Do we like Brian Epstein?
Our score: 8 out of 10. He was on the right side of the big calls and was himself hounded for who he was, with a few flaws and a messy business record keeping him off the top.
Brian Epstein was a Jewish Liverpool furniture-and-record-shop heir who walked into the Cavern Club and changed pop history. His family ran the NEMS stores, and the Jewish Journal's review of Philip Norman's new biography says he took his Judaism seriously, keeping kosher and holding Shabbat dinners. He then took a local band to the world, including America, and staged pop music in stadiums.
He was a gay man in a country where it was a crime until 1967. Norman's account says he was blackmailed more than once, and screenwriter Brigit Grant, speaking about the film Midas Man, says he was beaten in an attempted blackmail and once arrested for soliciting. Those threats were aimed at him, and they say plenty about the era, nothing against him.
On the harm check, nothing of his own turned up: no nasty words, no grievance campaigns, no dodgy company. The best mark is Jacksonville, 1964, where the Beatles' contract, signed by Epstein, said they would not have to play to a segregated audience. Far Out reports that the Gator Bowl organisers gave in and the show went ahead.
The business side is where he stumbled. He signed away 90 per cent of Beatles merchandising to a licensing company, and when he tried to license things himself, the Jewish Journal says retailers cancelled orders and many small manufacturers failed. He and NEMS sued the US firm Seltaeb in 1964, and it countersued, accusing him of issuing unauthorised licences. A court dismissed his suit in 1965 after he refused to give a deposition, and the parties settled shortly before he died.
As a person, the picture is human rather than saintly. The Jewish Journal's review calls him generous and honest in business, devoted to the band and never meddling with their music, though prone to violent rage. It adds that Lennon could mock him cruelly and that Epstein sometimes came back from meetings in tears. The Pete Best sacking is also on his ledger, though accounts differ on who made that call.
The recent noise is about how he died. A coroner recorded accidental death in 1967, and Norman's May 2026 book floats the idea of a professional hit, resting on a third-hand account of a 1985 Reggie Kray prison interview. The Spectator's reviewer calls that evidence thin and notes that Paul McCartney accepts the coroner's verdict, so treat it as theory, not fact.