The driver of a car full of teen-aged Beatles fans photographed by Ringo Starr in 1964 came forward on Friday — and said the surprise encounter “was the highlight of our lives.”
Gary Van Deursen, 67, told Britain’s Daily Mail that he and five friends from Fair Lawn HS in Bergen County, NJ, cut school that day and headed for Kennedy Airport in his Chevy hoping to see The Beatles arrive in America.
But the airport was mobbed and they gave up, heading back across the Hudson. Passenger Bob Toth, 66, said he and Van Deursen soon “saw all these limousines as we were driving home and pretty soon realized it wasn’t a funeral. It was The Beatles.”
And Starr, specifically, taking their picture from out his window.
The snap appears in Starr’s new coffee-table book, “Photograph.” Starr had asked for help this week identifying the six, who had grown up telling anyone who’d listen about their Beatles moment — “and nobody believed us,” said Van Deursen.