Magic Alex
Encyclopedia
Yanni Alexis Mardas (born May 5, 1942, Athens, Greece), better known as Magic Alex, the name given him by The Beatles
when he knew the group between 1965 and 1969, is a self-styled electronics
wizard and one-time head of The Beatles' Apple Electronics.
Mardas arrived in England in 1965, exhibiting his Kinetic Light Sculptures at the Indica Gallery
. Mardas impressed John Lennon
with his Nothing Box; a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights, and boasted that he could build a 72-track tape
machine, so was given the job of designing the new Apple Studio in Savile Row
. Mardas failed to live up to his promises of new inventions, which also included electric paint, wallpaper loudspeakers, a flying saucer, and a "sonic force field", although Mardas later denied he had promised to build the inventions. He was involved in the hasty departure of Lennon and George Harrison
from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
's ashram in India, and Lennon's divorce of his first wife, Cynthia Lennon
.
In the 1970s, the anti-terrorism industry offered bullet-proof vehicles, bugging devices and security hardware, and Mardas set up various companies offering these products to royalty and VIPs. King Hussein of Jordan
bought a fleet of cars that Mardas had customised, but the cars proved to be more life-threatening than ordinary cars, as bullets easily pierced the supposed armour-plating, and the glass splintered. In 1987, Mardas was a managing director of Alcom Ltd, which specialised in electronic communications and security. He now lives in Greece.
, after Mardas exhibited his Kinetic Light Sculptures at the Indica Gallery. Dunbar worked with Mardas on the “psychedelic light box” for The Rolling Stones
' three-week tour of Europe in 1967, although they were not impressed with the results. Dunbar later said: "He was quite cunning in the way he pitched his thing. He knew enough to know how to wind people up and to what extent. He was a fucking TV repairman: Yanni Mardas, none of this 'Magic Alex' shit!"
Jones introduced Mardas to Lennon, and it was at this point that Mardas impressed Lennon with his Nothing Box; a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights that Lennon would stare at for hours while under the influence of LSD. Lennon later introduced the renamed John Alexis Mardas as his "new guru", calling him "Magic Alex". Mardas told Lennon about his ideas for futuristic electronic devices he was "working on", such as a telephone that responded to its owner's voice and could identify who was calling, a force field that would surround The Beatles' homes, an X-ray camera, paint that would make anything invisible, car paint that would change colour by flicking a switch, and wallpaper speakers, which would actually be a part of the wallpaper. Mardas later asked for the V-12
engines from Lennon's Rolls-Royce
and Harrison's Ferrari
Berlinetta car, so he could build a flying saucer
. The Beatles set up a company for Mardas called Fiftyshapes Ltd., in September 1967, and Mardas later became one of the first employees of the newly formed Apple Corps
, earning £40 a week and receiving 10% of any profits made from his inventions.
The Beatles often called Mardas the "Greek wizard", and Paul McCartney
remembered being interested in his ideas: “Well, if you [Mardas] could do that, we’d like one". It was always, 'We’d like one'”. Mardas' ideas were not confined to the realms of electronic wizardry, but included songwriting involvement, with a Lennon-Mardas composition, "What's the New Mary Jane
", originally meant for inclusion on The White Album
.
Mardas was given his own laboratory called Apple Electronics, at 34 Boston Place, Westminster, London, and was helped to obtain a British work visa
.
On The Beatles Anthology DVD, Mardas is shown wearing a white laboratory assistant's coat in Apple Electronics (with loud oscillating noises in the background) saying, "Hello, I’m Alexis, from Apple Electronics. I would like to say ‘Hello’ to all my brothers around the world, and to all the girls around the world, and to all the electronic people around the world. That is Apple Electronics." Mardas then turns and points back to a collection of two portable 2-track recorders in wooden boxes, a 2-track studio recording machine, voltage meters, a hi-fi amplifier, an oscilloscope and a TV screen showing pulsating psychedelic balloon shapes. A mysterious fire at the laboratory prevented Mardas from presenting his inventions, but he later said: "I’m a rock gardener, and now I’m doing electronics. Maybe next year, I make films or poems. I have no formal training in any of these, but this is irrelevant".
, Ringo Starr
and Neil Aspinall
flew to Athens, where they stayed in Mardas' parents' house overnight until Lennon, his wife and son, McCartney and Jane Asher
, Pattie Boyd
's 16-year-old sister, Paula, Mal Evans
and Alistair Taylor
set off for Athens.
Their chartered yacht, the MV Arvi, was detained in Crete because of bad weather, so the party had to wait in Athens for three days. Taylor complained that on a trip to a small hill village, "We came round a corner of the peaceful road only to find hundreds of photographers clicking away at us", which Mardas had organised. McCartney later said that while sailing around Greek islands, everybody just sat around and took LSD. They eventually found the 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) island of Leslo, which had a small fishing village, four beaches and a large olive grove. Four small neighbouring islands surrounded it (which were planned as one for each Beatle) so the island was bought for £95,000 (with a 25% premium) but was sold for a modest profit a few months later, after all four Beatles lost interest in the idea.
