Ringo Starr Could be a ‘Mean Individual’ to Strangers, According to a Friend
Years after The Beatles broke up, Ringo Starr began to frequent a Monte Carlo casino where he considered the manager a friend. He spent many nights there, becoming a familiar figure to the staff and other patrons. While he had shaved his head, making him look markedly different than he did in his mop-top days with The Beatles, people still recognized him. According to manager Barry Sinkow, the musician couldn’t stand it when people approached him.
Ringo Starr was friends with a casino manager in Monte Carlo
In the 1970s, Starr spent an extended period of time in Monte Carlo, where he made the Loews Casino one of his favorite local haunts. Here, he met Sinkow.
Sinkow didn’t recognize the bald man who introduced himself as “Richard.” Because of this, he befriended Starr as a person, not a celebrity. This was likely welcome to Starr after over a decade of fame. Sinkow began joining Starr and his friends for dinner and always made sure the check was taken care of for them.
His friend said Ringo Starr could be cold toward strangers
Starr became known as the “funny Beatle,” and musician Todd Rundgren said he was the most approachable of all the Beatles.
“Ringo was the most approachable of all of the Beatles,” Rundgren told Louder Sound. “I have met each of the band in turn. If you grew up on A Hard Day’s Night and Help! and watched The Beatles’ antics, to actually meet them in person was often a let-down.”
Starr, according to Rundgren, was the only Beatle who seemed happy-go-lucky and to have recovered from The Beatles’ breakup. Sinkoff saw a different side to Starr, at least when it came to his interactions with strangers.
“He was the sassiest, most humorous person I’ve ever met in my life,” Sinkow said, adding, “He had a sense of humor. He was the funniest guy that you wanted to sit and be with. But he was a mean individual if he did not know you. He did not like to be accosted or people coming up to him.”
While he would occasionally sign an autograph if someone approached him, Starr tried to fix any fans with an icy glare to discourage them from walking over.
“I said, ‘Rich, that’s your fault. You made money in the business and they’re excited to see you, so relax,'” Sinkoff said. “So he started to calm down a little bit, but he didn’t like people to just walk over to [his] table. If we were sitting at a bar and he looked up and somebody was coming toward him, he would say, ‘Uh oh.’ And he would give them one of his stares. Once in a while he would sign an autograph, but he didn’t like it.”
He said he was tired of being a celebrity
Starr said he had grown tired of fame at this point in his life. He wasn’t producing music in the way he wanted, and he felt aimless.
“After the band broke up, I wasn’t working,” Starr said. “I wasn’t doing what I love, which is playing drums and performing. I ended up as just some f***ing celebrity. Someone in England put it so cruelly: They said, ‘If there’s an opening of an envelope, he’ll be there.’ That hit me. I thought, ‘S***, yeah, this is what I’m doing now.'”
