Bruce Bell, Columnist –
to by the Beatles in the 1960s lasted only a few hours, but their effect on our city lasted a lifetime. If you were hanging around the King Edward Hotel on September 7, 1964, it was a moment you’d never forget.
The Beatles’ arrival coincided with a massive transformation in the city, both physically with urban renewal and culturally with worldwide mass immigration changing the face of Toronto.
Then the biggest, hippest and most popular music phenomenon EVER was in town. For thousands of teenagers across Canada, watching it unfold on television was the moment Toronto suddenly appeared cool after decades of being considered dull.
The 1964 tour, which also included the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan TV show in February, took the four lads from Liverpool to more than 100 cities in England, Denmark, the Netherlands, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Canada. Accompanying the Beatles between countless shows and a myriad of hotel rooms was the frenzied sound of screaming crowds.
The Beatles’ plane touched down in Toronto from Detroit one morning, and they arrived at the King Edward Hotel, then owned by the Sheraton chain, in the afternoon. After travelling to Maple Leaf Gardens for their show via police wagon in the evening, they returned to the King Eddy at night for a short sleep, then were whisked off to Montreal the next day.
More than 3,000 hysterical fans, mostly teenage girls, descended into the hotel lobby, completely catching staff off guard.
The Beatles stayed in the hotel’s Royal Suite (also known as the Vice Regal Suite) on the eighth floor, overlooking the corner of King and Victoria Streets, and were charged $85 for a night’s stay.
The Beatles at the King Eddy Hotel, September 1964. Photo courtesy of Toronto Public Library
It was the same suite that had accommodated show business greats since the hotel’s opening on May 11, 1903, from the brilliant Italian tenor Enrico Caruso to Canadian-born film sensation Mary Pickford to waves of deposed European aristocracy. A few months earlier, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had caused a worldwide scandal by staying together openly and unmarried in the suite.
Piers Hemmingsen, author of The Beatles in Canada – The Origins of Beatlemania, says the Beatles stayed overnight in only one city in Canada, in Toronto at the Sheraton King Edward. They performed in Vancouver and Montreal in 1964, but did not stay overnight in those cities.
The hotel was under siege for the nearly 36 hours that the Beatles were in Toronto, as fans tried any way they could to get into the hotel. Many people, including Toronto mayor Phil Givens and his wife (at 1:30 a.m.!) tried in vain to meet the Beatles in their suite.
The King Edward can rightly claim to be the (only) Beatles hotel in Canada, as the group stayed there during their North American tours of 1964, 1965, and 1966.
The King Edward Hotel made international headlines again when John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous bed-in-for peace tour on May 25, 1969. The famous pair gave an in-bed press conference in a different suite, as the Vice Regal Suite was occupied that week by author Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls).
The next day John and Yoko left for a week at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth hotel, where they recorded their legendary song “Give Peace a Chance”.
The King Eddy’s Royal Suite, although luxurious, was for many years understated – with only a living room, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. As it had no kitchen, Liz Taylor had asked for a refrigerator to be brought in.
Not until 1980, when the hotel underwent a massive renovation, was a brand-new Royal Suite created at the other end of the hotel. The linen and towel storage rooms were incorporated (remodelled), making a far more lavish living quarter. The former Royal Suite then simply became known as suite #869, as it is today.