, were invited by Harrison to stay at the home of Robert Fitzpatrick, on Blue Jay Way
, and on 7 August 1967, Harrison and his wife visited San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district with Mardas. The Apple Boutique
, at 94 Baker Street
, London
, was one of the first business ventures made by The Beatles
' fledgling Apple Corps
, and Mardas (at great expense) was commissioned to create one of his ideas; an "artificial sun" which would light up the night-time sky, for the opening on 7 December 1967. When the time came for Mardas to produce his artificial sun, he claimed that there was not a strong enough energy supply to power it, which was accepted by The Beatles. Mardas appeared (uncredited) in the Beatles' TV movie Magical Mystery Tour
, which was first broadcast on BBC1 on Boxing Day
in 1967. On 11 July 1968, 26-year-old Mardas married 22-year-old Eufrosyne Doxiades (the daughter of a respected Greek architect) at St Sophia's Church
, London. Harrison and his wife attended, and Lennon (who was there with Yoko Ono
) was joint best man, along with Donovan
.
, although Starr had flown back to England—complaining the Indian food did not agree with him—and McCartney had left on 24 March 1968. When Mardas first met the Maharishi, he said sarcastically, "I know you! Didn’t I meet you in Greece years ago?"
Mardas was jealous about the control the Maharishi had over Lennon, and during one of their frequent walks through the woods he asked Lennon why the Maharishi always had an accountant by his side. Lennon replied that The Beatles (or Lennon and Harrison) were considering donating a large part of their income to the Maharishi's bank accounts in Switzerland. When Mardas questioned the Maharishi about this, he offered money to Mardas to build a high-powered radio station, so he could broadcast his teachings to the whole of India.
Alcohol was not allowed in the Maharishi's ashram
, but Mardas smuggled some in from Dehra Dun, and later reported to Lennon and Harrison that the Maharishi had sex with a young American student, and had made a sexual advance toward Mia Farrow
. This was not fully supported in Farrow's autobiography, What Falls Away (1997) writing that she may have misinterpreted the supposed sexual advance. Mardas continued to insist the Maharishi was not what he said he was; even making Harrison unsure. Lennon thought at the time: "Well, it must be true, because if George [Harrison] is doubting him, there must be something in it". Lennon and Harrison confronted the Maharishi, but the startled Maharishi's answers did not satisfy them, and they decided to leave the camp. Mardas insisted that they (Lennon, Harrison and their respective wives) must leave the camp at once, or the Maharishi might send down some "black magic" on them. Mardas then went down to Dehra Dun to organise taxis for the next morning to take them all to Delhi
.
Cynthia Lennon personally believed that Mardas invented the story about sexual impropriety to undermine the Maharishi's influence on The Beatles, as Mardas was always jealous of anyone having Lennon's attention. Harrison and McCartney later offered their apologies to the Maharishi (McCartney said that he did not believe the accusation at all). In 2010, Mardas issued a statement denying that he had spread rumours.
, Boyd, and her sister. Lennon said that he would be very busy recording The White Album
and that it would do her some good to take a break with Mardas, his girlfriend Jenny Boyd
, and others. Cynthia arrived home one day early from Greece on 22 May 1968. She and Mardas discovered Lennon and Ono sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring into each others eyes, and found Ono's slippers outside the Lennons' marital bedroom door. Cynthia asked Boyd and Mardas if she could spend the night at their apartment. At the apartment Boyd went straight to bed, but Mardas got Cynthia drunk and tried to convince her that they should both run away together. After Cynthia had been sick in the bathroom she collapsed on a bed in the spare bedroom, but Mardas joined her and tried to kiss her until she (in her words) "pushed him away". Brian Epstein
's personal assistant, Peter Brown
, maintains that Cynthia did sleep with Mardas, saying: "She knew it was a mistake the moment it happened, especially with Alex [Mardas], whom she had never trusted, nor even liked".
Lennon went to New York with McCartney shortly after and told Cynthia she could not go with them, so Cynthia went on a trip to Italy with her mother. During Cynthia's holiday in Italy, an "agitated" Mardas unexpectedly arrived (pacing up and down outside Cynthia's hotel until she returned), giving the news that Lennon was planning to sue Cynthia for divorce
on grounds of adultery
, seek sole custody of Julian, and send Cynthia "back to Hoylake". Mardas also said that he intended to testify in court that Cynthia had committed adultery with him. She said in 2005: "The mere fact that Magic Alex [Mardas] arrived in Italy in the middle of the night without any prior knowledge of where I was staying made me extremely suspicious. I was being coerced into making it easy for John [Lennon] and Yoko to accuse me of doing something that would make them not look so bad".
Mardas often said that the Abbey Road
studio was "no good", much to producer George Martin
's annoyance: "The trouble was that Alex was always coming to the studios to see what we were doing and to learn from it, while at the same time saying ‘These people are so out of date.’ But I found it very difficult to chuck him out, because the boys liked him so much. Since it was very obvious that I didn’t, a minor schism developed". Mardas boasted that he could build a much better studio, with a 72-track tape
machine, instead of the 4-track at Abbey Road—which was being updated at the time to an 8-track—so he was given the job of designing the new Apple Studio in the basement of Apple headquarters in Savile Row. One of Mardas' more outrageous plans was to replace the acoustic baffles
around Starr's drums with an invisible sonic force field. Starr remembered that Mardas bought some "huge" computers from British Aerospace, which were stored in his barn, but "they never left the barn", and were later sold as scrap metal.
