How the Beatles Really Ended Up at a Garden Party in Brentwood

Unpublished photos of the Beatles are increasingly hard to come by, but Alison Martino found a few taken in Los Angeles to twist and shout about.

My friend Laura Fleming and I were teenagers when we first pored over images of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in her family’s photo albums back in the ‘80s. I remember fixating on a snap of Laura’s mother, Bonnie Cowan Fleming, getting chummy with Paul and members of the band’s entourage at a garden party in Brentwood in 1964. She looked like Gidget in a polka dot dress from Jax boutique in Beverly Hills. Laura and I were so jealous.