ERICH SEGAL, Ph.D. Interview Transcript
One of the Screenwriters on "The Beatles Yellow Submarine"
October 27, 1993

Bob Hieronimus: In 1974 after my proposal for a 2-credit course on the Yellow Submarine was accepted by the Maryland Art Institute, I began to travel from bookstore to bookstore searching for copies of the Signet paperback version of "The Yellow Submarine," which by the way I just learned yesterday from Heinz Edelmann, was put out before the movie came out. For the students I was trying to locate copies of that book but I just couldn't turn up a single copy! I wrote to the publisher and to my dismay -- even they said there were none to be had! I thought to myself, "How can one teach a course on the Yellow Submarine without a text?" Well, that's generally academically unacceptable!

(but we managed somehow)

Today, over 20 years later, I have discovered the collector's market and know that the original 95-Cent paperback which I used to hand out to my friends, now will cost you from $10 to $60 depending on condition, and yet they are still virtually un-findable. Why the Yellow Sub paperback was never reissued is one of the mysteries of the universe to me, so if you find one, remember I got first "dibs"!

The first page of this Signet book is a Credits Page, and in the "Written By" department we find the following: Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal.

Which leads us to our next guest, Dr. Erich Segal. My background/biography information on Dr. Segal is limited, but I can tell you this: he is presently teaching classics at Oxford University in England. And before he became involved in the Yellow Sub production in 1968 he was Assistant Professor of Classics at Yale. Most Americans will recognize the name of Erich Segal as the author of the ever-popular "Love Story", which in movie-form starred Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neil.

In the past year or so, I located a copy of the March 1968 "Yale Literary Magazine" in the collector's underground, and discovered a most revealing article by Dr. Segal. Let me tell you, memorabilia prices are outlandish. This "Yale Literary Magazine" was originally priced at $1.00. Today a copy in poor condition will fetch $40; one in excellent condition about $90. And as we've mentioned before, The Corgi Yellow Submarine Toy has a current price tag of $600!! (mint in box)

On the cover of this March 1968 Yale Literary Magazine are the "Yellow Subbed" Beatles in gorgeous full-color (coffee stains included on my edition) I guess that's why mine was $40.00. The Centerfold also shows two versions of the Beatles in both Sgt. Pepper and Psychedelic regalia. And there are other color and black and white "Heinz Edelmann-abilia" throughout the article. I'm holding them up to the microphone for your edification right now. But it's page 27 that is the focus of our dissertation right now, for it is there that we find the Erich Segal article "Through a Phone Darkly, or Ringo Agonistes" Copyrighted in 1967, but alas banned in Westport, Connecticut.

Welcome to 21st Century Radio's Yellow Submarine Special, Dr. Segal, and thank you for joining John Coates and Heinz Edelmann on tonight's bill of fare.

Erich Segal: Thank you for asking me. I never knew that my participation in what I thought was going to be a children's cartoon would earn me a little footnote in history. And that's just what it did.

BH: It certainly has!

ES: It grew bigger than all of us.

BH: Well, I'll tell you, if I had one of those cases of Yellow Submarine Corgi Toys (mint in box) we could rule the world, Dr. Segal. It's amazing that the price of that has climbed so enormously. And unfortunately it just continues to go up.

Now, since your manuscript of "Through a Phone Darkly" was (quote) "too corrupt to be deciphered" in some places, would you please review for us how big Al Brodax convinced you to sign up for duty?

ES: Well, we should identify Big Al Brodax in the mythology of it all. Big Al Brodax at the time, working for King Features Syndicate, who owned the cartoon images of the Beatles, and who proposed that the Beatles who were in the process as you probably know, being a Beatle ologist of great repute, were in the process of breaking up. And they owed United Artists four films. And they had given them "Help" and "A Hard Day's Night," and they couldn't get together in the same room to decide on another picture. Because they were at... well, animosity was a polite word for it. They weren't getting along. And Big Al Brodax, who was so named because he wasn't big, came up with the very ingenious notion of making a cartoon version with Beatle voices. So these guys wouldn't have to be in the same room at the same time.

And needless to say, United Artists said "any port in a storm," we can't get the Beatles live in a room, we'll take them in animation. And that will be film three for United Artists.

