#(but fr maybe i should hang out more on beatles twitter? i think theres less of a community but theres some decent stuff over there)

[phoneybeatlemania]

“I buried George” — or The Missing Actor From Yellow Submarine

The bizarre vanishing of Peter Batten

wow so after reading this post (x) from @idontwanttospoiltheparty​, I had “what the fuckety-fuck?” spinning round in my head. I of course knew The Beatles weren’t leading actors in the Yellow Submarine (1969) film — but I had no idea about the ludicrous shit that happened behind the scenes!

Essentially, during the making of Yellow Submarine, the actor Peter Batten, who played George, was arrested during production and…never heard from again? 😳

Very weird. Some real R.L Stine vibes here. So I was intrigued and decided I had to do some more digging on this — and now here’s what I found, for anyone interested in a pretty useless - but interesting - piece of Beatle history! (more below the cut)

The first place I looked for more information on all of this was Wikipedia — this is what I found:

“According to the special features section of the Yellow Submarine home media release, Peter Batten provided the voice of George for about the first half of the film. Before he finished recording for the film, he was discovered to be a deserter from the British Army of the Rhine in West Germany, and was arrested. His part was completed by Angelis, who was also the voice of Ringo and the Chief Blue Meanie.” (from Wikipedia)

Pretty strange, but oh boy, it gets weirder...

(from The Guardian)

I just—

He just— like what??

THE DIRECTOR  OVERHEARD HIM CHATTING SHIT IN A PUB AND THOUGHT “YUP. THATS GEORGE.”

HE WAS IN BED WITH A LADY WHEN THE POLICE *BURST* IN

HE HAS NOT BEEN SEEN OR HEARD FROM SINCE 😭

It was so fucking wild that I still had to know more. Like its all just so ludicrous that I thought, “this can’t be true — can it????”. I mean, the circumstances are just On Another Level, but this was the 60’s, so who knows.

I dug a little deeper, and I came across this Twitter thread discussing Batten, and eventually I found this tweet:

Again, I was intrigued — but I couldn’t find the article, and so I didn’t believe it. That was until @teatlemania on twitter responded to me, after I enquired about the source. They sent me this:

Its an article from the Telegraph, circa. 1999 — they tracked him down and interviewed him about his experiences in working on the 1969 film.

For anyone who can’t be arsed to read the whole article, here’s a brief summary of all the important bits:

Batten insists he went AWOL from the British Army, and was not a deserter. He was in London with four other soldiers, on the run from the British Army, due to “a particularly stupid sergeant-major”.

He also clarifies that the rumour — of which the director, George Dunning, has claimed — that he was discovered in a London pub, and hired on the spot for his distinct “scouser” accent, is in fact false. Instead, his girlfriend was working for the films production company (Television Cartoons) and brought him in for an audition.

He had a fun time meeting celebrities such as The Beatles and Peter O’Toole — but eventually the military police showed up and arrested him, at his girlfriends flat in Islington.

He hoped to get away through the window, but the police caught him. He served a 9 month jail sentence.

These days (or at least, in 1999) he’s living on a powerboat in Belgium with his wife.

Thats about it. I don’t know why I became so obsessed with this story for a Hot Minute, but I did, and I thought id share it. Its a pretty useless piece of trivia but honestly? sometimes you just gotta get fun outta life.