A Starr Was Born

The Beatles set foot on Canadian soil for the first time on August 18, 1964. That afternoon, their Pan Am Boeing 707, christened “Jet Clipper Beatles,” stopped at Winnipeg International Airport to gas up en route to San Francisco, where the band would kick off its inaugural North American tour. A local TV personality got wind of the layover and put word out on the radio. Hundreds of young Winnipeggers beelined for the airport and packed the terminal roof.

Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, persuaded the quartet to acknowledge the crowd and do a couple of impromptu interviews. A CBC Television crew recorded the twenty-two-minute stopover. Wobbly footage shows the Beatles waving to the crowd as they make their way down the airstairs toward a cluster of reporters and police. Those were the early days of Beatlemania, before the band soured on its excesses: John, Paul, George, and Ringo seemed genuinely delighted at the reception.

But the footage also evokes...