So they got the Beatles to agree to substitute as one of their committed films for United Artists, a cartoon version. And they had approval of the script. Now, there were 40 writers on the script. Four-Zero. And the first one that is named on the credits that you mentioned, he was out the door almost from the very beginning.

BH: Who, Lee Minoff?

ES: Well, I didn't say it, you did. He's still screaming for a credit that isn't his. But let him have it if he wants it. In any case, he produced the draft that was given to John Lennon. And John Lennon said "This is the bloody Flintstones! We won't do it."

And then panic set in, because in London they had 106 artists waiting, (this is drawing artists, graphic artists waiting) under the direction of Bob Balser and the supreme direction of Heinz Edelmann. Waiting in two studios in Soho, in London, waiting to go. Waiting. You know, give us the words fellows, we're ready to draw! Have pen, will travel. And this thumbs down from John Lennon put them in a tremendous panic.

Imagine having a payroll of 106 guys. Not to mention all the coffee they drank. And not having anything to give them. And one after another, they interviewed writers, and these writers said you know, this is too much pressure. We've got a life to lead and we just don't want to do it.
And among the people who were hired for a day or so, included the prize
winning playwright, Tom Stoppard. Who was one of the greatest, if not the greatest living English playwright.

Joe Orton, who has since died, who was one of the great comic playwrights, and a number of names that wouldn't be familiar. And the most unfamiliar name was the guy who was number forty, namely myself. And I got chosen because Big Al Brodax read in a paper that, in the Broadway News of the New York Times, that I had been chosen by Richard Rogers of Rogers and Hammerstein fame, to follow Hammerstein as Richard Rogers' collaborator on a musical. And he said, let's figure it out, the guy teaches at Yale, he's working with Richard Rogers, how far wrong could I go hiring him blind?

So he called me up on the phone and he said "How would you like to work on the Beatles Yellow Submarine?" I said "I don't know what you're talking about." And of course, he thought I was playing hard to get. And he said "How'd you like to come to London and write the script?" I said "I don't know how to write a cartoon." And he said "But Sgt. Pepper has already sold 3 million albums."

Now I didn't know who Sgt. Pepper was but I figured he was a military bandsman who'd put out some discs. And I said so help me, "Mrs. Pepper must be very happy. And so too all the little Peppers." And he fell off his chair with laughter. He said "This guy's great, we want him!" And of course in typical movie fashion, there were 10 guys from United Artists on extension phones listening to my interview and they said "Al's right, we gotta get this guy." So in answer to the short question "How'd they get you to London?" The answer was they offered me for 3 weeks work, more money than I got in a year as an instructor at Yale.

BH: Wow! That's a big magnet there, Erich.

ES: And a chauffeur day and night.

BH: Oh, that's very important.

ES: There's only one thing, my contract stipulated I owed them 23 hours a day! They had to give me an hour to run around Hyde Park that was the only hour I had free. So I had the chauffeur, the total mileage was about eight miles.

BH: Didn't get a chance to use him!

ES: And I got there, and I wrote the thing in four parts at once. Because Balser had divided the artists up in teams of four. So unlike live actors, where... Tom Cruise can only be one room at one time. If you're drawing them, you could have four guys drawing four Ringos and Ringo could be in four different adventures at once. So I ended up writing the middle, the end, the beginning in no particular order. Messengers just kept coming back and forth to my room to get material. Very early in the morning I was allowed to see dailys which are the rough sketches.

They used to do pencil sketches of the story . You know just black and white pencil sketches, with my dialogue across. To see how it went across. And I never left my room except to see these penciled drawings and to speak to Big Al Brodax. And one thing that was important was I had to stay within the summary of the story that had already been OK'd by the Beatles. So I mean I couldn't have brought in Jane Fonda, no matter how attractive she would have made the film, because she hadn't been OK'd. So I had to stay within the parameters that the Beatles had OK'd. And even, this was the tumultuous time when Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles passed away. Believe this, this is rather grim humor.

But the producers called me up and they said "Erich, don't go to the funeral. Because think of all the writing you can get done that doesn't have to be approved, while they find a successor for Brian Epstein." Which is pretty hard hearted, but I stayed in my room and I wrote. And here was a classical odyssey of four men of music coming to bring brightness back into the world. I don't think of it as anything other than a lark.

