The 'Paul is dead' myth | Page 45 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Shortly before the mock trial that @Pineapple Records linked to, in November 1969, The Scaffold (Mike McGear, John Gorman and Roger McGough) were appearing at The Bitter End in New York City, when they received an invite to appear on The Mike Douglas Show. They were a little about the invitation for some reason, but were reassured when told they were having a “British Week”.

When they get to the studio, they’re introduced to Douglas Fairbanks Jr, which sets their minds a little more at ease. However, they do find it rather strange when they’re asked to sit in the audience, but shrugged their shoulders and sat in the audience, thinking they had appeared on shows with some weird set-ups over the years.

The first segment of the show was with DF Jr, and at the beginning of the second segment (which is where the video starts, the audience were made aware of The Scaffold in the audience, drawing particular attention to Mike and the fact he’s Paul’s brother.

He then introduces the next guest, Christopher Glenn – a New York radio documentary maker who had just made a documentary about PiD. Glenn spends the second segment laying out the clues as they were then, while the third segment involved MD asking MM about his reaction to the rumours of his brother’s demise.

It is an interesting watch, and it may be what you’re remembering in your post above, @Father McKenzie:

In his 1982 book, Thank U Very Much – Mike McCartney’s Family Album (issued in the States as The Macs – Mike McCartney’s Family Album), Mike recalls his reaction to this event. He gets a lot of details wrong, presumably because he hadn’t seen the show in a long time, but it does give an idea of his reaction to being tricked to get him on the show:

In November 1969 whilst the Scaffold were appearing at the tiny Bitter End Club in New York, we were asked to make a guest appearance on the Mike Douglas TV show. Being hypersensitive about the ‘Beatle brother’ tag (it being only a few years since their last live appearance in the States) the fact that we were to be part of yet another ‘English Week’ on the show placated us somewhat, and the further fact that it would be networked throughout America clinched the deal.

On the first class Parlor Car train from New York to Philadelphia the American public were their usual friendly selves and wished us (obvious foreigners) a pleasant trip to their country. Whilst we were propping up the bar, I scored top marks for spotting a citizen using a phone on the train. When we arrived at the TV station we were introduced to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (ah, this must be English Week) and we were asked to take our seats in the audience! We’d done quite a few strange shows in our short showbiz lives but not many in the audience, but thought, like phones on trains, it must be an American custom.

Transmission time arrived and everyone waited expectantly, especially us, as no one had told us what we had to do. Mike Douglas and Doug Fairbanks talked a bit, fenced a bit, looked English a bit, and then introduced their next guest. .. a DJ from LA’Ah, he must be British,’ we thought proudly.

At that time, the ‘Paul is Dead’ rumour was sweeping the States and getting enormous exposure. Now, settling into the guest chair a few feet away, was the disc jockey who’d actually started the whole rumour on his Los Angeles radio show.

He went through the whole con with Mike Douglas … Paul’s back to front on the Pepper album … Paul’s shoes are off on the Abbey Road cover … Paul’s this … Paul’s that … all proving beyond a shadow of a Paul that Paul was definitely DEAD!!

Now certain things are like a red rag to a bull so when they’d stopped rabbitting on and Mike Douglas asked me for my comments (seeing as I was just passing, six thousand miles from home, and coincidentally happened to be Paul’s brother) I pawed the ground a little, then charged.

I pointed out that apart from it being too silly to waste valuable air time for me, the Scaffold and the American public, it was also a gigantic, well-planned hoax, based on groundless innuendo and straight lies, but most of all how could you, Mr. LA DJ, condone, or live with, the precise moment in time when millions of young loving trusting teenagers heard that their biggest pop hero was … dead! (It was as though the Kennedy and Martin Luther King murders were a hoax!)

There was a stunned silence. Showbiz was never like this, especially on a cosy afternoon, live, network telly to middle America.

Mike Douglas covered beautifully and we went straight into the commercials. Even I hadn’t realised the impact I had caused until we were all halfway up the studio’s narrow staircase and the numbed DJ suddenly came out of his coma. Turning around he spat down the stairs ‘You f…ing b d, you call yourself a f…ing professional, you couldn’t lick my ass, you f…ing B…’ and various other expletives.

They dragged him up up and away from me, arms flailing, and that day I realised that I’ll never be a really true professional because sometimes (just sometimes) there are more important things than ‘professionalism’. I think they call it telling the truth. I wouldn’t mind, but the cad wasn’t even British.

I couldn’t agree more that he got it wrong in the book, @Pineapple Records. I point that out. Probably a case of, however easy it is to get hold of almost anything within seconds now, I can imagine finding a copy of a 1969 US chat show to remind yourself of the event might have been quite hard back in ’81/’82 when it was being written.

With the backstage, I think he may be remembering another backstage, and confabulating the two. They confabulate a lot, do these people. It’s the drugs. Makes the memory a little hazy.

Now, what was I saying? Oh, yeah!

I couldn’t agree more that he got it wrong in the book…