Alan W. Livingston, an entertainment executive who had significant roles in bringing Bozo, the Beatles and “Bonanza” to American audiences, died Friday at home in Beverly Hills. He was 91. He died after a series of mini-strokes, said his wife, Nancy Olson Livingston.
Nancy Olson acted in Sunset Boulevard, playing the part of Betty Schaeffer. William Holden's birthday was 17 April, and in remebrance I watched the film. (From Olson's page I got the information that she and Livingston were married. I'm dating the post with the obit's date.)
In 1963, Mr. Livingston was president of Capitol Records, which had declined three different times to release singles by a British band, then little known in the United States, called the Beatles. After another Capitol executive turned down a fourth opportunity, this one to release the song “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” a telephone call placed to Mr. Livingston probably changed rock ‘n roll history.
“I’m sitting in my office one day, and I got a call from London from a man named Brian Epstein, who I didn’t know,” Mr. Livingston recalled in Bruce Spizer’s book “The Beatles’ Story on Capitol Records, Part One.” “And he said, ‘I am the personal manager of the Beatles and I don’t understand why you won’t release them.’ And I said, ‘Well, frankly, Mr. Epstein, I haven’t heard them. And he said, ‘Would you please listen and call me back?’ ”
Mr. Livingston did. Capitol released the single and the next year brought the Beatles to the United States, unleashing the tsunami of adoration that came to be known as Beatlemania.
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