Mal Evans, a True 'Fifth Beatle,' Gets No Second Act -- Twisted Tales

John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for 'A Day in the Life' sold in June 2010 at Sotheby's for $1.2 million. The pricey scribbles had once been in the possession of former Beatles road manager Mal Evans, one of the more legitimate claimants to the title "the fifth Beatle."

If producer George Martin helped the Beatles achieve their expansive sound, if manager Brian Epstein gave them their rascally image, and keyboardist Billy Preston added gospel overtones to 'Let It Be,' Mal Evans bought the socks. For the group's duration, he was the faithful gofer. "Loving them as I do, nothing is too much trouble," Evans once wrote in his diary. His devotion to the band eventually broke up his marriage; when the Beatles themselves broke up, he found himself adrift.

The hulking, mild-mannered Evans first encountered the moptops during their midday appearances at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, on his lunch hour from a phone company. On George Harrison's recommendation, he took part-time work as a doorman at the club. When the Beatles gained national fame, Evans was hired as assistant to road manager Neil Aspinall.

Returning to Liverpool after one London gig in heavy winter fog, Evans was forced to smash a cracked windshield in the band's van in order to see. The band huddled together behind the driver on the floor, drinking whiskey to stay warm. Paul McCartney later recalled the incident as a "Beatle sandwich."

When Bob Dylan first turned the Beatles on to marijuana in a New York hotel room, it was Evans who was enlisted to write down McCartney's profound thoughts. "Get it down, Mal!" the Cute Beatle yelled.

By then, Evans was a trusted confidant. Lennon once pronounced Mal his "favorite animal." Evans even accompanied the group on its infamous retreat to India, and he and Harrison went on from there to visit Dylan and the Band in Woodstock.

Though he wasn't musically inclined, Evans played bit roles on several Beatles tracks. He sang in the chorus on 'Yellow Submarine,' managed the alarm clock on 'A Day in the Life' and banged the anvil on 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer.' He also discovered a group for Apple, the Beatles' record label, called the Iveys, later known as Badfinger.

But by the time of the Beatles' breakup, Evans was feeling underappreciated. While others in the entourage were earning plenty of money, he was still making a standard weekly salary. Headed for financial trouble, he was too proud to ask for a raise. "He was too nice for his own good," his ex-wife later said. The Beatles, she claimed, treated him "like a dishcloth."

With the collapse of both his marriage and the Beatles, Evans settled in L.A., where he joined Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson and other drinking buddies during Lennon's long "lost weekend" of separation from Yoko Ono. A couple of years later, Evans was writing a book, 'Living the Beatles Legend,' when his drinking and drug use finally took their toll.

Incoherent on a heavy dose of valium, he began brandishing a gun as his co-writer and his live-in girlfriend tried to calm the big man down. Though he had been named an Honorary Sheriff of Los Angeles County, when the police arrived they took quick action. Mal Evans died instantly in the early days of 1976 when he was shot four times by a member of the LAPD. His gun, it was later reported, was an air rifle.

No Beatles attended the memorial service. His friend Nilsson made arrangements with the funeral director to send Evans' cremated remains to his mother in England. Friends were briefly horrified when the airline feared it had misplaced the ashes.

"They should look in the dead letter file," Lennon reportedly joked.