TeaFlix Interview with Kenneth Womack (Beatles Author)
Hosted by Dr. Angie McCartney & Ruth McCartney

Kenneth Womack's new book: Had he lived into old age, Beatles roadie Mal Evans would have been 87 now. In August 1963, the 28-year-old giant of a man began the adventure of a lifetime when he joined the British band’s cozy entourage, which included manager Brian Epstein and fellow roadie Neil Aspinall. With the release of their “She Loves You” single, the Beatles were poised to shift from a regional to a national sensation. And Mal would be right alongside them as they conquered the world, a jack of all trades who was willing to take on any duty — no matter how big or how small — in their service. In February 1965, as the Beatles and director Richard Lester alighted in the Bahamas, Mal took on his famous role as the befuddled Channel Swimmer in “Help!,” the group’s second feature film. It was a bit part, to be sure, but a cameo appearance that never fails to warm the hearts of Beatles fans across the globe. It was a role, in many ways, that Mal had been born to play. In his teen years, he had toned his large frame through a dedicated regime of swimming and cycling. He had been known to bike for hours — full days, even — on the rural outskirts of Liverpool. And when it came to swimming, there was scarcely a body of water that he didn’t — simply couldn’t — pass up. From the frigid Irish Sea to a serene country lake to the modest dimensions of a chlorinated motel pool, Mal lived to swim. And no mere soak would do. For Mal, thrashing about and playing in the shallows was for amateurs. He preferred the vigorous exertions of a breaststroke to the comparatively pedestrian aquatic ministrations of ordinary folk. https://kennethwomack.com

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TeaFlix Interview with Ray Connolly (The Beatles Interviews Archive)
Hosted by: Dr. Angie McCartney & Ruth McCartney

Ray Connolly (born 4 December 1940) is a British writer. He is best known for his journalism and for writing the screenplays for the films That'll Be the Day and its sequel Stardust, for which he won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain Best Screenplay award. Ray Connolly was born and brought up in Lancashire. He was educated at West Park Catholic Grammar School, St. Helens; Ormskirk Grammar School and the London School of Economics where he read social anthropology. There he also edited the LSE magazine Clare Market Review and was an associate editor of the student film magazine Motion. Career[edit] After entering journalism as a graduate trainee at the Liverpool Daily Post, Connolly then moved to the London Evening Standard where he interviewed, among others, many '60s and '70s rock stars and cultural icons, including the Beatles, Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley. Many of his interviews with the Beatles are collected in The Ray Connolly Beatles Archive, while other interviews are collected in Stardust Memories – Talking About My Generation. He was due to interview John Lennon on the day the ex-Beatle was murdered, an event he wrote about in the BBC radio play Unimaginable. In 2018, he published a biography of the Beatle Being John Lennon – A Restless Life. He has written many articles for the Daily Mail, as well as The Sunday Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer. His novels include; A Girl Who Came to Stay, Newsdeath, Sunday Morning, Shadows on a Wall and Love out of Season (which was adapted for radio as God Bless Our Love) and Sorry, Boys, You Failed The Audition. His biography of Elvis Presley, Being Elvis – A Lonely Life was published in 2016. For the cinema he wrote the films That'll Be The Day and its sequel, Stardust – which was voted the Best Screenplay of 1974 by the Writers' Guild of Great Britain. He also wrote and directed the feature-length documentary entitled James Dean: The First American Teenager, while his television drama series have included Honky Tonk Heroes, Lytton's Diary and Perfect Scoundrels. TV films include Forever Young for Channel 4 and Defrosting the Fridge for the BBC, while he co-wrote, with Alan Benson, the BBC 2 George Martin series about music The Rhythm of Life. He has also written several radio plays, including Lost Fortnight (which is about Raymond Chandler in Hollywood), the series Tim Merryman's Days of Clover, and Sorry, Boys, You Failed the Audition, as well as several short stories for various publications, which are collected in A Handful of Love.

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Learn more about Dr. Angie & Ruth at https://MrsMcCartneysTeas.com and https://RuthMcCartney.com

TeaFlix Interview with Ivor Davis
Hosted by Dr. Angie McCartney & Ruth McCartney

Author/journalist and investigative reporter IVOR DAVIS was deeply embedded in the life of Charles Manson, while maintaining distance from the mesmerizing pull that drew Manson’s followers to him and compelled them to do his savage, unspeakable bidding. Davis retained a cool, independent, and objective view as the case played out, and in his gripping new book Manson Exposed: A Reporter’s 50-Year Journey into Madness and Murder, he shares his personal odyssey over half a century. He meticulously pieces together the complex and Byzantine story, making sense of senseless as well as the facts surrounding one of the most savage massacres in American criminal history. For half a century Davis was an eyewitness to the case. He was hot on the story from the moment the Tate murders were discovered in August 1969. He had a front row seat during the crazy, year-long trial and sheds new light on this ever changing story by sharing how he stayed one step ahead of investigators; pinpointing why this killer band did what they did, and how they did it and who they did it to, as well as clearly identifying all the players in this warped American tragedy. Five to Die was his first book ever published on the murders and was so pinpointed and scrupulously detailed, it was used by the Los Angeles district attorney as a blueprint for the prosecution. Today, drawing from his personal diaries, decades of reportage, court records as well as dozens of new interviews, he weaves together his memories, investigations, and an exclusive dossier gathered over half a century, to deliver new evidence and revelations. The result is a complex and fascinating “I was there” catalogue of criminal certitude. His eyewitness interviews with Manson Family members, their lawyers, prosecutors, plus an assortment of world famous celebrities whose lives were forever scarred as a result of becoming enmeshed in this dark and brutal chapter in murder history, makes for a true life roller coaster ride. Written with a master sto­ryteller’s eye, “Manson Exposed” brings vivid new life and revelations to this much chronicled story.

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