BH: So you were given a kind of a partial outline is that right?

ES: Yes, I'd been given what they had approved of, I mean Pepperland was there. I have the dubious distinction of having coined the phrase "Blue Meanies."

BH: Well, then you're responsible, huh?

ES: Blue Meanies in your dictionary. And write into your local Webster's Dictionary and say it should have my name after it. Blue Meanies meaning policeman. Remember the Chicago Riots, they were called the Blue Meanies? I coined that phrase and a couple of other things that ...

BH: So, in total you had about three weeks.

ES: I had 3 weeks, and I got this thing on course. Because 24 hours a day and a film ... 3 weeks on that film was like 12 weeks on any other film because as I said, they were divided into groups of four. They were working four times as fast, with four Sub directors. Bob Balser, if I recall was only one of them. And George Dunning was over Bob. I remember having more conversations with Bob than with George.

BH: What hotel did they put in? Did they put you up in a hotel?

ES: Let the record show, the Londonderry Hotel.

BH: The Londonderry Hotel.

ES: It went around Hyde Park, so I could go out and run around Hyde Park.

BH: Oh, it's a good thing they had that park there just for you. So that was 3 weeks, 23 hours a day and Londonderry Hotel. Now, would you provide for us a few examples of what you feel are some of the most successful scenes in the movie?

ES: Well, the structures... Charlie Jenkins was a, that's a milestone in cinema innovation in terms of... We're talking in the days of computer graphics, I mean my 4 year old daughter can do graphics like the Yellow Submarine on her PC. It isn't fair. But we're talking about the summer of 1967 when some of this stuff really new. The insertion of live action into animation, that was altogether new. And there were some spectacular things.

And they did something with boiling oil I just thought that was something you filled a person with you wanted to kill. But they had a process that they used boiling oil for to create visual effects that I'm not thrifty enough to identify. But these are things that people wouldn't even notice. But the fact is that they realized Heinz Edelmann's ground breaking drawings. I mean there's something called Yellow Submarine art. And that was created by Heinz Edelmann.

You know all that is a hallmark of the picture. You'll know a Yellow Submarine drawing when you see it.

BH: You know, of course, many people in America feel that it was Peter Max who did that drawing. We talked with Heinz yesterday about that. And had a good laugh over that particular claim. He mentioned a whole stream of other artists that supposedly worked on it but didn't, under him at least they claim they did.

Now, is it correct to assume that when you wrote the finished script you were not consciously developing any allegorical or mythological theme -- or at least that you were not intentionally placing multiple levels of meaning in the story line?

ES: Absolutely not. And I can tell you on a level when it was learned, you see, I set things on course in those 3 weeks and then I went back to teach at Yale. And the Beatles said come back to England on the weekend and listen to this. For a kid who was just out of graduate school and he's earning $3,000.00 a year and he suddenly gets an invitation from the Beatles to come every weekend to work on the film. To London, first-class yet! And so I came back and continued my association with them. And so I did lots more things for the film, because it was far from finished. They did the recording of the voices on the weekends when I could be there.

BH: But there was no, as you have mentioned, there was no allegorical or mythological theme?

ES: You've reminded of the point I wanted to make. I would go from the classroom to the airport and from my Yalies to my Beatles. And the kids would give me questions, "ask John Lennon what this word means in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." And he once freaked out on that. He said to me, "Why don't they stop? I'm not the holy scriptures! I just write off the top of my head, I don't have any meanings. Don't interpret me like the Bible." And he was very upset and I was upset because he actually shrieked.

BH: And of course your intention in writing this was not consciously...

ES: To get from A to B, to get from "United Artists presents..." to "The End" in an hour and a half, and get there quick.

BH: Now, you've already mentioned this a little bit. You did spend some moments with at least two of the Beatles, this is what I learned from the Yale literary magazine...

ES: Oh, absolutely! And subsequently I spent more time with them.

BH: Could you tell us about some of that time? Because obviously our listeners would love to hear a little bit of that wisdom.

