Jay Leno bought fake Beatles wig years before working with Paul McCartney, joining biopic

nypost.com:

“Midas Man” — the new biopic of Beatles manager Brian Epstein — Jay Leno didn’t aim to put on a “really big show” as the TV legend.“They didn’t want an impression of Ed Sullivan,” the longtime “Tonight Show” host told The Post. “They just wanted someone who was a TV presenter.“So I said, ‘I’m gonna get killed because I don’t do an impression.’ But it was OK.

I think people understood that I wasn’t trying to [imitate him].”The film, which is streaming on Olyn, depicts how The Beatles made their US TV debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on Feb.

9, 1964. And the 74-year-old comedian, then 13, was one of the record 73 million viewers glued to the tube.“It’s one of the biggest nights of viewership ever,” he said. “We were in the TV room, and we had our TV trays, and I think my mom had made pizza.”But Leno’s father was less hyped about the hoopla surrounding The Beatles. “So I say to my dad, ‘You know, Pop, The Beatles write all their own music,’ ” Leno recalled. “My father goes, ‘You know something — some guy gives these kids a couple of bucks to go out there and act loony, and you all fall for it.’ That was my dad’s impression of The Beatles.

I thought it was the funniest thing ever. It just made me laugh.”Leno, though, was schooled early on by The Beatles while growing up in Andover, Massachusetts.“My mother is from Scotland, and all her sisters would occasionally go back to Scotland.