NOTED BEATLES AUTHOR GEOFFREY GIULIANO SUES LENNON'S SISTER FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND FRAUD

Originally Published on BEATLESNEWS.COM By DAVID HABER

Sometimes you just have to stand up for what’s right. In 1988, renowned Beatles author Geoffrey Giuliano co-wrote the first book ever about John Lennon’s childhood. Now, twenty one years later, he’s standing up for what he says is his due. He’s currently preparing to sue Julia Baird, her publishers, filmmakers, and the Weinstein Company, over the upcoming film “Nowhere Boy.”

In 1986, Giuliano published his first book, “The Beatles, A Celebration.” The book was very popular, even the Beatles, themselves, had it on display on the coffee table in the lobby of Apple Records in London. That year, Giuliano attended a Beatles convention in London to help promote the book, and it was there that Gerry Marsden, of Gerry and the Pacemakers, pointed out a woman to Giuliano. She was not there in any official capacity, she was just attending the convention. It turned out to be Julia Baird, John Lennon’s maternal half-sister.

It’s hard for us to remember, so many decades down the road now, that there was a time we didn’t know as much about the lives of the Beatles as we do now, but in 1986, nothing much had ever been written about John’s early life. In fact, while it was common knowledge at the time that John had siblings, nobody knew their names. Giuliano immediately realized that Baird had an important story to tell, and shortly after their first meeting, he contacted her again. Baird was very tentative about publicizing her relationship with John, but over the course of a few months, Giuliano convinced Baird that they should write a book.

But, as Giuliano points out, Baird was very young when she knew John, had moved away from him when he went to live with their Aunt Mimi after their mom Julia died, and really lost track of him after he left to be a star with the Beatles.

Giuliano told Beatles News, “It took me months to convince her to do the book, and then, when I sat down with her to interview her, I was surprised how little she knew about her own family and John’s career. So, in doing my research for the books, I filled in a lot of blanks for her. I had full access, and I interviewed family members who had never spoken to the media before. More than half the material in the book is a result of my research.”

Giuliano also convinced her to ask Paul McCartney to write a forward to the book, which he did. The book, “John Lennon, My Brother,” was a world-wide success. Baird and Giuliano did a promotional tour for the book together, and completed the project as friends. But as people do, afterwards, both went their separate ways, Giuliano going on to write eighteen more critically acclaimed books about the Beatles, and thirty altogether.

So, it was with some surprise when, in 2007, Giuliano learned that Baird had published a new book called “Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon.” (This exact same book was published again in 2008, retitled “The Private John Lennon: The Untold Story from His Sister.”) Giuliano was surprised because it was essentially the same book as “John Lennon, My Brother,” which was result of Giuliano’s research, and which he shares the copyright with Baird, and his name or credit was nowhere to be found on the new book.

In addition, even though Baird’s new book contains information not found in the earlier book, Giuliano says even this information is not “new.”

“Everything that was additional information in ‘Imagine This’ was uncovered by me in my original research for ‘John Lennon, My Brother.’ I was restricted by Julia from including a lot of very interesting information that I learned in the course of my research, including the relationship between Mimi and Julia Lennon and the fight over where John would live. But Julia Baird wouldn’t let me put it in because Mimi and other older members of the family were still alive at the time, and she didn’t want to upset them, as John had just died, and I respected that. But all that ‘new’ material was my research, part of the work that Julia Baird and I were 50/50 partners in.”

Giuliano says he contacted this new book’s publisher and they were not very amenable to even discuss the matter with him. He could have pushed it legally at that time, but he decided to wait to see what would happen with the book, knowing, as he is an author himself, that most rock books just don’t make any money. “Imagine This,” in fact, didn’t.

But then he read in the news that a movie based on Baird’s new book was being made, and he knew it was now necessary for him to take action. His attorney contacted the UK Film Council and informed them that they would be filing suit and seeking to halt production and to have the book withdrawn from publication and have all existing copies of it destroyed.

“I was the person who conceptualized the original book, Julia Baird had no desire to document John’s early life, and now these people have come in and taken my work and spun it into ‘Nowhere Boy.’ But it’s all based on my original work, and I deserve credit and compensation. It’s not really like me, I’m not a litigator, but I have to protect my interests, for the sake of my family and my one-year-old son Eden.”

While Giuliano generally believes he’s legally entitled to fifty percent of everything Baird makes from selling of the rights to her book and remuneration from profits of the movie, at this point, Giuliano’s lawyers have not yet named specific parties to the suits or specifics of the actions. His name, his work and his reputation as a Beatles author and historian are what matters to him most, now, he says, and he plans on seeing this through to its conclusion in the courts.