Review: 'Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans'

Beatles road manager and personal assistant Mal Evans found his way into memes in the wake of Peter Jackson's 2021 "The Beatle: Get Back" documentary.

Hulking yet amiable, always smiling, Evans was ever-present and ready to help throughout the film, just as he was throughout the Beatles' lives off-screen — fetching food and cups of tea, jotting down (and even suggesting) lyrics, setting up the drum kit and, when called upon, happily hammering an anvil during rehearsals of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

Evans is/was most commonly described as being a big teddy bear. He had a charisma that comes through on film and even in photos that makes you like him. Part of the appeal, I think, is that he's us: A person who REALLY likes the Beatles who gets to hang out with them all the time. Who even gets to, sort of, BE one of them, while, at the same remaining an approachable, relatable human being.

Given that we are living at what appears to be Peak Mal, Kenneth Womack's "Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans" is exceedingly well-timed. It's also important, in that it provides a new perspective on the Beatles' story from an insider who was with the group nearly all the time. And it's also a tragedy.

Despite his smiling, eager to please presence, Evans was a sad character. He, and especially his family, paid a price for his endless dedication to the Beatles. Touring and accompanying various the various band members on press junkets, film projects and vacations took Evans away from his wife and children for weeks, even months, at a time. And he lived a different life while away, sleeping with groupies, using drugs and drinking too much. He responded to the call of the Beatles, even when there wasn't one. Time after time, he made the choice to go along on different trips with the group's members when he might've stayed at home. He couldn't bear being left out, and he didn't bother seeking out a life that might allow him to better serve the needs of his family.

Womack does an excellent job of showing the ever-mounting costs of Evans' actions, which culminate with Evans' wife, Lily, finally, filing for divorce. She knows Mal will never change and that he will never be faithful. Faced with losing his family, Evans comes to the same realization and the cost is too much for him to bear. 

Living in Los Angeles at the time, sharing an apartment with a girlfriend, he swallows a bottle of valium and holes up in the bedroom with his prized Winchester rifle (Womack foreshadows the moment throughout the book, documenting Evans' fascination with guns and the Wild West). When his girlfriend threatens to call the police, Evans encouraged her to do so, having made a decision that he wants to die. When the police arrived, he raised the rifle up as if to fire it and the officers shot him dead.

Womack tells this sad story with sensitivity, not sensationalism, along the way charting not just Evans' low points, but the high ones as well. What makes the book compelling, and important, is that many of these details come directly via Evans' own words. Evans kept a daily diary throughout his time with the Beatles and, during the height of Beatlemania and again after the group's breakup, drafted memoirs about his time with the band. Evans' son, Gary, made these documents available to Womack and was interviewed for the book, as were many others who knew Mal. 

Much of the time, Evans' writings merely provide a different, more inside perspective on what we already know about the Beatles' career, and there's a lot of details about Mal carting around amps and making tea. Yet, there are many great details, too, including Mal's contributions to the Beatles' music. 

Evans discusses helping Paul McCartney come up with the name of "Sgt. Pepper" and claims that he helped Paul McCartney co-write that album's title tune along with "Fixing a Hole." Evans said McCartney promised Mal co-writing credit for both tunes, but later reneged, telling him that "Lennon and McCartney are the biggest things in our lives. We are really a hot item, and we don't want to make it Lennon-McCartney-Evans." Evans writes that he was promised royalties on the tunes, but it's not clear whether he ever got any. 

"I was so in love with the group that it didn't matter to me," Evans writes. "I knew myself what had happened."

Evans' recollections of the Beatles meeting Elvis Presley are warmly entertaining, given that Evans was an Elvis superfan, as are his recollections of appearing as a long-distance swimmer during a couple of scenes in "Help!"

Also fascinating are the details about Evans' work championing and helping to produce songs by Apple Records band, Badfinger - a story that ultimately turned out as tragic as Evans' own.

It would've been easy for Womack to be sensational and to fall back on cliches about the deadly allure of fame, etc., but he's turned out a very human book. Clearly, Evans had failings, but it's easy to understand how he was swept up by his excitement about and love for the Beatles. He also was a product of his time, an era when men set aside family time for work. Not that this made his absence, and his loss, an easier for his family. It is also touching to read about the Beatles' response to Evans' death. Clearly, despite much mistreatment of Evans, they loved and cared for him as a friend, too, which would have given him great pleasure.

Along with this book, there are plans to share more of Evans' writing and archives in a further volume, which also should be of great interest to fans of the Beatles and of Mal.