Five Minutes With Ringo Starr for The Atlantic

Never meet your idols, they say.

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I don’t like checking email when I’m high, but sometimes I space out and compulsively refresh my iPhone, hoping for something new and shiny. That’s how I clicked on an email from The Atlantic, which said, “Wondering if you might be free this Friday for a shoot in Nashville? It would be afternoon into the evening and shooting Ringo Starr at the Ole Opry.”

The grogginess of a potent gummy exploded into disbelief, happiness, and tears. I’ve been waiting for this shoot all my career, hoping that one day, I will get to meet and photograph a living Beatle (without having to hide in the Paris Opera while standing on a toilet seat, as I did with Paul McCartney).

The week before the shoot was stressful. I was paranoid. I’d get sick. The flight would get cancelled. The editors would change their minds. The plane would crash. The idea of meeting and shaking hands with Ringo was too surreal to imagine as a possible future.

My sister Yana and I have been fervent Beatlemaniacs since she was eleven and I was fifteen. For almost a year, we would run home after school to watch A Hard Day’s Night over and over and over again. I spent hours in the library reading books about the band and memorizing the lyrics to every single song. In 1995, Yana and I made mom take us to a Beatles convention in New Jersey, where we sang along to tribute bands, acquired a 1980 Daily News reporting Lennon’s death, collector cards, and Beatles zines. We also spent a year putting together a Beatles scrapbook, which, when finished, was a thing of beauty. I took it with me when packing for Nashville.

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I was told I’d have about forty minutes for portraits. Since that’s a luxury of time with a rock star, I wanted to play with my magic setup and get a bit weird. My biggest concern was maintaining my wits and leading with the attitude of a detached professional instead of a fangirl. To accomplish that, I wanted to get the scrapbook autograph request out of the way and asked Ringo’s manager if it’s possible to do. I got an immediate, firm no. My former Beatles nerd should have known, Ringo has been vocal about not signing any autographs for the last fifteen years.

For the portrait, I scouted three spots around the Grand Ole Opry, and since my setup is light and hand-held, I planned to move fast between them, anticipating that the time would be cut in half, as is the custom with celebrities. While I was testing the light, I heard a commotion. The hallway was being cleared by a Secret Service-looking security, and just as the path opened, Ringo was ushered from his dressing room towards the stage. The operation was smooth and fast. Later, I was told, perhaps in jest, that this was routine, a way to avoid emotional fans bursting into tears or erupting into screams at the sight of the Beatle.

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The shoot started without a warning when Ringo and his posse, which included his manager and his wife Barbara, a videographer team, and the security gaggle, came into the dressing room where I had my first setup ready. Ringo fist-bumped me and Shane (my partner/assistant), looking us over with faint curiosity and stopping his eyes at Shane’s Stars of Magic T-shirt. “Mr. Magic Man,” was all he said, and that was it, an immediate Ringoism. Then I started photographing.

The first shots are always blunders in which I adjust the light to the subject’s skin tone and try to figure out what I’m doing, all while trying to appear purposeful. But just as I was ready to start taking real photos, Ringo was already done.

“Alright, that was enough,” he said as he stood up.

I had about ten, mostly blurry, photos, so I couldn’t let that happen. That’s when I disassociated from my nervousness and (gently) put my foot down.

“No. We’re not done yet. I need you standing.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Ringo decided to play along. He put his leg on the stool, and we continued shooting.

One of the magazine’s requests was to photograph Ringo with a camera, a nod to the mirror “selfie” he took in 1964. I handed him my second Nikon, just to hold, while I tried to recreate the photo. After only a few test shots, Barbara, a former Bond girl and current gatekeeper, grew irritated and insisted he stop the shoot.

“Don’t you have enough already?” she said. It didn’t sound like a question.

I felt Ringo tense up, but just before he had a chance to say that we were done, I stopped myself and thanked him for the shoot. Before leaving, Ringo turned the camera toward me, looking mischievous, swiveled back to the mirror and took two photos of us. Then he skedaddled out of the room with the troop.

The selfie homage never made it into the magazine, but because of it, I have this photo, taken by Ringo. That’s so much better than an autograph.

Ringo sang two Beatles songs during his brief set at the Grand Ole Opry, Act Naturally and A Little Help With My Friends. The strangest part of the concert was the front row audience, sitting mostly stone-faced, during the entire performance. Halfway through the last song, Ringo looked down and saw Shane and me crouched below the stage — me crying and shooting through my tears, and Shane beaming — and we could’ve sworn he smiled at us. Then it was all over, and without so much as a bow, he vanished.

When I got home, I was nervous to look through the photos, paranoid that I didn’t get anything worthwhile. The timestamps showed that I’d photographed for exactly four minutes, during which I took forty-nine frames. It felt like blacking out and slipping into hyper-focus, and somehow, there was enough variation to work with. Four portraits made it into The Atlantic’s May print issue, one for each minute.

One of my favorite ways to work on an edit is to take a gummy and immerse myself in the photos while listening to music, so I put on a playlist of my favorite Beatles songs and started working. “I get high with a little help from my friends” came on, and though a bit on the nose, it felt like a glitch, my fifteen-year-old and current selves colliding.

🎶 My favorite Beatles songs, on Spotify 🎶

Thank you Lucy Murray Willis for this shoot ❤️

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When I’m 84, The world still needs Ringo Starr by Mark Leibovich

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