Mardas gave the Beatles regular reports of his progress, but when they required their new studio in January 1969, during the Get Back
project that became Let It Be
, they discovered an unusable studio: no 72-track tape deck (Mardas had reduced it to 16 tracks), no soundproofing
, no talkback
(intercom
) system, and not even a patch bay to run the wiring between the control room and the 16 speakers that Mardas had fixed haphazardly to the walls. The only new piece of sound equipment present was a crude mixing console which Mardas had built, which looked (in the words of Martin's assistant, Dave Harries) like "bits of wood and an old oscilloscope". The console was scrapped after just one session. Harrison said it was "chaos", and that they had to "rip it all out and start again," calling it, "the biggest disaster of all time." Harrison's suspicions of Mardas' competence had been raised when he saw him wandering around in a white coat with a clipboard, and considered the possibility that Mardas had "just read the latest version of Science Weekly, and used its ideas". Mardas later stated that he had never been in the basement of Savile Row, as the studio equipment he was building was being tested in Apple Electronics, at Boston Place, Marylebone.
The Beatles asked producer Martin to come to the rescue, so he borrowed two four-track recorders from EMI
, and long-time Beatles' engineer, Geoff Emerick
, was given the task of building and setting up a studio with portable equipment. After Allen Klein
was brought in to be The Beatles' manager in 1969, he closed Apple Electronics, and Mardas left the company. It was later estimated that Mardas' ideas and projects had cost The Beatles at least £300,000 (3 million British pounds today). Starr once approved of one of Mardas’ ideas that is relevant today: "He [Mardas] had an idea to stop people taping our records off the radio – you’d have to have a decoder to get the signal, and then we thought we could sell the time and put commercials on instead. We brought EMI and Capitol in from America to look at it, but they weren’t interested at all".
(then exiled in Britain) provided contacts to a half a dozen royal families for Mardas, and had close contact with the deposed Shah of Iran
, who had moved to Mexico. The Shah was one of the first customers for the customised bullet-proof cars that Mardas was offering, and was believed to have financially assisted Mardas’ companies.
In 1974, Mardas held an expensive party for the then Spanish heir, Prince Juan Carlos
, which secured Mardas a contract. After the assassination of Admiral Carrero Blanco
the Spanish royal family thought it should acquire more bullet-proof cars, although one car was shipped to England, where it was parked in Chobham
for almost a year as nobody knew how to do the work needed to upgrade it. The second contract (worth over £1/2 million) allowed Mardas to set up new security companies: Alcom Devices Ltd, and Night Vision Systems Ltd (under the collective name of "Project Alcom") in St Albans Mews off Edgware Road, London, to provide a sophisticated communications system for Juan Carlos, so he could be in constant contact with his security services. Mardas employed Arthur Johnson (known as Johnny Johnson), a former M.O.D.
official.
The Sultan of Oman
ordered six Mercedes 450
limousines in 1977, but quickly discovered that they were not as safe as he had been led to believe. His ex-SAS
bodyguards tested one of the cars in the desert in July 1977, by firing at them, but a bullet hit an emergency air cylinder, which led to the gas tank blowing up, burning the whole car. The remaining cars were immediately sent back, with a demand to refund the money spent.
King Hussein of Jordan had a fleet of cars that Mardas customised, but carried out a safety test on them with live ammunition in November 1977. One eyewitness reported that the cars could be more life-threatening than ordinary vehicles, as bullets easily pierced the armour-plating, and the thick armoured glass broke into jagged splinters when broken. Hussein ordered that the cars be reverted to their previous state. These failures convinced Mardas and Constantine to look at the growing European market for anti-terrorist protection, setting up a factory in London to produce “bullet-proof” cars in 1978. This was financed by an investment of over £1 million through anonymous Monaco and Swiss bank accounts, which were believed to be controlled by the Shah.
in South Kensington, London. Among the sale was Lennon’s leather collar, worn during 1967 and 1968 (at the launch party for the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
LP, and on the cover of Lennon and Ono’s Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins
) as well as a custom Vox
Kensington guitar, a coloured felt pen drawing, called "Strong", and a pen and ink drawing by Lennon, entitled “Happy Fish”. Mardas said he planned to donate the money to a charity in Greece.
The Independent
newspaper apologised on 21 August 2006, writing that on 14 June 2006, the paper had wrongly reported Mardas' involvement with Apple Electronics Ltd. They corrected the earlier piece by writing that Mardas had not been a company employee, but a director and shareholder of Apple Electronics, and was not sacked, but resigned his directorship in May 1971, while still retaining his shareholding, until giving it to Apple Corps some years later. The paper accepted that Mardas “did not claim to have invented electric paint, a flying saucer or a recording studio with a ‘sonic force field’ or cause his employers to waste money on such ideas. We apologise to Mr. Mardas for these errors".
