A Letter From The Publisher: Sep. 29, 1967

Heads swiveled all across London one last week as Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe drove past. Not that his Jaguar XKE was anything special to sophisticated Londoners, but who was that sitting next to Scarfe? Ringo the Beatle? Everyone did a double take.

What startled the casual observer was not exactly Ringo; it was some thing a good bit farther out. It was the wire, paint, and papier-mache mock-up that Scarfe had put together for last week’s TIME cover. The rest of the boys — George, Paul and John — were crammed into the Jag’s back seat, and Scarfe was delivering them to TIME’S office on New Bond Street. There they were set up just as they were photographed for the cover, and put on display in a main floor window. They have been stopping crowds ever since.

All that worries Scarfe is the possibility that his handiwork may not take kindly to travel. His “New Incarnation” of the Beatles was not built with much movement in mind, but his effigies will be getting around almost as much as the real-life originals. After four days in TIME’S window, their schedule called for an other car trip — this time by taxi — to the BBC television studios for an appearance on a program called Late Night Line-Up. From there, they went back to New Bond Street for a second tour in the show window.

Next their plans call for them to take to the road once more, this time to Madame Tussaud’s famed waxworks museum as part of an exhibition of contemporary figures.

Scarfe’s effigies may be a far cry from their lifelike companions. But then, so are the Beatles.

DEESPITE the worldwide prominence that comes with an appearance on TIME’S cover, some of our subjects are not always happy about appearing there. Performers and athletes especially are wary; they keep remembering the so-called jinx that is supposed to hover over the careers of people once they have “made” our cover. One apparent corroboration of the jinx theory occurred in 1964, when Hank Bauer and his Baltimore Orioles seemed to have the pennant sewed up until Hank appeared on TIME. After that, the team lost half its games—and the pennant race. (Although two years later the Orioles won both the pennant and the World Series.) Then there was Leo Durocher, who made the cover as manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. The very week “The Lip” appeared, he was banished from baseball for a year.

But few people bother to count up the sportsmen who have been unbothered by the jinx. They were chosen for their excellence and they continue to display the qualities that put them on the cover. Latest on that long list is Yachtsman Bus Mosbacher, who appeared on the Aug. 18 cover. After Bus sailed Intrepid to four straight victories over Australia’s challenger Dame Pattie, we learned that his crew had hung copies of the cover portrait belowdecks. With proper nautical aplomb, they sailed right into the face of the cover-jinx myth.