I could go into the recording studio.
Eric Taylor, who Beatle fans know, he was a mentor to me.

(07:08):
Even though he was a Beatles pressofficer. I never knew in those
days, we didn't know what prwas or marketing it. Really it was
there, but it really didn't exist. He was their press officer, but
he did so much more and hewas very, very helpful to me as
a young person. I can't sayenough wonderful things about him. And he's

(07:32):
passed and he is terribly missed.But he said to me, oh,
you know, I can arrange Treeto go into the studio, but what
happened was at that time. Theweek I was I arrived, John and
Yoko were in Scotland and they werein a car accent and John had to

(07:54):
have stitches under his chin. Itwas all documented. You can find that
information online about his accident, andso I had to wait a few days
until they came back to the studio. So I believe me, I kept
myself busy. I was in theoffice every day and I would occasionally worked
in standing at reception for who wasthere somebody went to launch, you know,

(08:20):
because I knew all the players therepretty much. And then of course
one day Derek said, okay,you're going tomorrow, and I was like,
oh, okay. So you know, I got myself together and I
was taken there. I believe Iwas taken there by Kevin Harrington. Now

(08:41):
Kevin Harrington. I know everybody askedwhen they saw the Peter Jackson documentary,
Kevin, who's the guy with thered hair? That was Kevin Harrington,
who was hired by mal Evans,the Beatles road manager, as an assistant

(09:03):
and whatnot. And you saw himin that documentary. But it was Kevin,
I believe who took me there.I'm speaking with Meryl Frymark. She's
very successful entertainment marketing and PR specialist, and she happened to be at Emi
Studios which became abbey Road Records.Abbey Road on this day, fifty four

(09:26):
years ago, she was a flyon the wall as the Beatles put the
finishing touches on come together for theabbey Road album. So what was it
like? What did you witness?What can you reveal to the audience.
Well, the first thing I wantedto be sure of was that I was

(09:48):
a fly on the wall. Ididn't want to come in as a fan,
although who wasn't a fan? EvenDerek Taylor and Peter Brown were fans.
They worked there, you know,so I want and I was so
young, I wanted to be takenseriously and certainly as a young woman,

(10:09):
you have to just not fangirl.I mean, fangirl wasn't even a term
at that time. But I thought, Okay, I'm going to be cool
when I go in there, soI didn't. They were very nice.
I actually brought some white flowers forJohn, which I gave him because he

(10:33):
had just come from his accident andeverything, and you know, which he
appreciated and they couldn't have been nicer. What I noticed I didn't notice at
the time because I'd be so busyjust trying to be cool and not be
intrusive. When I looked at thesephotos maybe decades later. First of all,

(10:58):
the day I was there, Ihad no idea what was to come,
meaning that they were six seven monthslater they would be breaking up.
That was not obvious. It wasnot known. Certainly I was oblivious to

(11:20):
it. But what I what Idid notice decades later, once they broke
up and everything started to happen inthat respect at the time after nineteen seventy,
looking at all of my photos,I noticed the distance between them,

(11:41):
which I really wasn't that aware ofwhen I was physically there. And if
you look at the Peter Jackson documentaryJanuary, that was six months after I
had seen them. Was when theyshot that in January of nineteen seventy,

(12:03):
which culminated in the rooftop concert.If you look at that footage, all
of them are in a circle,and obviously they had to do that because
they were being filmed, and theywere purposely filming a documentary. When I
saw them, they were as farapart from each other in the recording studio

(12:30):
as they could be. And havingseen that and in retrospect, I realized
that even when I was there,Paul took the lead, and Paul was
trying to get them to focus andto resurrect that camaraderie that seemed to have

(12:52):
gotten lost somewhere. And you cansee that in the documentary that he was
really front and center recording on thespot, inventing, writing lyrics, writing
songs on the spot in that documentary, and he couldn't make them focus as

(13:20):
much as he wanted. It waspretty obvious to me and other people.
I'd say, who would be awareof that? We only have about a
minute and a half left. Whatelse would you like to tell our audience
that we haven't touched on? Well, obviously, I was always a fan.
The last time I saw John Lennon, which I'll never forget, is

(13:46):
in August of nineteen eighty. Iwas writing my bicycle in Central Park.
I lived not far from the Dakotawhere he lived with Yoko and baby Sean,
and I saw him sitting on abench with baby Sean, and I
was writing. I thought to myself, should I stop? Should I leave

(14:09):
him alone? I was torn.I thought, no, I'm going to
stop. I went up to himand said hello, he was welcome for
the company. I sat and talkedto him for a few minutes. The
baby was adorable. He was mindingthe baby. I said goodbye, went
off on my way. That wasthe last time I saw him. Obviously,

(14:31):
all that broke my heart to thisday. But I do have to
say one quick thing, which iswhen I was working there, they were
doing their bed in for peace inMontreal. One of the people I would
talk to on the phone was TommySmothers. Tommy Smothers, when the Beatles
broke up, I called him andhe said, I was looking for a

(14:56):
job, and he said, whydon't you call these pr people? They
theater and stuff. Maybe they canuse somebody like you. They do hair,
and they hired me. I workedon hair and many other shows and
the rest is history. So I'meternally grateful to Tommy's murthers. And it
all started, of course, withthe Beatles. It all started with a

(15:16):
very gutsy sixteen year old. Okay, I want to thank you, Meryl
Frimark, thank you so much.Okay, thank you. Take care.
You've been listening to Sunsteen sessions oniHeartRadio, A production of New York's classic
rock Q one oh four point three