ES: As I told you I was working with Richard Rogers when I went to see the Beatles. And I was privileged to attend some of their recording sessions, and during the breaks, I mean imagine in this big Abbey Road studio, oh by the way, that's one of the low moments of my life, at midnight at the Abbey Road studios and there are thousands of 14 year old girls waiting for stardom to step out. And they crowded around my taxi and they said "Who is it? Who is it?" And the girls screamed out "It's nobody! It's nobody!" And Big Al Brodax said to me "See Segal, they know ya!" Anyway I got inside, my ego bruised and there I was just with the Beatles, just the four of them. And I remember that these rich, super rich people were eating take-away hot dogs that looked like something you wouldn't give your dog. And ...

BH: Ok, you were watching them eating the worst hot dogs in the world.

ES: Yes, and I sat down at the piano and I played from my other employer, Richard Rogers, I started to play Rogers and Hart. And the next thing I know, Ringo was leaning over the piano, and he said "That's cool." And I said "I suppose you don't like that kind of music," I said to Ringo. And he said "No, we love it! It's an old misconception, we love the great standards, especially Rogers and Hart, Cole Porter. We really love that stuff." And I said "Well, I'm privileged to bring you a message from Richard Rogers who says he loves your stuff too."

So I was a messenger for 2 generations of composers and proud to do it. So they enjoyed that sort of thing. But, they never got outside to hear any other music. I had a lot of fun with Ringo, we played some duets. George Harrison couldn't have been more cooperative in his willingness to see that I was comfortable and got all the information I wanted. Paul was extremely creative! I don't know whether you know this, but when the film opened the following summer, in England it was much longer than it is in its American version.

BH: No, I didn't know.

ES: And we had a meeting at Abbey Road, again a year after this meeting I just described, and Paul spoke like an intelligent, I'd give him an A-plus, boy in a college seminar. In which he said what's making this film drag a little bit and what we've got to cut and rerecord. So it was changed for the American version.

BH: I didn't know that. So, your relationship with the Beatles continued after the film.

ES: Perhaps the most significant moment and the only thing I can add as probably the unknown footnote to the history of the Beatles themselves is, I was sitting in a restaurant years after the Yellow Submarine. It was at least 20 years ago because it was before I was married, and in a restaurant called the Aware Inn, I kid you not, that's what is was called, the Aware Inn. And they had a room in the upstairs where there were just four tables. And I was sitting at one with my date and at the one table for four in the corner, there was sitting John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and 2 business types. And the next thing I knew, John Lennon is standing at my table and he said "Excuse me, do you remember me? I'm John. Which has to be the understatement of the century. My date was in a coma!

Needless to say, I said "John, good to see you." Blah blah blah. And he said "Erich, Yoko and I would like to ask you to come over to the table, but I'm afraid we're talking some very private business. And I wish I could." Well, naturally, there were only four tables up there. I then eaves dropped, I confess, to what they were talking about. And they were talking about the possible reunion of the Beatles after they had broken up. So it was always on the cards, and I wonder if, had Lennon lived they would have gotten together at some later time.

BH: Yea, well, that's really...

ES: They were saying if Paul would do this and if Paul would do that and so on and so forth. It never was off the table.

BH: I didn't know that and I'm glad to know it now.

ES: And you know when I think they would have done it?

BH: What?

ES: For Band Aid. For Geldoff.

BH: Of course.

ES: That would have been a perfect moment.

BH: Of course it would have been.

ES: They wouldn't have refused.

BH: How did they then feel about the finished product of the Yellow Submarine? Because they obviously saw the changes and everything that took place, how did they feel then?

ES: Well, they felt pleased that their voices had been listened to. I thought it was a mistake to have them live, because then, at the end, 'cause then you confuse the live and the drawing.

BH: Did they feel that way, that it was a mistake?

ES: Well, you know how movie companies are. The contract said the Beatles would give you one day. Now if you had the Beatles at your disposal for one day, would you film them or wouldn't you? And if you have the Beatles on film, would you use it or wouldn't you?

BH: Well, one of my last questions was, was I wrong in concluding that your work on the Yellow Submarine is still less satisfying than steeping yourself in the Greek Tragedies and other classics, and then imparting that experience to your students? It feels like kind of an awkward question now, because it seems like you enjoyed their presence and that production a lot more than...