In 2008, Mardas won the right to sue the New York Times about an online article which said he was a charlatan
. In a story about the Maharishi, Allan Kozinn had written: "Alexis Mardas, a supposed inventor and charlatan who had become a Beatles’ insider". The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune are contesting the allegations and will report the result.
Mardas is now living in Greece.
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
when he knew the group between 1965 and 1969, is a self-styled electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
wizard and one-time head of The Beatles' Apple Electronics.
Mardas arrived in England in 1965, exhibiting his Kinetic Light Sculptures at the Indica Gallery
Indica Gallery
Indica Gallery was a counterculture art gallery in Mason's Yard , St. James's, London, England during the late 1960s, in the basement of the Indica Bookshop co-owned by John Dunbar, Peter Asher and Barry Miles...
. Mardas impressed John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
with his Nothing Box; a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights, and boasted that he could build a 72-track tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
machine, so was given the job of designing the new Apple Studio in Savile Row
Savile Row
Savile Row is a shopping street in Mayfair, central London, famous for its traditional men's bespoke tailoring. The term "bespoke" is understood to have originated in Savile Row when cloth for a suit was said to "be spoken for" by individual customers...
. Mardas failed to live up to his promises of new inventions, which also included electric paint, wallpaper loudspeakers, a flying saucer, and a "sonic force field", although Mardas later denied he had promised to build the inventions. He was involved in the hasty departure of Lennon and George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi , born Mahesh Prasad Varma , developed the Transcendental Meditation technique and was the leader and guru of the TM movement, characterised as a new religious movement and also as non-religious...
's ashram in India, and Lennon's divorce of his first wife, Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lillian Lennon is the former wife of musician John Lennon, and mother of Julian Lennon. She grew up in the middle-class section of Hoylake, on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. At the age of twelve, she was accepted into the Junior Art School, and was later enrolled in the...
.
In the 1970s, the anti-terrorism industry offered bullet-proof vehicles, bugging devices and security hardware, and Mardas set up various companies offering these products to royalty and VIPs. King Hussein of Jordan
Hussein of Jordan
Hussein bin Talal was the third King of Jordan from the abdication of his father, King Talal, in 1952, until his death. Hussein's rule extended through the Cold War and four decades of Arab-Israeli conflict...
bought a fleet of cars that Mardas had customised, but the cars proved to be more life-threatening than ordinary cars, as bullets easily pierced the supposed armour-plating, and the glass splintered. In 1987, Mardas was a managing director of Alcom Ltd, which specialised in electronic communications and security. He now lives in Greece.
London and The Beatles
The 21-year-old Yanni Alexis Mardas first arrived in England on a student visa in 1965, befriending John Dunbar of the Indica Gallery in London, and later moving in with him in a flat on Bentinck Street, which was where Mardas first met Lennon. Shortening his name to Yanni Mardas, he found employment as a television repairman. Dunbar later introduced Mardas to Brian JonesBrian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
, after Mardas exhibited his Kinetic Light Sculptures at the Indica Gallery. Dunbar worked with Mardas on the “psychedelic light box” for The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
' three-week tour of Europe in 1967, although they were not impressed with the results. Dunbar later said: "He was quite cunning in the way he pitched his thing. He knew enough to know how to wind people up and to what extent. He was a fucking TV repairman: Yanni Mardas, none of this 'Magic Alex' shit!"
Jones introduced Mardas to Lennon, and it was at this point that Mardas impressed Lennon with his Nothing Box; a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights that Lennon would stare at for hours while under the influence of LSD. Lennon later introduced the renamed John Alexis Mardas as his "new guru", calling him "Magic Alex". Mardas told Lennon about his ideas for futuristic electronic devices he was "working on", such as a telephone that responded to its owner's voice and could identify who was calling, a force field that would surround The Beatles' homes, an X-ray camera, paint that would make anything invisible, car paint that would change colour by flicking a switch, and wallpaper speakers, which would actually be a part of the wallpaper. Mardas later asked for the V-12
V12 engine
A V12 engine is a V engine with 12 cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of six cylinders, usually but not always at a 60° angle to each other, with all 12 pistons driving a common crankshaft....
engines from Lennon's Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce Limited
Rolls-Royce Limited was a renowned British car and, from 1914 on, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904....
and Harrison's Ferrari
Ferrari
Ferrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
Berlinetta car, so he could build a flying saucer
Flying saucer
A flying saucer is a type of unidentified flying object sometimes believed to be of alien origin with a disc or saucer-shaped body, usually described as silver or metallic, occasionally reported as covered with running lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly either...
. The Beatles set up a company for Mardas called Fiftyshapes Ltd., in September 1967, and Mardas later became one of the first employees of the newly formed Apple Corps
Apple Corps
Apple Corps Ltd. is a multi-armed multimedia corporation founded in January 1968 by the members of The Beatles to replace their earlier company and to form a conglomerate. Its name is a pun. Its chief division is Apple Records, which was launched in the same year...
, earning £40 a week and receiving 10% of any profits made from his inventions.
