Watch CBS News

6 Fair Lawn, N.J. Students Memorialized In Ringo Starr's New Book, 'Photograph'

WOODLAND PARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr recently released a book called "Photograph."

It turns out that Ringo liked to take pictures and one of them has sparked a whole new wave of "Beatlemania" among the band's original fans.

Starr's search for six teenagers who he photographed during the Beatles' first trip to America in 1964 may be over.

A California man said they are six students from Fair Lawn High School in New Jersey.

The drummer had guessed he snapped the photo, which appears in his book, in Miami.

"We all had cameras. We all had a camera, a drink, and a cigarette. They were the three things we all carried all the time," Starr told CBS News' Ben Tracy.

Starr became the band's unofficial photographer, capturing rarely seen private moments.

As Tracy reported, the biggest of all boy bands was always on the move -- and so was Ringo's camera.

"They were in that car and here's our hero ... who is he?" Starr told Tracy. "They came to the airport, I believe now, to see us. And guess what? They really saw us and we saw them."

"In the photo, I'm in the backseat kind of leaning on the back window," Charlie Schwartz, then 17, told Tracy.

He said he and his friends skipped school to see the Beatles arrive at John F. Kennedy Airport, but they couldn't get in so they headed home.

"What we thought was a funeral procession was creeping upon us, all these limousines with headlights on. And it turns out to be the Beatles," Schwartz recalled.

"They all put the windows down and 'hey I got me camera I'll take them,'" Starr said of the ride from the airport.

"And then all of a sudden, Ringo pulls up and slides his window down and starts snapping all these pictures," said Schwartz.

A sixth teen in the back of the car was Matt Blender. He recently passed away.

Schwartz, now 67 and living in California, said he saw Ringo's photo of him for the first time this week.

"It was just so surreal. I couldn't believe it," Schwartz said.

You May Also Be Interested In These Stories

(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.