ES: I enjoyed it as an interlude in my life. I don't think I could work that way. I mean it was, when you think of it, it was , the whole story is marked with tragedy. In the middle of filming - Brian Epstein's death. The emotional break-up of the Beatles themselves. The ultimate death of John Lennon. Its not a really happy story. But what have as our compensation is the heritage of what they left us. And that lives forever.

BH: By the way, I note here, do you have a Corgi Yellow Submarine?

ES: No.

BH: Would you accept a Corgi Yellow Submarine from us? The only problem with it, and I'm embarrassed to say this, 'cause they're so hard to come by, is that my Beatles fell out of my Yellow Submarine. You know the pop-up parts? Would you accept it without the Beatles in it?

ES: Gladly! I can always imagine the Beatles.

BH: Well, thank you. I'd be most happy to send that along. Because if anyone deserves one of these, you certainly do. The unfortunate thing is, they've become so rare. It's not that they're just ultimately outlandishly expensive, but even if you could find one. They're just hard to find. And again, one of the things that I wanted to conclude with is your contributions to the creation of a world cultural mythology , or a source of great joy, especially to myself, I'll tell you, but to our planet as well. And I see the story, and I can read the story, of the Hero's Journey, you know the Hero's journey that Joseph Campbell, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung, and the individual I studied under, Dr. Rollo May, involved in. You can interpret the Yellow Submarine along those lines, whether it was consciously put together like that or not.

ES: All great stories are mythological quests like that.

BH: Well, I think its an important quest which my daughter just loves, ad infinitum. We watch the Yellow Submarine about once a month and of course we have the cut version. We don't have the full version, but I don't think the full version ever made it to this country, right?

ES: No, it was trimmed. In fact, it was like the first draft of a book.

BH: Which area did they cut, do you remember?

ES: Which part did they cut?

BH: Yes.

ES: They cut the fight and there was just too much fighting at the end in the picture. Now, did they, and you've got me here, I know the song "Hey, Bulldog" was one of the songs that either went in or went out.

BH: It went out. What are you doing these days. What's on your daily agenda?

ES: Well, I feel like an utter fool, because I've just finished a novel and I'd love to tell you the name of it so you could pass it on to anybody interested in reading a good book, but I've finished everything but the title. I haven't the vaguest idea what the title's going to be. Maybe I'll call you up if you don't mind and I'll send you a fax in a month or so.

BH: Would you please? And perhaps we could talk about it on the air if you've got the time.

ES: I would like that very much!

BH: And one of the things we're going to be sending along to you of course is this Corgi Yellow Submarine, which is incomplete, but it's the best I can do. And we'll be sending you some Barbi trading cards, a whole set of those for your children. You have a daughter whose four?

ES: Yes.

BH: And there's Sesame Street trading cards which...

ES: Oh, she loves Sesame Street.

BH: There's another set of cards we're going to be sending called "Where are they?" A collectors' set. It's like you know there's a little cartoon "Where's Waldo?" You look into the card and try to find people? And that kind of thing. She might enjoy those.

ES: Oh, she loves Waldo too.

BH: Well, we'll send them along with a tape of the show. And I want to thank you so much for taking time. I know you must be enormously busy.

ES: It's my pleasure. I'm only sorry I couldn't cross-connect with Heinz Edelmann, 'cause we've gotten out of touch.

BH: Well, you know, of course, we'll send you his phone numbers, addresses and everything else. He'd love to hear from you Erich.

ES: Good, I'll drop him a note.

BH: Sure, yea he'd love to hear from you. And of course, I hope to be in touch with you sometime in the future. And also, one of the other things we'll do is, we'll Xerox the entire Yale Literary magazine for you. And we'll do the color pages in color 'cause boy are they outstanding! I have seen a lot of drawings of the characters in the movie and I'm certain you have too, but some are finer than others. And somehow the cover and the old centerfold, that's some centerfold they have there! Beautiful! And of course, we'll send that along too. If we bump into, I'll make a promise, if we bump into a second one of these, I'll send you one of the copies, OK?

ES: Great!

BH: Thank you Dr. Segal.

ES: Thank you.

BH: It's been very kind of you and I very much appreciate it.

ES: My pleasure.

BH: Bye bye sir.