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
remembered being interested in his ideas: “Well, if you [Mardas] could do that, we’d like one". It was always, 'We’d like one'”. Mardas' ideas were not confined to the realms of electronic wizardry, but included songwriting involvement, with a Lennon-Mardas composition, "What's the New Mary Jane
What's The New Mary Jane
"What's the New Mary Jane" is a song written by John Lennon and performed by The Beatles. It was recorded in 1968 for the album The Beatles , but was not used.-Recording:...
", originally meant for inclusion on The White Album
The Beatles (album)
The Beatles is the ninth official album by the English rock group The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is also commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed on its plain white sleeve.The album was written and recorded during a...
.
Mardas was given his own laboratory called Apple Electronics, at 34 Boston Place, Westminster, London, and was helped to obtain a British work visa
Visa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
.
On The Beatles Anthology DVD, Mardas is shown wearing a white laboratory assistant's coat in Apple Electronics (with loud oscillating noises in the background) saying, "Hello, I’m Alexis, from Apple Electronics. I would like to say ‘Hello’ to all my brothers around the world, and to all the girls around the world, and to all the electronic people around the world. That is Apple Electronics." Mardas then turns and points back to a collection of two portable 2-track recorders in wooden boxes, a 2-track studio recording machine, voltage meters, a hi-fi amplifier, an oscilloscope and a TV screen showing pulsating psychedelic balloon shapes. A mysterious fire at the laboratory prevented Mardas from presenting his inventions, but he later said: "I’m a rock gardener, and now I’m doing electronics. Maybe next year, I make films or poems. I have no formal training in any of these, but this is irrelevant".
Greece
The Beatles had tried in 1964 to buy the 14 acres (56,656 m²) Trinity Island, off the coast of the Greek island of Euboea (resembling a guitar in shape) but the owners were not interested in a sale. Lennon was still interested in buying or leasing an island to live on together, and discussed it with the other Beatles on 19 July 1967. Mardas' father was a major in the Greek secret police, and Mardas explained that through him The Beatles would have access to Greek government connections, which would speed the acquisition of an island, as many islands did have the right certificates of ownership and were subject to government restrictions. On 22 July 1967, Harrison and his wife, Pattie BoydPattie Boyd
Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd is an English model and photographer, and the former wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton...
, Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
and Neil Aspinall
Neil Aspinall
Neil Stanley Aspinall was a British music industry executive. A school friend of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, he went on to head The Beatles' company Apple Corps....
flew to Athens, where they stayed in Mardas' parents' house overnight until Lennon, his wife and son, McCartney and Jane Asher
Jane Asher
Jane Asher is an English actress. She has also developed a second career as a cake decorator and cake shop proprietor.-Early life:...
, Pattie Boyd
Pattie Boyd
Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd is an English model and photographer, and the former wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton...
's 16-year-old sister, Paula, Mal Evans
Mal Evans
Malcolm Frederick 'Mal' Evans was best known as the road manager, assistant, and a friend of The Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr....
and Alistair Taylor
Alistair Taylor
James Alistair Taylor was the English personal assistant of Brian Epstein who accompanied him to the Cavern Club when he first saw The Beatles play on 9 November 1961...
set off for Athens.
Their chartered yacht, the MV Arvi, was detained in Crete because of bad weather, so the party had to wait in Athens for three days. Taylor complained that on a trip to a small hill village, "We came round a corner of the peaceful road only to find hundreds of photographers clicking away at us", which Mardas had organised. McCartney later said that while sailing around Greek islands, everybody just sat around and took LSD. They eventually found the 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) island of Leslo, which had a small fishing village, four beaches and a large olive grove. Four small neighbouring islands surrounded it (which were planned as one for each Beatle) so the island was bought for £95,000 (with a 25% premium) but was sold for a modest profit a few months later, after all four Beatles lost interest in the idea.
Apple Boutique and marriage
On 1 August 1967, Mardas, Aspinall and Derek TaylorDerek Taylor
Derek Taylor was an English journalist, writer and publicist, best known for his work as press officer for The Beatles...
, were invited by Harrison to stay at the home of Robert Fitzpatrick, on Blue Jay Way
Blue Jay Way
"Blue Jay Way" is a song written by George Harrison; it was first recorded and released by The Beatles on their Magical Mystery Tour album and EP in 1967.-Origins:...
, and on 7 August 1967, Harrison and his wife visited San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district with Mardas. The Apple Boutique
Apple Boutique
The Apple shop was a retail store that opened on 7 December 1967 located in a now demolished building on the corner of Baker Street and Paddington Street, Marylebone, London, and that closed on 30 June 1968. The shop was one of the first business ventures made by The Beatles' fledgling Apple...
, at 94 Baker Street
Baker Street
Baker Street is a street in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London. It is named after builder William Baker, who laid the street out in the 18th century. The street is most famous for its connection to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who lived at a fictional 221B...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, was one of the first business ventures made by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' fledgling Apple Corps
Apple Corps
Apple Corps Ltd. is a multi-armed multimedia corporation founded in January 1968 by the members of The Beatles to replace their earlier company and to form a conglomerate. Its name is a pun. Its chief division is Apple Records, which was launched in the same year...
