His part in Caveman was not very taxing, as all he did was grunt and groan, and the whole film contained only 15 words. But in other films, he did have quite good cameo roles, such as in Candy (1968), Magic Christian (1970), That’ll Be The Day (1973), Listo-mania (1975), Sextet (1977) and Princess Daisy (1983). In 1984, he did the narrator’s voice in a children’s TV series, Thomas the Tank Engine. In 1985, he was getting ready to take the part of the Mock Turtle in a lavish six-part, American TV production of Alice in Wonderland.
‘When we got married, we really semi-retired,’ said Barbara. ‘I had done three films the year I met him. I’ve done very little since.’
‘Since we got married,’ said Ringo, ‘we have not spent one day apart in over four years. The most apart we’ve been is two hours.
‘We had this terrible car crash in 1981. We were going to a party, that was the daft thing. Coming from a party, you can understand. I just lost control of the car going up the A3, I think it was. We were both very close to losing our lives. I woke up in hospital feeling awful. Barbara was in a rotten state as well. This nurse brought us round and was saying here you are, dear, a nice cup of tea. That’s England for you. Tea cures everything. It only cost us £12.50 for that hospital. In the States, I’d still be paying.’
He also had a serious operation on his stomach, for the same complaint he suffered from for so many years as a child. This was when he lived in Monte Carlo and he collapsed with intestinal pains. ‘They cut me to pieces and took away five feet of gut.’
Despite these frights, he still lives a rather hectic life, for a gentleman of his mature years, going out regularly to nightclubs and parties.
‘I lived in nightclubs for 20 years. I still stay up all night, because I can’t help it. It’s nothing to do with those years on tour or playing in Hamburg. That’s just the way I am. Even as a child I never closed my eyes till dawn. I still don’t. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve had more than four hours’ sleep in any one night. Barbara was horrified when we started going out. When it gets dark, she thinks it’s time to go to bed, being a good little actress. When it gets dark, I think it’s time to go out. I prefer going to bed at four. She prefers ten o’clock.
‘So we don’t go out that much now. I’m always getting at George because he’s supposed to be the “recluse”. When George is in England, he can be out at dinner four times a week, but nobody ever knows. He’s probably just as sociable as me, but he does it all privately. I do it publicly. I love going to things like premieres. I like wearing a bow tie. I don’t feel I’m dressed till I’m in a bow tie.’
‘We’ve just been to Hawaii to see George’s new place,’ said Barbara. ‘It’s fantastic. He’s got these thousands of acres of jungle which he’s converting into a tropical garden. He took us round, saying there will be a bridge there, a little lake there. He’s just like a kid.’
If George’s new passion in life is gardening, what is Ringo’s? Did he not miss having something like that to devote his energies to?
‘What do you mean? That’s my passion there. Barbara. I’m in love, man. And it’s amazing. Better than a garden. You don’t have to water her every day. I never thought it would happen to me again. It’s the best thing in my life. I’ve never been happier.’
He didn’t mind talking about the Beatle years, and says they were happy too, but he doesn’t particularly want them back. ‘I had a lot of good times. I wouldn’t like to cancel them out. But I couldn’t do it again. It was great doing all that at 20. I couldn’t do it at 45. It was only eight years of my life anyway. That’s all.’
His ambition in the old days was to end up with his name in school textbooks, and this has basically come true. ‘The group just happens to be one which goes on from generation to generation. You can’t stop it now. But I am a bit sickened by all the present-day Beatles commercialization. I feel sorry for kids being ripped off by the new souvenirs being manufactured. Then you get people stealing old golden discs and flogging them to some Japanese for £13,000.
‘I got sent an autograph book the other day which had John’s, Paul’s and George’s signature in. They wanted mine. So I put it in, then added “1985”. I knew at once that would ruin the price. They couldn’t pass it off as a genuine 1960’s autograph.’
Ringo is the only one of the remaining three who has not done any sort of book, or allowed others to do one about his life, his times or his music.
George presented him recently with a special, leather-bound volume, which said on the cover, ‘Ringo Starr: greatest drummer on earth’. Inside, all the pages were blank.
‘George told me to start writing, to fill it up. I haven’t even written January 1st. I’ll never do a book about being a Beatle. I might write that we had three cups of tea on a certain day, then someone will say no, you had four cups of tea. I know what I know, so that’s it. Why bother?’
Ringo missed his three children growing up, as he was wandering round the world for most of the ’70s, but now he is closer to them. Zak, his oldest, now aged 19, and his other son Jason, now 17, were sent to well-known English public schools, to Haileybury and to Highgate. Lee, his daughter, now aged 14, is still at school, at Queen’s College in Harley Street, London. ‘Oh, I paid for the best, but it didn’t do much good. The boys both wanted to leave at 16. What could I say? I wanted them to stay, but I left school at 13.’
The two sons are both drummers. He thinks Zak is very good and Jason could be good, but he’s shy. ‘I’ve been telling Jason he’ll have to get over that, if he wants to appear on stage. The other day he came to me and said he had this idea. He would play the drums in one room, on his own, while they filmed him on video, then he could be shown with the group on stage. He had it all worked out.
‘Zak is always finding new music that he thinks I’ve never heard of before. He’ll come across a blues tape and say Daddy, listen to this. Or a soul thing and say this is great, Daddy. Of course he calls me Daddy. That’s what I am. The other day he put on this really great thing he’d discovered — and it was Ray Charles. No, it doesn’t make me feel old, though Zak does refer to me as the “Old Hippy”. I’m just amused.’
Zak is currently (1985) playing with a group called Night Flight but not doing all that well. At first, when he started his drumming career, he appeared to hate being Ringo’s son or at least being always linked with him.
‘He would be mentioned in a newspaper as “Zak Starr, son of Ringo Starr” and he would get furious. I told him that I didn’t ring up the papers, telling them to put my name in, but he seemed to think it was my fault. He just didn’t understand how newspapers work. Then he came to me one day and said he thought the group was just using him, for his name. Son, I said, you’ve got a lot to learn.’
For a while, Zak lived with Ringo and Barbara at Tittenhurst Park, in the same house, but that led to scenes.
‘Oh, the usual, parent — child rows. I’m sure you’ve been through them. I always loved him, I know that, but I didn’t always like his attitude. It didn’t get very friendly, living all together. In the end, I threw him out after a row. It was all stupid and trivial. We just began to feel that we were being ignored by this teenager. He would eat and sleep at home, but not talk to us at all. So I chucked him out. He left for about six months, then he came back. He now lives in a cottage on the estate and we’re much closer.’