What happened to Jimmie Nicol?

A movie about Ringo Starr’s replacement for The Beatles’ 1964 Aussie tour reveals ‘betrayal, abuse and bankruptcy’.

The Beatles in Sydney in 1964, from left: George Harrison, Jimmie Nicol, Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

Jimmie Nicol was given the regulation moptop haircut and the thin-lapel suit required to be in the world’s greatest pop group.

For 13 days in 1964 he lived the dream as a member of The Beatles at the start of their first world tour but as quickly as fame arrived, it disappeared. The drummer vanished from public view and was last heard of talking about starting a new life in Mexico.

More than half a century after temporarily replacing Ringo Starr, Nicol will once again be thrust into the spotlight with plans for a Hollywood film about his life. His son, who has not heard from him in 13 years, said that the reclusive musician would be mortified by the global attention.

The film rights to a book about Nicol’s life have been bought by the son of the late singer Roy Orbison. It is a story of “betrayal, substance abuse, bankruptcy and an eventual disappearance that has led many to question whether he is dead or alive,” according to the book’s author.

Nicol was recruited by The Beatles a day before the band departed for a tour of Denmark, Holland, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, after Starr, who had replaced Pete Best as the band’s drummer two years earlier, was taken to hospital with tonsillitis.

Jimmy Nicol in September 1996.

When Starr recovered, the substitute was out. The fame and the girls disappeared and within a decade so had Nicol with reports that he was living as a recluse. His son, Howie Nicol, 58, understands his father’s desire to remain undiscovered. “Imagine what you did when you were 23, 24 it has kind of followed you for the rest of time whether it be true or untrue,” he said.

Howie Nicol, who coincidentally won a Bafta for his work as a sound recordist on The Beatles Anthology, a documentary in 1996, said: “My dad and I squared things away along time ago. I completely respect what he wants to do and how he wants to approach his life. He gave me instructions as what to do when people come knocking. [He] said the best thing you can do is tell people you are dead and they will go away.”

He is sure that his father would not approve the film being planned by Alex Orbison and his fellow producer Ashley Hamilton, the son of the actors George Hamilton and Alana Stewart.

“He will be mortified if that there is a film which will define him, that will be terrible,” he said. “It is just two weeks in a person’s life. I can understand why historians and fans are interested and I am interested myself but it’s an enormous thing to cope with.”

Howie Nicol says that he has no idea of his father’s location, or even if he is still alive. He would now be 77. “I try to collect [mementoes of his father] on the internet because they are not pieces of somebody who is a Beatle they are pieces of someone who is my father who was not around much when I was young because he was a travelling musician and I don’t see him,” he said. “It is quite nice for me and my family to have that.”

The last confirmed sighting of Nicol was outside his rented first-floor flat in a rubbish-strewn mews in Kentish Town, north London. A neighbour said this week that Nicol and a woman called Josefina, he presumed to be the drummer’s wife, had left four years ago saying they were moving to her native Mexico. Howie Nicol says the suggestion that father was married to Josefina was “quite possibly right” and that if the couple were in Mexico “I am thrilled for him. He will be doing what he wants to do”.

Sir Paul McCartney once said he understood Nicol’s reluctance to speak about his time in the Beatles saying: “It wasn’t an easy thing for Jimmie to stand in for Ringo and have all that fame thrust upon him. And the minute his tenure was over, he wasn’t famous anymore.”

When McCartney asked how Nicol was coping with the pressure, the drummer would reply: “It’s getting better”. The phrase inspired the song Getting Better on the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

Jim Berkenstadt, author of The Beatle who Vanished on which the film is to be based, failed to find Nicol. He was told that in 2011 someone saw the drummer working on a building site in Amsterdam. When asked if he was Jimmie Nicol, the man nodded, signed an autograph and disappeared back into the site without saying a word.

Berkenstadt said: “As to whether or not Jimmie Nicol would appreciate a film about his fascinating, enigmatic music career ... you would have to ask Jimmie Nicol, if you can find him.”