, and Mardas (at great expense) was commissioned to create one of his ideas; an "artificial sun" which would light up the night-time sky, for the opening on 7 December 1967. When the time came for Mardas to produce his artificial sun, he claimed that there was not a strong enough energy supply to power it, which was accepted by The Beatles. Mardas appeared (uncredited) in the Beatles' TV movie Magical Mystery Tour
Magical Mystery Tour (film)
Magical Mystery Tour is an hour-long British television film starring The Beatles that originally aired on BBC1 on 26 December 1967...
, which was first broadcast on BBC1 on Boxing Day
Boxing Day
Boxing Day is a bank or public holiday that occurs on 26 December, or the first or second weekday after Christmas Day, depending on national or regional laws. It is observed in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth nations. In Ireland, it is recognized as...
in 1967. On 11 July 1968, 26-year-old Mardas married 22-year-old Eufrosyne Doxiades (the daughter of a respected Greek architect) at St Sophia's Church
Saint Sophia (London)
Saint Sophia Cathedral is a Greek Orthodox church on Moscow Road in the Bayswater area of London.It was consecrated as the Church of St Sophia on 5 February 1882 by Antonios, Archbishop of Corfu, as a focus for the prosperous Greek community that had settled in London, particularly around...
, London. Harrison and his wife attended, and Lennon (who was there with Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
) was joint best man, along with Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and India
Mardas and Aspinall joined Lennon and Harrison in India, where they were studying meditation under the tutelage of Maharishi Mahesh YogiMaharishi Mahesh Yogi
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi , born Mahesh Prasad Varma , developed the Transcendental Meditation technique and was the leader and guru of the TM movement, characterised as a new religious movement and also as non-religious...
, although Starr had flown back to England—complaining the Indian food did not agree with him—and McCartney had left on 24 March 1968. When Mardas first met the Maharishi, he said sarcastically, "I know you! Didn’t I meet you in Greece years ago?"
Mardas was jealous about the control the Maharishi had over Lennon, and during one of their frequent walks through the woods he asked Lennon why the Maharishi always had an accountant by his side. Lennon replied that The Beatles (or Lennon and Harrison) were considering donating a large part of their income to the Maharishi's bank accounts in Switzerland. When Mardas questioned the Maharishi about this, he offered money to Mardas to build a high-powered radio station, so he could broadcast his teachings to the whole of India.
Alcohol was not allowed in the Maharishi's ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....
, but Mardas smuggled some in from Dehra Dun, and later reported to Lennon and Harrison that the Maharishi had sex with a young American student, and had made a sexual advance toward Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
. This was not fully supported in Farrow's autobiography, What Falls Away (1997) writing that she may have misinterpreted the supposed sexual advance. Mardas continued to insist the Maharishi was not what he said he was; even making Harrison unsure. Lennon thought at the time: "Well, it must be true, because if George [Harrison] is doubting him, there must be something in it". Lennon and Harrison confronted the Maharishi, but the startled Maharishi's answers did not satisfy them, and they decided to leave the camp. Mardas insisted that they (Lennon, Harrison and their respective wives) must leave the camp at once, or the Maharishi might send down some "black magic" on them. Mardas then went down to Dehra Dun to organise taxis for the next morning to take them all to Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
.
Cynthia Lennon personally believed that Mardas invented the story about sexual impropriety to undermine the Maharishi's influence on The Beatles, as Mardas was always jealous of anyone having Lennon's attention. Harrison and McCartney later offered their apologies to the Maharishi (McCartney said that he did not believe the accusation at all). In 2010, Mardas issued a statement denying that he had spread rumours.
Lennon's divorce
After returning to England in May 1968, Lennon suggested that Cynthia take a holiday in Greece with Mardas, DonovanDonovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
, Boyd, and her sister. Lennon said that he would be very busy recording The White Album
The Beatles (album)
The Beatles is the ninth official album by the English rock group The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is also commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed on its plain white sleeve.The album was written and recorded during a...
and that it would do her some good to take a break with Mardas, his girlfriend Jenny Boyd
Jenny Boyd
Helen Mary Boyd is a former 1960s London fashion model. She is also the younger sister of Pattie Boyd, who married Beatle George Harrison....
, and others. Cynthia arrived home one day early from Greece on 22 May 1968. She and Mardas discovered Lennon and Ono sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring into each others eyes, and found Ono's slippers outside the Lennons' marital bedroom door. Cynthia asked Boyd and Mardas if she could spend the night at their apartment. At the apartment Boyd went straight to bed, but Mardas got Cynthia drunk and tried to convince her that they should both run away together. After Cynthia had been sick in the bathroom she collapsed on a bed in the spare bedroom, but Mardas joined her and tried to kiss her until she (in her words) "pushed him away". Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein , was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle...
's personal assistant, Peter Brown
Peter Brown (music industry)
Peter Brown is an American-based English businessman. He currently resides in New York City.-The Beatles:Brown was a personal assistant to Brian Epstein and The Beatles during the 1960s. He was a confidant to the Epstein family, and bore some resemblance to Brian in his looks and manner...
