The Journey 77. Rick Marcelli and Robin Bragg-Marcelli: Was Brian Epstein Murdered?

Publisher RA “Kris” Millegan talks with Rick Marcelli and Robin Bragg-Marcelli about their book, “HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY: An Intimate Story of Brian Epstein as told by Larry Stanton,” the chance that Epstein was murdered, and their lives dedicated to uncovering the truth.

Kris: My dad talked to me early on and I started talking about conspiracy stuff and CIA-drugs and I couldn’t find very many people that I could talk to. It was always people that had a wide experience in life more that I could talk to. The late 60s and early 70s in L.A. had to be quite interesting.

Rick: I remember taking my tricycle – we lived in Hollywood – and I could ride down Hollywood Boulevard on my tricycle and feel safe. L.A. has gotten quite scary.

Robin: Things changed, I guess, after the Charles Manson murders.

Rick: That’s when the peace and love went out of the 60s I think. That was after Brian Epstein [The Beatles’ manager] passed away in ’67.

Kris: How did you meet Larry Stanton and can you tell a bit of his story?

Rick: I’ve known Larry for a lifetime. When I was younger, thirteen, fourteen, music was everything to me. Larry was a manager and he took our band into the studio and started recording us. He tried to get us a record deal. I didn’t know about his personal life. He kept it hidden. He was gay. He’s from a generation that was persecuted [if you were gay].

Kris: You could be put in jail.

Rick: We didn’t start changing the laws until the ‘70s here in the United States. They didn’t change the laws in England until the year Brian died, 1967. Larry and Brian Epstein came from the same cloth of sort of being tormented and persecuted for their homosexuality.

Robin: I met Larry through Rick and immediately we became friends as well. We had many, many conversations with Larry. And he would talk about the things that involved Brian Epstein but he didn’t mentioned his name, originally. He’d talk about other celebrities. I said, “Larry, you should write a book.” And he said, “Why don’t you guys write it?”

He felt comfortable opening up about his sexuality because of my father who is bisexual; gay. It made Larry much more comfortable opening up and telling us the story of the relationship that he and Brian had. It led to deep secrets that he had been holding for so many years.

Rick: Larry has always felt that he had to protect Brian, while he knew him and after.

Kris: The changes that we have seen in our lifetime are quite amazing. When I was a kid I lived in Fairfax, Virginia, and it was a sunset town. If you were black, you couldn’t be in town after sunset. As a matter of fact, you were only allowed in town two days a week. It’s really nice to see the changes that have happened within our lifetime. A lot of the major actors in the 60s and 70s and 50s and 40s, a bunch of them were gay. It really boggles the mind today to think about the hell that these people had to go through.

Rick: They had to sneak around basically. In the case of Brian, it got to the point where he was very scared about blackmail. The last year of his life was the year that his contract with The Beatles was running out. And he was very concerned about whether or not The Beatles would pick up the new contract. He was also extremely nervous that his personal life was going to be exposed. The Beatles knew he was gay. They were okay with all that. But he didn’t want the public to know it. It would have been very damaging to him and The Beatles and to his other clients. And in the book, we talk about a toxic lover who, ironically, Larry introduced him to.