, maintains that Cynthia did sleep with Mardas, saying: "She knew it was a mistake the moment it happened, especially with Alex [Mardas], whom she had never trusted, nor even liked".
Lennon went to New York with McCartney shortly after and told Cynthia she could not go with them, so Cynthia went on a trip to Italy with her mother. During Cynthia's holiday in Italy, an "agitated" Mardas unexpectedly arrived (pacing up and down outside Cynthia's hotel until she returned), giving the news that Lennon was planning to sue Cynthia for divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
on grounds of adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
, seek sole custody of Julian, and send Cynthia "back to Hoylake". Mardas also said that he intended to testify in court that Cynthia had committed adultery with him. She said in 2005: "The mere fact that Magic Alex [Mardas] arrived in Italy in the middle of the night without any prior knowledge of where I was staying made me extremely suspicious. I was being coerced into making it easy for John [Lennon] and Yoko to accuse me of doing something that would make them not look so bad".
Apple Studio
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
studio was "no good", much to producer George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
's annoyance: "The trouble was that Alex was always coming to the studios to see what we were doing and to learn from it, while at the same time saying ‘These people are so out of date.’ But I found it very difficult to chuck him out, because the boys liked him so much. Since it was very obvious that I didn’t, a minor schism developed". Mardas boasted that he could build a much better studio, with a 72-track tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
machine, instead of the 4-track at Abbey Road—which was being updated at the time to an 8-track—so he was given the job of designing the new Apple Studio in the basement of Apple headquarters in Savile Row. One of Mardas' more outrageous plans was to replace the acoustic baffles
Sound baffle
A sound baffle is a construction or device which reduces the strength of airborne sound. Sound baffles are a fundamental tool of noise mitigation, the practice of minimizing noise pollution or reverberation. An important type of sound baffle is the noise barrier constructed along highways to...
around Starr's drums with an invisible sonic force field. Starr remembered that Mardas bought some "huge" computers from British Aerospace, which were stored in his barn, but "they never left the barn", and were later sold as scrap metal.
Mardas gave the Beatles regular reports of his progress, but when they required their new studio in January 1969, during the Get Back
Get Back
"Get Back" is a song by The Beatles, composed by Paul McCartney and frequently attributed to Lennon–McCartney. The song was originally released as a single on 11 April 1969, and credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston." A different mix of the song later became the closing track of Let It Be ,...
project that became Let It Be
Let It Be (album)
Let It Be is the 12th and final studio album released by the English rock band The Beatles. It was released on 8 May 1970 by the band's Apple Records label shortly after the group announced their break-up....
, they discovered an unusable studio: no 72-track tape deck (Mardas had reduced it to 16 tracks), no soundproofing
Soundproofing
Soundproofing is any means of reducing the sound pressure with respect to a specified sound source and receptor. There are several basic approaches to reducing sound: increasing the distance between source and receiver, using noise barriers to reflect or absorb the energy of the sound waves, using...
, no talkback
Talkback (recording)
In sound recording, talkback refers to the intercom system used in recording studios and production control rooms in television studios to enable personnel to communicate with people in the recording area or booth...
(intercom
Intercom
An intercom , talkback or doorphone is a stand-alone voice communications system for use within a building or small collection of buildings, functioning independently of the public telephone network. Intercoms are generally mounted permanently in buildings and vehicles...
) system, and not even a patch bay to run the wiring between the control room and the 16 speakers that Mardas had fixed haphazardly to the walls. The only new piece of sound equipment present was a crude mixing console which Mardas had built, which looked (in the words of Martin's assistant, Dave Harries) like "bits of wood and an old oscilloscope". The console was scrapped after just one session. Harrison said it was "chaos", and that they had to "rip it all out and start again," calling it, "the biggest disaster of all time." Harrison's suspicions of Mardas' competence had been raised when he saw him wandering around in a white coat with a clipboard, and considered the possibility that Mardas had "just read the latest version of Science Weekly, and used its ideas". Mardas later stated that he had never been in the basement of Savile Row, as the studio equipment he was building was being tested in Apple Electronics, at Boston Place, Marylebone.
The Beatles asked producer Martin to come to the rescue, so he borrowed two four-track recorders from EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
, and long-time Beatles' engineer, Geoff Emerick
Geoff Emerick
Geoffrey Emerick is an English recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with The Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road...
, was given the task of building and setting up a studio with portable equipment. After Allen Klein
Allen Klein
Allen Klein was an American businessman, talent agent and record label executive. His clients included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.- The accountant :...
was brought in to be The Beatles' manager in 1969, he closed Apple Electronics, and Mardas left the company. It was later estimated that Mardas' ideas and projects had cost The Beatles at least £300,000 (3 million British pounds today). Starr once approved of one of Mardas’ ideas that is relevant today: "He [Mardas] had an idea to stop people taping our records off the radio – you’d have to have a decoder to get the signal, and then we thought we could sell the time and put commercials on instead. We brought EMI and Capitol in from America to look at it, but they weren’t interested at all".
Security consultant
In the 1970s, the anti-terrorism industry offered bullet-proof vehicles, bugging devices and security hardware. Mardas set up various companies offering these products to royalty and VIPs, using the former King of Greece as his principal salesman. Ex-King Constantine II of GreeceConstantine II of Greece
|align=right|Constantine II was King of Greece from 1964 until the abolition of the monarchy in 1973, the sixth and last monarch of the Greek Royal Family....
(then exiled in Britain) provided contacts to a half a dozen royal families for Mardas, and had close contact with the deposed Shah of Iran
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
, who had moved to Mexico. The Shah was one of the first customers for the customised bullet-proof cars that Mardas was offering, and was believed to have financially assisted Mardas’ companies.
In 1974, Mardas held an expensive party for the then Spanish heir, Prince Juan Carlos
Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I |Italy]]) is the reigning King of Spain.On 22 November 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated king according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. Spain had no monarch for 38 years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the...
, which secured Mardas a contract. After the assassination of Admiral Carrero Blanco
Luis Carrero Blanco
Don Luis Carrero Blanco, 1st Duke of Carrero Blanco, Grandee of Spain was a Spanish admiral and long-time confidant of dictator Francisco Franco.- Biography :...
the Spanish royal family thought it should acquire more bullet-proof cars, although one car was shipped to England, where it was parked in Chobham
Chobham, Surrey
Chobham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England, about 15 minutes drive from the London railway line stations at Woking to the south and Sunningdale to the north...
for almost a year as nobody knew how to do the work needed to upgrade it. The second contract (worth over £1/2 million) allowed Mardas to set up new security companies: Alcom Devices Ltd, and Night Vision Systems Ltd (under the collective name of "Project Alcom") in St Albans Mews off Edgware Road, London, to provide a sophisticated communications system for Juan Carlos, so he could be in constant contact with his security services. Mardas employed Arthur Johnson (known as Johnny Johnson), a former M.O.D.
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
official.
Qaboos of Oman
Qaboos bin Said Al Said is the Sultan of Oman and its Dependencies. He rose to power after overthrowing his father, Said bin Taimur, in a palace coup in 1970. He is the 14th-generation descendant of the founder of the Al Bu Sa'idi dynasty.-Early life:...
ordered six Mercedes 450
Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9
The Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 is a high-performance version of the S-Class luxury saloon. It was built on its own assembly line by Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart, Germany and based on the long-wheelbase version of the W116 chassis introduced in 1972...
limousines in 1977, but quickly discovered that they were not as safe as he had been led to believe. His ex-SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
bodyguards tested one of the cars in the desert in July 1977, by firing at them, but a bullet hit an emergency air cylinder, which led to the gas tank blowing up, burning the whole car. The remaining cars were immediately sent back, with a demand to refund the money spent.
King Hussein of Jordan had a fleet of cars that Mardas customised, but carried out a safety test on them with live ammunition in November 1977. One eyewitness reported that the cars could be more life-threatening than ordinary vehicles, as bullets easily pierced the armour-plating, and the thick armoured glass broke into jagged splinters when broken. Hussein ordered that the cars be reverted to their previous state. These failures convinced Mardas and Constantine to look at the growing European market for anti-terrorist protection, setting up a factory in London to produce “bullet-proof” cars in 1978. This was financed by an investment of over £1 million through anonymous Monaco and Swiss bank accounts, which were believed to be controlled by the Shah.
Later years and present
Mardas put 15 items from his collection of Lennon memorabilia up for sale on 5 May 2004, at Christie'sChristie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
in South Kensington, London. Among the sale was Lennon’s leather collar, worn during 1967 and 1968 (at the launch party for the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 1 June 1967 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin...
LP, and on the cover of Lennon and Ono’s Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins
Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins
Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins is an album released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1968. The result of an all-night session of musical experimentation in Lennon's home studio at Kenwood, John and Yoko's debut album is known not only for its avant garde content, but also for its cover...
) as well as a custom Vox
Vox (musical equipment)
Vox is a musical equipment manufacturer which is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, the Vox Continental electric organ, and a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars...
Kensington guitar, a coloured felt pen drawing, called "Strong", and a pen and ink drawing by Lennon, entitled “Happy Fish”. Mardas said he planned to donate the money to a charity in Greece.
The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
newspaper apologised on 21 August 2006, writing that on 14 June 2006, the paper had wrongly reported Mardas' involvement with Apple Electronics Ltd. They corrected the earlier piece by writing that Mardas had not been a company employee, but a director and shareholder of Apple Electronics, and was not sacked, but resigned his directorship in May 1971, while still retaining his shareholding, until giving it to Apple Corps some years later. The paper accepted that Mardas “did not claim to have invented electric paint, a flying saucer or a recording studio with a ‘sonic force field’ or cause his employers to waste money on such ideas. We apologise to Mr. Mardas for these errors".
In 2008, Mardas won the right to sue the New York Times about an online article which said he was a charlatan
Charlatan
A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception....
. In a story about the Maharishi, Allan Kozinn had written: "Alexis Mardas, a supposed inventor and charlatan who had become a Beatles’ insider". The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune are contesting the allegations and will report the result.
Mardas is now living in Greece.